New FSO service Waterford - Dublin
 

An additional journey, operating on Fridays & Saturdays only, has been introduced at 16.00hrs ex Waterford arriving Heuston 17.50hrs.

Intermediate stations served are Carlow, Athy and Kildare. Timings are shown in the Journey Planner and on the in station poster.

Spotted this the other day but didn't post because its only in the JP until early October. Its being operated by 3 coaches which operate part of the 13.15 ex Heuston and return empty at 15.35 to operate another evening service.

I asked IE twice since the 2013 why they don't operate it as a passenger service especially as the 16.50 service was cancelled and carried good numbers on Fridays and Saturdays. Needless to say that would be a terrible idea!

Only reason I can see them operating this 16.00 service is because the 14.50 was changed from 6 to 3 coaches to allow the 13.05 go form 3 to 6 in July and there has being some issues on the 14.50 since.

Interesting - thanks for the background as I was intrigued as to how the service came about. There may be scope for other empty stock movements on the network to operate in service (or in service for part of the journey). A can do policy of constant improvement is the way forward.

Traincustomer- you may be unfamiliar with the IE stages of timetable grief where:

RUI suggest turning a positioning service into revenue
IE do nowt
RUI go on Matt Cooper or similar to talk about it
The Information Minister or a minion rubbishes the idea
A suspiciously short time later, a service is inserted into the revenue timetable...

There isn't really any others at user friendly times and on busy days operating so not much scope. Operationally there is advantages of not having them as passenger services but as this service must be back in Dublin to operate it makes sense.

There still are several regular empty stock movements, regardless of the time of day its a free item basically and any revenue is extra

I'm not sure whether the positioning journey to Carlow to commence the 06.30 Carlow - Heuston commuter (Mon-Fri) commences at Portlaoise or at Heuston. Either way consideration could be given to operating it in service.

There is a balance to be stuck. Using the Carlow example as above opening that to passenger service wouldn't justify the costs as Heuston station would not be open and it runs to a tight timetable so it would be non stop and stations along the route wouldn't be open either.

I fail to see the general justification for IE running the 16.00 on Saturdays regularly. They is no need to operate it and a quick roster change would save the 110 mile journey. Really simple and for all the brains in charge they should really of copped on to where the change could happen to save the cost of running it. I shouldn't have to point the exact change out! The capacity charge earlier in July are really only because the 13.05 takes large group booking twice a week (one being a Saturday) and it should be ending in the next few weeks and as the summer is coming to an end numbers will fall off slightly anyway.

Jamie2k9: That's a bit negative! There is a large gap between the 1450 and the 1825 ex Waterford, and a fast 1600 service fills it nicely. If you provide good convenient services people will use them. My only gripe is that they don't do it 6 days a week. It takes time to build up custom, and it needs a bit of encouragement.

It not often I praise Irish Rail.

It is good news and if there was demand for it all week it would operate. Remember the 16.50 wouldn't of being scrapped. It does very little for the gap as Carlow would carry the highest numbers and its the second departure within 40 minutes. Still a 2.5 hour gap.

If Limerick J could take a 4 coach then the 13.15 would most likely being a 4 coach on Saturday and on Fridays as quieter times of the year which is why IE only operate it as 3/6 as 4 coach unit has to be moved to the sidings after arrival in Limerick J.

With IE's financial position costs matter and running a empty Saturday service for the last 2 years is not acceptable when there is no need. Until January of this year the 17.35 ex Heuston was operated by a 3 coach unit and as a result of this the 07.10 on Monday had major problems for 3+ years. However since January they increased it to a 6 coach set to allow full capacity for the 07.10 on Monday. Now why don't they leave the spare 3 coaches from the 13.15 in Waterford and join the 3 coach from the 17.35 up for the 07.10 on Monday. Instead they are running 2 sets empty. Passenger numbers have not suddenly jumped by 200 on the 17.35 and even so they could probably get away with doing the same on the 16.40 either.

Its crazy decisions like this that is costing them big time.

I would assume that the set is used on another service out of Heuston after 18:00 so perhaps it is not that crazy.

This particular service on Fridays and Saturdays of course should have been operated in service long before this.

Fridays it must operate but they could easily have the spare 3 coaches restored for the 5.35 to make up for the service on Saturday evening so it is just wasting money.

http://www.irishrail.ie/news/new-aft...days-saturdays

The second set on the 13:15 may have to go for scheduled maintenance after it completes the round trip to/from Waterford, which would mean that leaving it in Waterford may not be an option.

Unless you have an in-depth knowledge of the set rosters, you (nor I) can't make that judgement.

Now we are just making excuses, when it comes to money anything can change. I hope it does well especially on Saturdays so it will always operate but if its a case of low usage on Saturday and costs involved then it should not be running either empty or in service when there is no need. Fares have gone up a lot on the route this year and the least I expect is cost efficiency where possible.

Last time I checked, trains having their exams when they're suppose to is not an optional extra.

It could well be the case that the set has to go to Portlaoise for an exam, while the set on the 17:35 isn't available.

That is perfectly possible without it being an "excuse".

Great to see concern for Waterford students. Who knows, we might see Sunday service on the Limerick Junction line yet :rolleyes:

I don't want to keep going on about it but:

Set rosters are changed very regularly. You often see changes every 2 months to match supply and demand. You should see some changes in the next few weeks to cater for student traffic. Everything can be done if people want it to be done. Its irrelevant now anyway so hopefully the service delivers on Saturdays particularly.

My job involves maintenance and its a much larger company than Irish Rail and efficiency is at the heart of it. If they were running IE it would be profitable and deliver a service at the same time.

This chestnut of regular maintenance for the 22Ks seems to come up a lot in terms of justifying some of the crazier-looking rostering decisions like 29Ks to Sligo or 22Ks to M3 Parkway. How often do these units need servicing?

If the need for serving is such a problem, it would seem to be a bit silly to have the maintenance located so far out of the way of the regular routes of so many of the trains so that they have to be shuttled 50 or 60k from a terminus in order to receive regular maintenance.

As I understand it they have to visit the depot in Drogheda or Portlaoise every 48 hours for basic servicing (excluding fuelling and toilet discharge which can happen at terminal stations).

Totally agree about the locations of maintenance facilities. While on the Heuston side it is covered (in the main) by the hourly Heuston/Portlaoise services, the facility was located in Portlaoise for purely political reasons.

Moving ICR maintenance from Connolly to Drogheda was utter madness as it means trains are unavailable for roughly 1.5 hours more than necessary due to having to travel to/from Drogheda. Cost savings from sharing resources (one depot) to me have to be offset by the unnecessary additional downtime that causes, and the reduction in rostering flexibility.

The 48 hour is the fuel/toilets and its once weekly for general service AFAIK. They carry out different sort of checks eg a D check takes place once a month and is only carried out in Portlaoise. The depot couldn't handle up to 63 units passing through every 48 hrs. They carry out some work in Heuston to.

Locating in Portlaoise while not good it does deliver advantages to.

No sorry you're wrong on that - they do have to visit the depot, be it Portlaoise or Drogheda every 48 hours (excluding days they're not used). That much I did get confirmed before.

You certainly couldn't last 48 hours without refuelling/discharging toilets. That's done daily.

That would mean 20 units being serviced per day. It is just not possible. The Tralee branch only gets swapped once weekly.

If a new fleet of trains need tlc every 48h then questions need to be asked when average millage would be 700-1000 miles.

The fuel tanks are quiet large, its somewhere between 500 to 1000 miles worth of fuel they can take and the toilets are not always emptied daily.

Not unusually for Cork, the sets based there for the Kerry route are different, and they get serviced in Cork depot during the week I understand.

There is no need to get back to base every 48 hours (that said the 29k's reliability is down to getting home regularly)

There is a basic inspection requirement at 48 hours that can be done locally.

The location of the Traincare Depot in Portlaoise may in part be due to local political pressure. But it was spurred on partly by the need to free up some land in Inchicore for Dart Underground access. However in my opinion the real killer was the plan to make vast profits for Irish Rail and/or developers by using the Inchicore site for housing and office development. Also land near the railway in the Dublin area was horrifically expensive, so Portlaoise seemed a comparatively good choice at the time.

The true ongoing costs of running trains to the Portlaoise depot must be far more than the cost just of running the hourly service to Portlaoise station.

So we are left with yet another expensive legacy of the Celtic Tiger years and the truly demented property market in the years prior to 2008.

well, another reason for portlaoise was that it is central to the entire heuston inter-city network and so can send out replacement trains to various places more efficiently than out of the core. it was also supposedly handy for the clockface every 2 hour/1 hour service every route was to have with the 22k fleet.

as for toilets/fuel, toilets are emptied all the time in heuston between arrivals and departures. maybe fuel is done there too for all i know.

Thomas J Stamp: The place that's most central to the Heuston/Intercity network is Heuston itself, or Heuston/Inchicore. Most trainsets either end their day there, or visit on a turn-around, which facilitates swapping with a newly-serviced set. Portlaoise is much less efficient as a location. If, say you want to get a 22k to Limerick after servicing, you have to either run it empty directly from Portlaoise or run it (quite probably empty) into Heuston to form a Limerick service, and then there is the reverse move with the set it has replaced.

Another bad Celtic Tiger legacy.

Well there is a dirty great tank with "20,000 litre Diesel Tank" written on it at the end of platform 1 in Connolly so I guess there must be the equivalent in Heuston. It would be too stupid even for Irish Rail to be sending a train on a 60 mile round trip to get enough fuel for 1000 miles.

The situation out of Connolly must be even worse as by my reckoning there must be 4 sets overnighting in Sligo, as the 1505, 1600, 1705 & 1905 all arrive after (or just as) the last up-train leaves.

There were a lot of stupid decisions made by Irish Rail (and others) during the Celtic Tiger but there is very little can be done about them.

I don't have the same animus towards Portlaoise/Drogheda - storing trains, particularly commuter ones, in the outer edges of a network makes logistical sense. The land was probably a damn sight cheaper and as noted freed up some in Inchicore. If there is insufficient maintenance cover at Heuston/Connolly then that is a point that could be made irrespective of the decision to create the outer depots.

That said, the sight of 29000s dragging DARTs to and from Drogheda does make one wonder whether a bit too much was sent out of town Connolly side.

I too have no problem with Portlaoise to be honest - it facilitates the hourly stopping service and at this stage the number of empty movements to/from Heuston is fairly insignificant.

Nor do I have a problem with Drogheda - it makes perfect sense for the 29k fleet to be maintained there.

It was the closure of Connolly valeting plant for servicing ICRs I have the problem with as it makes rostering sets far more difficult and is part of the reason for the sight of ICRs on local services and 29k on Intercity trips.

Yes, the set that does the 15:05 stays in Sligo until 11:00 the next morning, while the others do the 05:45, 07:00 and 09:00 the next day.

I completely agree, I see no real reasoning why it was done and IE spent a lots of money upgrading the facility in Drogheda to handle the 22. Now I can't see any savings being achieved.

If you ask me it was an excuse to allow 22's operate the Commuter routes. :rolleyes: ( I know some sets were got for this).

They have full fueling facilities on platforms 2-8 in Heuston as well as Limerick, Cork and Galway.

The number of units in Sligo overnight compares to most terminus stations.

Getting back to the original topic, I think in a situation where a set *was* being sent up to Portlaoise depot, wouldn't it still be worth offering a connecting service to Kildare, where the train would be reversing back down towards Portlaoise anyway? Shouldn't let perfect be the enemy of good.

All that said, if posters here don't have possession of a current IE working timetable, why assume that there are reasons a train is not running in service as a way to shut down discussion? As I said upthread, IE are well capable of their own naysaying without others helping them.

Any out of service train within reason should operate in service.

Thankfully there has been a serious reduction in the number of out of service trains in recent years

Dowlingn

IE need a push to get things done.

One very good reason for the stock transfer not being in service is the journey time often took 3 hours to complete.

Todays service was held for 35 minutes waiting for train crossings and that was caused by delay of a couple of minutes.