[07/12/2015] - Sligo Service Disruption
 

http://www.irishrail.ie/news/weather...-storm-desmond
Up to 40 minute delays to services so perhaps rethink 05.45 service plans if you are working.

Extremely uncomfortable journey this morning. It would appear that the only option was to split the 8-car Longford commuter and use half of that for the 0545 Sligo train. There were a few people standing from Edgeworthstown and pretty much nobody from Mullingar got a seat.

Any idiot could tell on Saturday night that the line was going to be flooded. This happens every year and yet there doesn't seem to be a sensible plan in place. Really looking forward to the next fortnight.

16:00hrs Connolly has been cancelled again tonight (Monday) just got a tweet about it.

They've just announced it will be midweek at the earliest before it's back to normal and there will be "reduced capacity" (in english - massive overcrowding) on all of the evening services because nobody in Irish Rail thought to read the weather forecast so they've got three or four trainsets stuck on the wrong side.

Anybody with any experience of the Sligo line could have seen that it would have been wise to at least make sure that the 7-car ICR unit went no further than Longford on Saturday. This spot floods every year and I knew myself at about lunchtime on Saturday that there would be no trains on Monday morning. I was just hoping (in vain) that somebody at Irish Rail would have the brains to think to avoid getting everything stuck in Sligo.

This evening's plan seems to be to cancel the 16:00 and operate the 17:05 with a fraction of the normal seating capacity.

Presumably there are several trains stuck on the Sligo side of the flooding - at least one of them is probably a 7-car set, including the set that remains there from Friday.

It's not going to be easy to replace that.

The point been is how stupid and incompetent Irish Rail are, they should of moved all trains out of Sligo on Saturday evening as the area is known for flooding and even it didn't flood they should of bee moved.

Anywhere here is an update:

The driver on the 1705 announced that there were 5 sets stuck in Sligo. Unbelievable messing.

On any given night there are normally five trains in Sligo - the two sets on the 05:45, and the three sets for the 07:00, 09:00 and 11:00.

Nothing really surprising about that.

There have been similar flooding incidents on the British railway network and trains stranded north of Carlisle and in Holyhead in the last few days and trains either cancelled, curtailed or operating with reduced capacity as a result. I didn't see train operators moving their fleet "just in case".

There are limits to the "what-if" planning that can be done.

By that reckoning Ryanair should have moved their entire Dublin based fleet from Dublin to Shannon on Friday night rather than cancel their entire flight programme out of Dublin airport.

In the UK yes there could be some trains stuck however using the West Cost main line it is very possible to get sets back down South by heading back north and heading down East Cost etc.

The Sligo line did not "suddenly" rise up on Saturday night and flood, I expect waters were very high on Saturday and given the whether forecast and a Red working for significant amounts rain foretasted this was clearly going to happen and Irish Rail said earlier in the day the first service out of Sligo would be reduced speed because in case of damage. Line staff were tucked up in bed on Saturday night when either overnight inspections were required and immediate train removal should of taken place if waters were getting high.

There is no excuses here, precautions should of been taken and clearly were not.

Am I right in thinking that the Sligo line closed overnight Saturday/Sunday between Longford and Dromod/Carrick on Shannon ?

I can understand that it might have been somewhat obvious that the line was at risk of closure at the same location as in previous years given the very heavy rainfall. Having said that I am not sure that I would have been overly impressed to be thrown out onto a bus at Longford in the miserable conditions last Saturday night just in case sets became trapped in Sligo and disrupted services on monday morning.

Would there have been sufficient drivers available in Sligo to bring the sets up to Longford on Saturday night ? Maybe a landslide might have closed the line on the Dublin side of Longford anyway and the whole exercise would have been pointless ?

Precisely - couldn't have put it better if I tried.

Hindsight is a great thing.

When you say closed what's different to Mon-Fri?

The weather forecast was crystal clear and while just about everybody else took precautions etc Irish Rail did nothing in a flood area. As for the logistics yes it would be complicated however there is drivers in Longford/Sligo etc as well as all units are not required on Sundays so they could of been moved.

If the storm had forecast S/E Winds and heavy rain with flooding expected do you think IE would park 7 units in Waterford (prior to current set up), not a chance. I know it's not like with like but the same principal applies.

Somebody really dropped the ball here and with more bad weather on the way and one would expect plenty more storms in the coming months will IE do anything to prevent this from happening again. Very unlikely.

You have a lot of commuting traffic been forced to change plans for an indefinite period of time combined with been crammed onto 50% less capacity as all Dublin/Sligo/Dublin services are operating with up to 60 minute delays. The very least they could do is advance bus transfers by 45 minutes but no yet again they refuse to do the sensible yet again.

IE always take 24 to 48 hours to click on what is required in bad weather, it's the same usual story with cold spells IE do nothing for a while until the penny drops and they say right lads points freeze so we need to ensure full services operates a day or two after the cold weather kicks in.

Would be interested to know when the last inspection was carried out on Saturday as if it wasn't Saturday evening at around 21.00 then real questions need to be asked.

I would fully accept if it was an area on the line which never flooded before but didn't it spend some time closed not so long back.

It is however IE never lean anything when it comes to weather related disruption.

It is not unreasonable to have contingency plans in place at times of expected bad weather, such a plan should of been in place for flood blackspots, Ennis/Limerick, Waterford and Sligo etc.

My point is that Irish Rail should have known that there was a high risk of the line flooding between Longford and Dromod. The risk of a landslide is unknown since it doesn't happen regularly and Irish Rail can't be expected to deal with. Airlines actually quite frequently move aircraft if they know a major snowstorm is coming to avoid getting them stuck and this is exactly the same situation.

All it would have taken to move some units would be one driver. If they'd move the 7 car set that sits there all weekend, that would have been enough to keep things going with minimal disruption to anyone other than the driver who was moving the train. If they wanted to move more, I believe they can move 18 units in one consist although there are very few places they'd be able to cross such a big set on the Sligo line.

Now that it's all gone pear-shaped they could help things out a lot by treating the 0545 a bit differently and get it back on time by bussing the passengers from the Sligo side all the way to Dublin for the duration. There are never more that 40 or 50 passengers on that train before Longford and almost none of them travel every day.

Don't expect it back soon water is rising not falling before more rain is due!

Based on the current weather forecast, it will take a dry week to get it clear. So we're looking at late next week at the earliest. I just asked Irish Rail on Twitter about the possibility of refunds on commuter passes since the service is not currently usable if you're travelling from Longford every day but nothing doing there.

I've managed to get to work from home for a couple of days so with any luck I'll only have 4 or 5 more journeys before I finish up but it will be rough going for anybody having to commute every day.

What really sticks in my craw about this is that this has happened about 4 times over the last 6 or 7 years yet there is no planning in place to mitigate the effects. Nor has any effort been made to raise the track-bed or otherwise resolve the flooding problem. It is not good enough to expect commuters to put up with spending an extra 90 minutes a day on horribly overcrowded trains for a couple of weeks a year.

there were reports on twitter last night of very bad overcrowding on the evening train.

Is moving one or two sets out of sligo to beyond expected flooded stretches of the track a feasible option? I take it that it would be uneconomic to food defend the line?

They simply dropped the ball here and it was flaged well in advance that flodding in the North West was expected. They got a warning on Saturday morning with flooding in Sligo station impacting signilling. Moving sets would not be a problem with planning and even if it was a last minute thing its more than doable.

As for economics, raising the line up a couple of foot would go a long way I expect and not really require significant captial spend. Given its a lake, it will take a lot of time to clear.

Question is what will they do next time, getting caught once might be acceptable to a degree but if it floods again this winter and units left in Sligo the NTA should be demanding answers.

I also say the reduced capacity on services currently is them been very lazy or un willing to swap rosters around. They could free up additional capacity if they put their minds to it for Mon-Thur at the very least. I know exactly where it can come from but I do not expect any change to happen. At the very least 05.45/17.05 could have extra capacoty but not be at normal capacity.

This isn't the first time they got caught with this flooding. This is at least the fourth time over the last six years. From their reports, the line is under about a foot of water, so it wouldn't seem like it would cost millions to raise the trackbed by a couple of feet. They should have been on to resolving this the second time it happened. But you see this pattern all over the country where people are mopping out their houses for the second time in 6 years because nobody in power could be bothered fulfilling their public duty and investing in the proper flood defences and planning.

The fact that this is happening for a prolonged period every winter is exactly why I think it needs to be brought to the NTA. I often think that Irish Rail don't really have any respect for the capital assets they have control over possibly because they fund rolling stock out of gifts from the government rather than as part of their normal budget. This is the logic that results in the throwing out perfectly good 20 year-old carriages because it is operationally cheaper to replace it with new rolling stock, but if you considered the interest payment on the cost of replacement, it would have been far cheaper to muddle on. By my reckoning, they have over 20 million euro worth of public assets sitting idle in Sligo for a fortnight because of this.

In fairness, the simple change of bussing the Sligo passengers all the way to Dublin for the 0545 has made a massive difference to me and the bulk of the regular users. But traffic is very light this morning. It's a four car 22K and my car is around half-occupied after Enfield.

they'd want to be careful with that bus service, some scamp may start one up in opposition if its a great success after the flooding. that happened after the malahide viaduct thing.

Its interesting to note that in the national newspapers we appear to have a thing called transport infrastructure ireland. They seem to only appear to issue toll notices for the motorways.

maybe if they took over the lines from IE it may result in a form of capital investment potential along the (albeit hotly contested) Irish Water Model which IE simply do not appear to be in a position to provide.

It might do however it's really comes down to what IE ask for in terms of capital funding. Take the recent ballast works on the Heuston side, you got to wonder if they even bother asking for capital spend outside of Dublin/Cork which isn't required for safety reasons.

I fully accept money is tight however all we ever see is Government funding to improve Belfast/Cork routes and nowhere else see's a penny. When have Galway/Wateford/Westport/Sligo/Rosslare been given a few million to do any works?

To be fair any money spent on Kildare Hazelhatch benefits all services to/from Heuston, most of the track there is 1980-1984 era so in dire need of money

As far as Portarlington all routes bar Waterford win, Portlaoise Cork/Tralee/Limerick +commuter win

The bulk of track beyond Dublin Cork line dates from post 1996 so doesn't need money and has new signalling as well.

I totally agree most benefit however its' really all about Cork and if it didn't require faster times would be really be in the same position as we are today, I am not so sure. Track/Signalling are newish however line speed remains an issue and the recently upgraded sections on Galwa/Waterford are chopping and changing every few miles it makes the upgrade more less worthless. Will they request funding for a "constant high speed" on these routes at some stage as I expect if they made the case hard enough something could be given in the short term.

Based on Irish rail tweet there may not be rail services west of maynooth come tomorrow

Picture tweeted by Irish rail. They said the other side of bridge was submerged

https://twitter.com/IrishRail/status/675661721227403264

Flooding reported at Broombridge around 1515, water above the rail on the inbound line ?

Update to include tomorrow:

On a general note while water is above the rail head what would be the possibility of a 201 for example hauling a few sets out of Sligo. Would it be allowed or is it IE would't want to damage engines etc

As for Kilcock, looks like very poor work for drainage from above road, not IE's fault.

The information on the IR website doesn't make sense - what happens passengers on the 0545 and 1800 from Sligo when they reach Longford (Train from Sligo to Carrick on Shannon, bus to Longford) as it appears the connecting trains will be gone. Do the buses continue to Dublin or is there some other arrangement ?

Bus from Carrick on Shannon to Dublin, journey planner is accurate on website.

Journey planner may be accurate (I didn't look at it), the travel info on the website is not !

The 0545 arrangement is working well this morning. It takes the overcrowding pressure off and the train is on-time leaving Mullingar. Which goes to prove that simple and relatively cheap measures make a massive difference to passengers.

The information as posted is very confusing. I can't see anything that goes with the star on the first line. Also, "this weekend" posted on a Saturday is very ambiguous. The good news is however that the forecast for the next few days is relatively dry so there is a reasonable chance it will have dropped at least enough to rescue a couple of trainsets by the middle of the week.

All in all a complete and utter mess!

The Sligo early bird stopped at leixlip to try help reduce the crowds with the level crossing failures this morning. It had to stop at Clonsilla then as there were people fainting on the train.

Long delays, capacity issues and a few nasty tweets to Irish rail going around, yep its looking like another long week on the maynooth line!

https://twitter.com/IrishRail/status...7Ctwgr%5Etweet

Footage from Sligo line

Also in the last hour Athenry-Limerick has been fully closed due to new flooding between Ennis-Limerick.

It doesn't actually look all that deep on that video so it could drop relatively quickly if it stays dry for a couple of days.

They 17:05 has been horrible the last couple of days. Massive overcrowding. I'd estimate we had over a hundred in one car leaving Connolly this evening. I counted 15 still standing coming into Mullingar. It doesn't bear thinking what Friday is going to be like.

Apparently "All available carriages are in service." Of course if they were able to borrow Great Southern stock for the MGW, it might be possible to put another Mark 4 set in service for a couple of weeks and borrow the freed up 22K set. It is utter craziness to run the evening service with one train missing and the following train at little more than half strength.

That video doesn't brim me with much it will be sorted out by the end of the week.

Maynooth line has been nothing but chaos for last 2 weeks. Lot of passengers at ashtown being left behind in the morning peak.

A bit of anger from maynooth line passengers on twitter.

17:28 Connolly maynooth currently held at ashtown awaiting ambulance for an Ill passenger.

An awful lot of reports of passengers fainting as well since the flooding started.

This is now the worse sustained period of disruption I've experienced in 12 years of commuting. The overcrowding on the 17:05 in particular is horrendous. Two passengers have collapsed already this week - there is a substantial risk of somebody sustaining a serious injury if they hit their head while falling and yet nothing is being done.

Hopefully whatever solicitor is involved in the resulting case finds this forum in their web searches.

They don't seem to be trying to do anything about this. This Friday will be one of the biggest travelling days of the year and instead of the normal 11 cars running between the 16:00 and the 17:05, they'll have 4. And they keep trotting out the same rubbish on twitter - all available carriages are in use (this is a lie - there are mark 4 carriages lying idle that could result in freed up 22K units), and they claim that a full service is being provided and hence no compensation is due to commuters who are either avoid travel or are stuck driving to Dublin.

Unfortunately getting the remaining Mk 4 sets back into service would probably take as long as the track will be closed, as they would have to undergo a detailed exam beforehand.

There isn't really an awful lot that can be done given that five sets are trapped on the Sligo side of the flood.

I'd imagine that one of the contributory factors towards people fainting is the exceptionally unseasonable mild weather. Sets would in all probability be configured for colder weather - heating/air con levels can only be adjusted in the depot and each set won't visit a depot every day, which means it's Hobson's choice as to whether you set the heating at a particular level or not. It's basically a lottery - if they leave it too low you'll have people complaining that it's too cold!

It's a very frustrating position to be in where you are paying such a huge sum of money every year to such an unreliable operator and you have basically got no option but to continue to do so.

Whatever about excuses or "reasons" the treatment of passengers over the last couple of weeks is quite simply unacceptable. The risk of the trains getting trapped was entirely foreseeable and quite simply Irish Rail couldn't be bother putting any kind of contingency in place. This is not hindsight in action. Something similar but less serious happened a couple of years back and the line has closed multiple times over the last few years due to flooding in the exact same place.

If the present arrangement continues on until Friday, it will make national media. It's likely there will be about a thousand people trying to get onto the 17:05 and there won't be enough capacity left on the 19:05 to get them all home.

You really need to stop making excuses for them as if there was an Mark IV readily available do you honestly believe it would be in service.

NIR were able to magic up 4 units recently to cover Belfast/Dublin, there is no reason why they cannot supply 2 again until full capacity is available down here. Remember it's them who make a balls of the refurb.

A 4 coach could perhaps be make available from Tralee branch (not ideal) but 2600 do plenty of runs when ICR's are not available at short notice.

The 15.00 Sligo/Dublin could be a full bus transfer for duration as demand will be heavily weighted the other way and it would result in an extra set been back in Dublin by peak departure time and either run as a relief to Maynooth at 17.00-17.05 and ease pressure on existing 17.05. That is if both are 4 coach units, if 3 then just single 17.05 service.

There are plenty of options but the willingness is not there for something to be implemented.