[11/01/2012] Some severe delays to Northern Line

[Colm Moore]

Signalling fault at Balbriggan has caused delays on the Northern Line of up to 45 minutes. Returning to normal. Some knock-on effects on northside DARTs.

[Inniskeen]

I understood the issue was a train failure rather than a signalling failure. The failed 0647 from Drogheda (6 x 2800) was eventually taken out of service and shunted clear at Skerries. The following train started from Drogheda in the path of the 0630 from Dundalk, as that train (8 x 2800) was experiencing difficulties in Dundalk and was about 25 minutes late departing.

Despite having four or five trains quequed one after the other, Irish Rail insisted in stopping already heavily delayed services at all scheduled stops thus maximising disruption, overcrowding and inconvenience. Surely they could develope a more intelligent contingency plan to deal with scenarios of this nature.

[karlr42]

Originally Posted by Inniskeen

Surely they could develope a more intelligent contingency plan to deal with scenarios of this nature.

There really seems to be no kind of contingency plan written down within IE. That's my biggest problem with them to be honest, that when something goes wrong everything falls apart and it is clear there is no plan in place to work around the problem.

A simple exercise in looking at possible failures at various locations, categorising them by chance of happening and severity, coming up with a standard workaround and distributing this to CTC and managers to consult and hopefully find a matching failure and follow the workaround would do wonders. At present it seems the response is very ad-hoc.

[Rashers]

I am told they used the northbound Pearse - Drogheda service around 7.30am as an inbound service to relieve some of the overcrowding...
They then stopped the Enterprise at suburban stations to Drogheda. It was only about 5 mins late arriving in Skerries, so assume it was not that badly delayed overall. Just shows you how much padding there now is in the timetables...

[Pilotman]

I'm just reading this thread and wonder what Irish Rail has to do to solve all problems.

We've people here who'd like IE to bypass stations when a problem occurs like the one described here.

However, there will also be people who'd say why should they have to get off a train and wait for the next one just because IE decides to bypass some stations. Apart from the obvious delay of trying to get people to get off which would only cause further delay its surely better to stop the trains at their scheduled stops and not upset people even further.

I know if I was after getting on a train in say Drogheda going to Rush and Lusk and being told in Skerries that I'd have to get off my train and wait for the next one because the train I was on wasn't now going to stop at Rush and Lusk I'd be more than annoyed.

I'm sure there are people here would feel the same.

[Colm Moore]

Sure, nobody should be 'screwed over', but at the same time maximum benefit should be obtained in any time recovery situation.

Every stop with a commuter train means a 2 minute delay. Skipping a few stops can make a very late train into a tolerably late one. It can also prevent knock-on effects to subsequent trains. A delayed train will tend to have a queue of trains behind it, but nothing in front of it for a substantial distance.

If a train from Drogheda with 300 people on board is twenty minutes late at Gormanstown due to a signal issue and skipping 5 stops will make it 10 minutes late, then 3,000 person minutes can be regained. Perhaps 300 passengers for intermediate stations are inconvenienced by a further 3 minutes (the time between the front train and the next train). That is a loss of 900 person minutes. Net gain 2,100 person minutes (35 working hours).

It's not ideal, but it's making the best if a bad situation.