Sligo Line Real Time Info

[Jamie2k9]

IE's real time is now covering all services beyond Maynooth, unusually like all other routes it even picks up departure/arrival in Slgo.

All stations are covered apart from Collooney due to signal locations.

Now it's just both directions Athlone-Westport/Ballina, Mallow-Tralee and Heuston departures to Waterford south of Athy, strangely departures ex Waterford are picked up but not the other way.

Should be useful to commuters.

[James Howard]

That is very helpful indeed. Seems to be accurate at Edgeworthstown but we'll need to see what is happens the next time there is a serious delay.

Maybe I should look at writing an alarm clock app that uses their API feed to trigger when the train is an hour away.

[James Howard]

All Irish Rail realtime info seems to be broken today through the TFI realtime app. Seems a bit odd as the API still seems to be up.

[James Howard]

This morning's 0545 was quite late leaving Sligo so provided quite an interesting opportunity to see quite how much slack was in the timetable. Thanks to Irish Rail's excellent webservice, it's quite easy to check how A901 got on.

http://api.irishrail.ie/realtime/rea...inMovementsXML

Here are the highlights

Left Sligo 0608 - 23 minutes late
Left Edgeworthstown 0720 - 13 minutes late
Left Enfield 0809 - 18 minutes late - stuck behind relief (about 10 minutes wait)
Arrived Connolly 0853 - 6 minutes late

I couldn't be accurate about the extra delay incurred at Enfield while we were stuck behind the relief train but I'd say it was of the order of 10 minutes making for a total of 33 minutes delays to the service. Yet it managed to recover all but 6 minutes of the delay on a service at the busiest time of that day that has no crossings to make.

Yet, they feel the need to add yet another 10 minutes to the running time of this service in the abandoned timetable.

[Inniskeen]

Almost all Irish Rail services are timed this way. They are are happy to waste your time everday so that they don't get a hit on their punctuality statistics. It also makes scheduling easier as they make no attempt to provide a clear path in from Maynooth and are content to schedule everything on the least effort, lowest common denominator principle.

[berneyarms]

Originally Posted by James Howard

This morning's 0545 was quite late leaving Sligo so provided quite an interesting opportunity to see quite how much slack was in the timetable. Thanks to Irish Rail's excellent webservice, it's quite easy to check how A901 got on.

http://api.irishrail.ie/realtime/rea...inMovementsXML

Here are the highlights

Left Sligo 0608 - 23 minutes late
Left Edgeworthstown 0720 - 13 minutes late
Left Enfield 0809 - 18 minutes late - stuck behind relief (about 10 minutes wait)
Arrived Connolly 0853 - 6 minutes late

I couldn't be accurate about the extra delay incurred at Enfield while we were stuck behind the relief train but I'd say it was of the order of 10 minutes making for a total of 33 minutes delays to the service. Yet it managed to recover all but 6 minutes of the delay on a service at the busiest time of that day that has no crossings to make.

Yet, they feel the need to add yet another 10 minutes to the running time of this service in the abandoned timetable.

Let's not get completely carried away here.

Looking at other trains, it's clear that the 08:18 from Maynooth was held until 08:26, to allow the Sligo a clear run.

The only trains ahead of it would have been the 07:55 from Maynooth and 08:10 from M3 Parkway, so the Sligo could have operated at full line speed for most of the route from Maynooth inbound, which I imagine it most certainly does not do typically?

Of course the timetable will have some recovery time built into it - there's a balance to be struck between offering a timetable that's the fastest possible and one that is achievable and can be delivered reliably.

It's possible that actual dwell times were reduced over the schedule as well to make up time.

[James Howard]

Dwell times were particularly short allright - I'd say he spent less than a minute in each station. We got a relatively clear run in from Maynooth but nothing spectacular.

I agree that there is a balance to be struck between speed and reliability but being able to recover 17 minutes between Edgeworthstown and Connolly is perhaps pushing it a tad away from the speed side of the balance.

Is it getting carried away to suggest that adding another 10 minutes to allow 27 minutes' recovery time on a 70 mile journey is a little unreasonable?

[Inniskeen]

Interestingly the 0818 from Maynooth was little more than two minutes late into Connolly and one minute late into Pearse.

Clearly scope to cut out at least some of the wasted time that has accummulated in the timetable with each successive iteration.

[berneyarms]

Originally Posted by James Howard

Dwell times were particularly short allright - I'd say he spent less than a minute in each station. We got a relatively clear run in from Maynooth but nothing spectacular.

I agree that there is a balance to be struck between speed and reliability but being able to recover 17 minutes between Edgeworthstown and Connolly is perhaps pushing it a tad away from the speed side of the balance.

Is it getting carried away to suggest that adding another 10 minutes to allow 27 minutes' recovery time on a 70 mile journey is a little unreasonable?

But it's not 27 minutes recovery time - that train normally has to follow the 07:55 from Maynooth and is just ahead of the 08:10 from M3 Parkway at Clonsilla. That means that the running time between Maynooth and Connolly is extended regardless to be able to fit into the suburban timetable. That's different to recovery time.

This morning your train got a clear run between Maynooth and Connolly in terms of other traffic - this meant that it was considerably quicker than usual.

Similarly there will always be engineering allowances along the entire route to permit temporary speed restrictions to be put in place when engineers require them, without impacting on the overall schedule. That's not the same as adding recovery time for the sake of it.

Sure there certainly is recovery time that is there to allow for a degree of resilience and reliability in terms of arrival time in Connolly, but it does not amount to 27 minutes.

As for the proposed timetable, I would share your frustration at the original draft timetable, but we haven't seen the final proposed timetable post-consultation which may have managed to address that issue.

[Jamie2k9]

Making up 15 or the 23 minute delay by Mullingar is not normal especially as lot of train recovery from delays is from altered crossing patterns so a 3-6 minute schedule wait would be eliminated but the 05.45 has no crossings. Yes there is a few minutes for TSR's however that's at the end of journey. Some station stops may of been slightly faster but there is no way a train should be making up such time.

You might expect 5-6 minutes made up at most.

If IE produced this type schedule for direct Limerick/Galway services at Heuston myself and others would only be delighted.

[Inniskeen]

Originally Posted by berneyarms

This morning your train got a clear run between Maynooth and Connolly in terms of other traffic - this meant that it was considerably quicker than usual.

Maynooth to Connolly might have been quicker than usual but 30 minutes for about 17 miles is hardly fast. The actual allowance is almost sufficient to stop at all stations as well demonstrated by the very busy 0818 service yesterday.

The scheduling of longer distance trains in the Dublin area is such that the train is generally less competitive than alternative modes which are routinely quicker, cheaper and less crowded, hence patronage has declined to the point where a lot of services are barely relevant.