EU funding announced

[Padna]

http://www.seupb.eu/Libraries/Media_...PR_3.sflb.ashx

Is there any chance that one of the outcomes of this funding willl be a more frequent and/or business-friendly service? By business-friendly I specifically mean the first train in the morning in each direction arriving into its destination before 09:00. An arrival time of around 08:30 should work well. It would also be nice to have trains departing Dublin and Belfast around 17:30 each evening.

[Traincustomer]

On the subject of Drogheda a measure which would deliver more passengers to the railway is if certain local subsidised bus services actually served the station forecourt.

The same principle could be applied to Dundalk.

[Mark Gleeson]

This is barely enough to keep things going

so 12 million on the trains, a basic mid life overhaul is 300k a coach anyway, so that burns 8.5 million quickly enough

No extra trains, no physical infrastructure improvements

They might on the other hand get the toilets and PA system to finally work reliably

[Inniskeen]

Originally Posted by Padna

http://www.seupb.eu/Libraries/Media_...PR_3.sflb.ashx

Is there any chance that one of the outcomes of this funding willl be a more frequent and/or business-friendly service? By business-friendly I specifically mean the first train in the morning in each direction arriving into its destination before 09:00. An arrival time of around 08:30 should work well. It would also be nice to have trains departing Dublin and Belfast around 17:30 each evening.

Of all the mainline routes into Dublin, apart from Tralee, the Belfast line is unique in not having an end to end service arriving in Dublin before 0900. The only cross-border service arriving before 0900 is a particularly slow time-wasting train from Newry at 0645 taking marginally under two hours for the 69 miles to Connolly.

Dundalk isn't much better although it does have a few additional services, again very slow and principally formed by low comfort, low amenity, high density, but very reliable, commuter equipment. Poor overall service quality combined with mainline fares and car parking charges have seen a substantial migration of traffic to alternatives modes in the last six or seven years. Like so many other aspects of Irish Rail Operations the prospect on an improvement seems remote despite adequate resources to do so. The railway won't survive by cutting costs alone, it must also improve services, increase ridership and grow revenue.

[KSW]

Originally Posted by Inniskeen

Of all the mainline routes into Dublin, apart from Tralee, the Belfast line is unique in not having an end to end service arriving in Dublin before 0900. The only cross-border service arriving before 0900 is a particularly slow time-wasting train from Newry at 0645 taking marginally under two hours for the 69 miles to Connolly.

06.45 Gorey to Dublin also takes 2hrs arriving around 8.45 a distance smiliar to Dundalk. I refuse to travel 2hrs for a small distance at a higher price than taking the bus at 1hr20mins journey time. Until Irish Rail lower fares and have more reliable services with reduced journey times I'll never travel by train.!!

[James Howard]

It's a general Irish Rail thing. The 06:15 from Longford is a shade over 70 miles and again a shade over two hours. Even the 0545 from Sligo which doesn't stop between Maynooth and Drumcondra takes an hour and 50 minutes.

The bus is about the same for me but the level of comfort on the train tips the balance so long as I can avoid 29Ks. I generally arrive into work with an hour's work done already which I couldn't do on the bus.

Journey time isn't everything and it is hard to see how Irish Rail can feasibly compete on journey time given their present economic constraints. They can however compete on comfort if they avoid shooting themselves in the foot but cutting back on capacity.

[Mickey H]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

No extra trains,

There is absolutely no reason for ANY new rolling stock for Irish Rail. They have 27 2700 vehicles that can be returned to service and there is at least one 22k, 22014, that has not been in service since November. And don't get me started on the vandalism of scrapping the mk3s. I accept there was no need to retain the whole fleet but it would have been common sense to retain the push-pull sets to provide a flexible reserve fleet for GAA and other big days (and they were passed for Belfast too)

I don't have figures but what percentage of the DART fleet is currently required for daily use? 50?

[ACustomer]

Mickey H. Forget about the Mk3s!. They are gone, scrapped, as dead as Monty Python's parrot.

Its the semi-retired Mk4s you should be concerned: less than the age of the Mk 3s.

[dowlingm]

Originally Posted by Inniskeen

Of all the mainline routes into Dublin, apart from Tralee, the Belfast line is unique in not having an end to end service arriving in Dublin before 0900. The only cross-border service arriving before 0900 is a particularly slow time-wasting train from Newry at 0645 taking marginally under two hours for the 69 miles to Connolly.

Ideally the existing NIR Portadown-Newry 0615 and IE Newry-Connolly 0645 would be replaced by a set of 2 TPWSed ICRs,

Going the other way, a set of CAF 3000s could spend the night in Connolly and dispatched in the Newry-Central 0655 arriving 0806.

The CAFs could be an extension of the train arriving in Portadown 2158, becoming Newry 2220, Connolly 2340. The ICRs could similarly be extended off a Dundalk service running after the last Enterprise northbound.

I imagine there are several tiresome impediments to this, starting with money, continuing through logistics and finishing with politics.

[dowlingm]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

This is barely enough to keep things going

so 12 million on the trains, a basic mid life overhaul is 300k a coach anyway, so that burns 8.5 million quickly enough

I note a reference to "match funding" from south and north, but not whether it was 1:1 (cynic in me says: not)

[ocian]

Any idea why 22014 has been out of service for so long? I read somewhere that it went out for a trail run over the weekend, but it still hasn't got its 4th coach which is sitting out in Laois Depot....

[Jamie2k9]

2 years ago they took some sets out of service and stripped them for parts, all are back in service since and 14 is being done now.

The single coach is Laois is not for that set AFAIK, it was on another set but taken off to get new wheels which is probably not happening until its needed or they can afford it!

[ocian]

Originally Posted by Jamie2k9

2 years ago they took some sets out of service and stripped them for parts, all are back in service since and 14 is being done now.

The single coach is Laois is not for that set AFAIK, it was on another set but taken off to get new wheels which is probably not happening until its needed or they can afford it!

Cheers for the answer Jamie . With or without the single coach hopefully they can get 22014 back into service soon and toss a 29000 off the intercity routes

[Jamie2k9]

Originally Posted by ocian

Cheers for the answer Jamie . With or without the single coach hopefully they can get 22014 back into service soon and toss a 29000 off the intercity routes

not going to happen, 22 PC set going North for duration of the refurbish. Suspect that why 14 is going back into use. Hopefully they will bring back a Mark IV as well for duration but other routes will probably draw the short straw as usual.

[Mark Gleeson]

There will be a need at least 2 first class ICR sets for Dublin Belfast, in fact they might need to run as 5+3 config

TPWS sets do not have the Irish Rail flag logo

They will have to get another Mk4 set back in service to cover

[dowlingm]

Running a Mk4 on one or more Limerick services seems to me to be worthy of a hard look. The timetable isn't ideal for locohaul but neither is pouring capacity back onto the Cork route if it can't be taken advantage of.

For Dublin-Belfast, I can only hope the 22s perform well enough that the powers that be give due regard to using them for additional rotations after the DDs return.

[Mark Gleeson]

MK4 can get to Limerick, but

1. No one in Limerick is trained on them
2. Cork is the home shed for overnight maintenance
3. No train hosts in Limerick and union issues

MK4 would struggle with the start stop pattern on the Limerick timetable

Strangely a Mk4 would be ideal for Dublin Belfast, but has no clearance for NI operation

[berneyarms]

I suspect that you may see an extra Mark 4 set pushed into use on Dublin-Cork to displace ICRs to allow for the Premier sets to swap over to Connolly for the Enterprise.

There's no need for Mark 4 stock to be going anywhere else.

[ACustomer]

The reduced Mk4 service on the Cork line needs 3 or 4 sets. There should be in principle 8 eight-coach sets in total (67 vehicles delivered which I think include a 9th DVT and 2 other spare vehicles).

In that case why not use 3 or 4 Mk4 sets on the Enterprise and save a load of money on refurbishing the DDs? I know the Mk4s will need some cosmetic refurbishment soon and a mid-life upgrade in 5 to 10 years time.

I quite realise that it's a bit too late to ask this question now, but does management ever think outside the box?

Maybe the inferior ride quality of the Mk4s combined with the inferior track quality of the Belfast line might put people off.

[Thomas J Stamp]

the DD's need mid life refurb now, the mk4 will need it in 10 years (they need an internal one now) so its much of a muchness.

as mark says they are not cleared to operate in NI but that is something that can be achieved with a bit of willpower and initiative.

there is no real plan at all, or any plan is changed/abandoned because of things.

we attended a big think in up in belfast a few years back (4/5???) with all the stakeholders. everyone agreed that it should be an hourly service and it should be attractive.

only thing done was to try and convert the electrical vans from Mk3's to be put into the DD's and even that was ballsed up and took forever.

I would imagine the next solution will be ICR's. Those who use the first class bit of the Enterprise will be in for some shock. No matter how you dress it up, in my experience the 22ks are an inferior product to the DD's and the Mark4's. (yes, I know about the windows).

Even if you do not agree, taking trains specifically marketed and branded for a service and replacing them with common rolling stock and then cutting those trains in half only sends a big subliminal message out there to the public - you aint getting what you once had, and here is a fare increase. Cheers. What do you mean you're taking the car???