What the hell happened in malahide last night?

[ThomasJ]

I can't get over reports on twitter that there were DARTs running at a snails pace this morning alongside people walking the tracks. Doors being cut open and people getting home to Dundalk at 4am this morning.

This is the second time in so many weeks that the operation at malahide was an unmitigated disaster after these shows at the castle (although you cant blame Irish rail on the circumstances of the 1st time)

What happened ?

[Inniskeen]

First occasion was a fatality at Malahide.

Not sure about last night, it appears the 2315 special from Malahide to Connolly (an 8 car 29k stopping at all stations) had door problems at Portmarnock. A second train (a DART) left Malahide and was stranded in the section. The situation escalated as frustrated passengers in the reportedly heavily overcrowded trains disembarked onto the track.

The last Dundalk service was held at Clongriffin until around 0100 as was a special to Belfast. Services in both directions were stopped for between 90 and 120 minutes.

There were further delays at Donabate due to a medical issue on the Dundalk train. In typical Irish Rail fashion the Belfast train was held to follow the Dundalk local and apparently didn't reach Belfast until 0400.

A special DMU apparently ran from Connolly to Bray for passengers who missed the last southbound DART.

[Dublin13]

So clearly nothing was learnt from the management of the recent DART derailment.

No communication = panic = people doing stupid things.

No doubt Irish rail will forget the first two parts of that equation.

[Mark Gleeson]

This could have been a huge loss of life

The 2355 Dublin Belfast special would have been close to 90mph in that section

You should never ever get out onto the tracks, but here is classic Irish Rail

1. For the type of crowd at the concert there were likely to cause some trouble. No security on the train
2. Irish Rail do not enforce the law, its an offence to be on the railway while intoxicated
3. Communication was a total mess, i.e. none


Then you have the Taylor Swift concerts... Again no security massive overcrowding


Fairly simple to isolate a door on a 29k, worst case you lock the coach out, taking the entire train out of service is a bit of an over reaction, however there are unconfirmed reports of other damage

[Dublin13]

Typical Irish Rail though isn't it.

They will blame the passengers for getting out because they will not take any responsibility for the events that led to that, far easier to let the same things happen over and over again and point the finger to someone else to take the full blame than actually do something that might make it less likely to happen in the future. Blame culture at it's best.

Nothing changes, the next time a similar incident happens we'll see the very same problem because nobody is interested in preventing it happening, since why focus on reassuring people and taking steps to make something like this less likely to happen when you can just keep blaming someone else instead. I mean, it's only people we're talking about.

I agree that I personally wouldn't get out on a live track after the train had broken down, but the longer you are there with no communications the more anxious some people are going to get and panic is going to set in with some. That's why reassurance and information is critical. Irish Rail don't care about that though since nothing is ever their fault.

[Jamie2k9]

Fairly simple to isolate a door on a 29k, worst case you lock the coach out, taking the entire train out of service is a bit of an over reaction, however there are unconfirmed reports of other damage

Don't really buy the door issues, as you say the obvious solution and done time and time again. Max 15 minute delay.

What I have seen do the rounds and more believable is a fight or some sort broke out on the 2900 and of course guards took there time to arrive hence the delay and all the disruption.

Now transport police would have solved the problem.

[Dublin13]

Originally Posted by Jamie2k9

Don't really buy the door issues, as you say the obvious solution and done time and time again. Max 15 minute delay.

What I have seen do the rounds and more believable is a fight or some sort broke out on the 2900 and of course guards took there time to arrive hence the delay and all the disruption.

Now transport police would have solved the problem.

Still doesn't excuse the lack of communication. The culture in Irish Rail towards passengers has always been appalling however so it doesn't really surprise me, they just simply don't care about people very much.

Good communication certainly will reduce the chances of people starting to panic and therefore they may not detrain in the way that they did. But I guess as usual there will be a smokescreen of the people are idiots for doing so as Irish Rail don't want to look at what they can do better.