Derailment on northern line
 

A goods train has derailed in the Skerries area. It may or may not be a problem for early morning services on the 11/1/08.

According to my girlfriend who was listening to fm104 services are cancled into dublin. However the garda station in drogheda knows nothing of it, and the mcbride stations phone is engaged. I couldnt catch any news at half on my terrible radio.

We're going to try and see if it is running, but i doubt it.!:confused:

Update
 

From IE website:

For the fun of it, went to real time information. Show's services operating normally:

Real Time Train Information Results - 07:16

Southbound trains serving Balbriggan in the next 30 minutes
Journey ETA Scheduled Platform Due In Current Location
Drogheda to Bray 07:34 07:34 1 18 Mins Drogheda

Dundalk to Connolly
07:42 07:42 1 26 Mins Dundalk
This information is an estimate of arrival times based on the current location of train services from Iarnród Éireann's central signalling system, and on scheduled journey time from areas under local signalling control. Cirumstances subsequent to the time of enquiry cannot be factored into this information.

Maybe this will have an effect on their %age of trains 'on time'.... or maybe not..

The usual IE can't be arsed approach

1. There is no reason what so ever that a full service cannot be operated between Laytown Drogheda and Dundalk or even as far as Balbriggan, people do commute to other places

2. The incident took place last night and effected the 22:22 ex Pearse and the 23:20 ex Connolly, no notice appeared on the IE site until this morning

3. As usual IE don't say you are entitled to a refund. Its a derailment of a train almost certainly IE are at fault somewhere. Anyone with a weekly, monthly or annual ticket is entitled to claim compensation. So face value annual divided by 424 is what you are due per journey while the line remains closed.

On Enterprise just about everyone traveling on ticket purchased before the notification of the derailment, i.e pre bookings or people using the return portion of a ticket are entitled to a refund since the bus transfer is going to lead to delays, 25% refunds apply on all enterprise services once 30 minutes late

BE had to issue a statement this morning to say that they cannot handle the extra commuters, after someone else had urged them to get the bus.

Another total disaster from IE, nice day off for their staff on the Northen line though.

Is there any impact on other commuter services in the Dublin area?

Is there enough carriages to run todays services without those carriages that are trapped on the Drogheda depot side?

Did this mornings Rosslare service as normal albeit from Connolly?

From RTE News

http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0111/rail.html

Of course they had 7 hours to work this out, Dublin Bus have a lot of spare buses and drivers thanks to the DoT

And the Port Tunnel was available to slash the journey times by bus

They had 7 hours IE had nothing in place

Since the 22:22 & 23:20 where stuck on the Connolly side there was stock to cover all other services this morning

Bus eireann buses were not stopping in balbriggan,as They were all full from talking to ppl at the bus,One extra bus had gone through in the space of an hour. I've gone home and given up on the day. have they heard of contingency plans?

Like I've posted perviously

Full service Dundalk - Ballbriggan would have been possible

Limited service, train every 30-40 minutes would be possible Donabate inwards depending on the availabilty of trains and looks like that would be a goer

As they say failing to plan = planning to fail

At least the website notice has a little more detail than the old style - Mark's ongoing battle seems to be having an impact!

Latest information indicates a full service Skerries-Dundalk could have been provided this morning but was not

Derailment location is given as 3km south of Skerries and IE have publicly stated that a defect on a wagon is suspected at this stage

Word now is the northbound track has been reopened

IE have not updated the notice on their site

Trains will have to run wrong track Malahide to Skerries

RTE News- Updated 12.11

http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0111/rail.html

http://www.irishrail.ie/news_centre/...ew&news_id=321

I arrived in dundalk, for once not checking here or having heard the news! It must have been premonition as I didn't want to get out of bed this morning!!! Anyway when i got to the Station at 7.40 i noted that the bottom carpark was relatively empty, which I found strange... the upper carpark was full and there was a bus pulling out of the station, about 50% full... It was then I found out about the situation.. those of us arriving were told of the derailment and that they couldn't get any more busses to take us to dublin as they were all used on the earlier services and that we would have to make our own way to Dublin... I asked about refunds and was told that I would have to contact head office to find out if i was entitled to a refund! When i said i had an annual ticket one of the other personal spoke up and said I would be entitled to one and to get a refund form and apply for a refund... I eventually drove to Howth Junction (easier for me to get parking than malahide)

Where did IE come up with that 7000 no for commuters? Is it based on nos of weekly/monthly/annual ticket holders from all the stations? of based on the maximum capacity of the trains?

at 1240 per 8 coach train it does appear to be roughly correct, maybe a little low in fact

Time seems to have no meaning to Irish Rail, why can't they just use the last modifed time which they get for free

Does it take two tracks closed over the whole weekend to allow track repairs? any idea was much damage done to the tracks?

RTE have some snaps http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0111/rail.html

Its the facing crossover about 400m from Skerries from what I can see, not quite 3km

That means its single line from Malahide to Balbriggan

Another update

Close to full isn't full. No listing of the actual trains running

Always find it curious that Translink have a much more honest report of the situation

The reason First and catering can't be guaranteed is that they can't swap the locomotives or get them repaired

Advice - Get the normal bus cheaper and faster

Are some Drogheda/Dundalk services not running?

IE say they are but have provided no list

There is a 12 mile single line section to deal with so it will be fun to see how Dublin bound Enterprise trains get through

they're being stopped in Dundalk/Droug....

They are running through according to IE and NIR

Little bit of media coverage on this from today http://www.railusers.ie/podcasts/aud...FM104_News.mp3

Or subscribe to our podcast feed, details http://www.railusers.ie/podcasts/ for recordings of all radio pieces

the 19:15 didn't run, nor did the next train the 20:10
my very pissed off wife is stuck somewhere in the dark on the next train.

The 17:50 Pearse - Dundalk didn't run.

Got the 18:15 Pearse - Drogheda - which was extended to serve Dundalk.


We left Pearse at 18:30...

Train stopped a few times along the way. We were stuck between Rush and lusk and Skerries for an eternity. It was 20:00 when we reached Skerries....

No announcements of stops along the way, no updates from driver.

Think it was 20:30 getting into Drogheda

Right Hook this evening
 

Did anyone catch Barry kenny at the Right Hook at 6.05pm? Seemed to be his normal Thursday slot, inserted into today. Just a coincidence.
Post the podcast link up here if you can find it!
Thanks
;)

We passed an enterprise train stalled near skerries. I would've preferred they didnt rush to put trains back on if the tracks were in a bad way. I've been wondering all the day if the driver of the freight train is okay.

Hopfully he is fine otherwise there would have been something on the news...

Bad evening....
 

Did the 20.33 ex Connolly run? And if so, what were the delays like on that...

Despite Irish Rail's press release, DARTS were not running properly.
no dart went near Malahide between 21:30 and 23:00 when the "delayed" train that left Pears about 20:30 and had been waiting between Portmarnock and Malahide since before my previous post arrived into Malahide.

An Enterprise arrived into Malahide southbound at about 22:50 despite tyhe last northbound train leaving Malahide long before 21:30

there was no train on the single line track section for over one hour according to the ticket guy in Malahide.

I got to Pearse tonight and noticed that the 22.22 to Dundalk was cancelled according to the board although that was Pearse, it may have left from Connolly. I wonder did anyone risk the 23.20 ex connolly to Drogheda tonight?

Station staff much improved, on train experience awful, Translink just better
 

Got the 19:00 Connolly-Belfast Central. For once announcements in Connolly were good, and the guy at the information desk accurately managed to tell me when the train would arrive in the station, and that it would only leave 5 mins late.

That's were the good part ends. To Portadown should take 1hr 40mins. It took 4 hours. We were stalled about 100m south of Malahide for well over an hour with no specifics from the driver. When we eventually got moving we hit Dundalk, and then...

"This train terminates here. Please leave the train................There will be another train to take youse to Belfast" This other train took 10 mins to turn up, and was a 3 car CAF set from NI. Was about right for the number of passengers - people maybe dissuaded by media reports?

Say what you want about Translink, but they've got customer service covered. We got an estimated journey time to Belfast Central, genuine apologies (despite it not being NIR's fault). I asked for and got a request stop in Lurgan, and the train was also going to stop in Lisburn. As is usual when these things happen, the conductor asked if any passengers were travelling beyond Belfast, and arranged to have the last train ex belfast to Larne and Bangor kept back.

Now why can't Iarnrod Eireann be like that?

PS My mars bar only cost 50p - I was rather chuffed - that's not bad at all

I got the 5.06 from Dun Laoghaire to Drogheda yesterday - I got into Drogheda station at about 8.05. Yes 3 hourss!!! I took this train on the basis that IR said northbound trains were running normally during rush hour -I had presumed short delays - but this was stupid!

Everytime we stopped, we were told we would be moving shortly - until the announcements eventually stopped. 'Moving' in my eyes does not constitute moving about 2 inches in about 15 minutes!

IR would have been better off not running trains - as people on my train were standing for most of the journey.

Also, why couldn't Irish Rail have an agreement in place that Bus Eireann would accept tickets yesterday morning?

Seriously? Wow!

Especially compared to €1.75 with RailGourment (aka RailGimmeMoney) on IÉ....