[16-5-2012] Just four people on board new train route costing €250,000 a year to run

[Mark Gleeson]

AS FEW as four people a day are using a new train service in Public Transport Minister Alan Kelly's constituency -- at a cost of €250,000 a year.

The extra services were introduced in March despite a high-level review that found there was a strong case to close the line because of low passenger numbers.

http://www.independent.ie/national-n...n-3140007.html

The FOI records, which we have seen show no record of any correspondence between the NTA and IE until Feb 16th 2012. The very first email is actually one sent by RUI to the NTA expressing concern at the proposed changes, lack of consultation and the impact on existing passengers. All other emails followed this.

[Mark Gleeson]

Regardless of the passenger numbers what Paul Meila in the Indo has discovered there was no formal procedure, no records and no assessment of the proposal

I know for a fact that IE met the NTA in early Feb 2012 to discuss but no trace of this was found.

The next question is if RUI had not sent an email on Feb 16 would there be any record at all?

Our understanding having spoken to IE staff is the numbers barely ever make double digits.

Note also that again Alan Kelly's story on cost has been shown to be misleading by a huge margin

Irish Rail also failed to notify the NTA of the subsequent timetable changes, the NTA had to email Irish Rail asking them to formally apply, again no assessment was carried out despite the significant extension to journey times.

[Inniskeen]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

Regardless of the passenger numbers what Paul Meila in the Indo has discovered there was no formal procedure, no records and no assessment of the proposal

I know for a fact that IE met the NTA in early Feb 2012 to discuss but no trace of this was found.

The next question is if RUI had not sent an email on Feb 16 would there be any record at all?

Our understanding having spoken to IE staff is the numbers barely ever make double digits.

Note also that again Alan Kelly's story on cost has been shown to be misleading by a huge margin

Irish Rail also failed to notify the NTA of the subsequent timetable changes, the NTA had to email Irish Rail asking them to formally apply, again no assessment was carried out despite the significant extension to journey times.

There are many many Irish Rail services that run for most of their journey with little more than 30 passengers. There mighn't be much left of the system if all such services were weeded out.

If your ambition for the closure of the Nenagh road (and the WRC) is realised you might just see the flood gates opened to other line closures and service curtailments.

Then there is the issue of the huge new stations and facilities in the Dublin area which may not be fully utilised for decades, if ever - KRP, Dunboyne, Docklands, doubling of DART capacity etc etc ...

[comcor]

AS FEW as four people a day

This reads to me as a case of lies, damned lies and statistics.

Essentially, you can quote the lowest figure and make it sound like it's an average of some sort. That scenario matches the words written, but doesn't match the impression that's given by those words.

I have to say, I find the Indo to be the worst for that sort of behaviour by some margin. I haven't bought it for 5 or 6 years and I couldn't even be bothered checking out their website now. Everything is to suit some agenda (which seems to be anti-Labour at the moment).

Anyway, I was on the 18:00 to Cork last Friday and there were at least 25 connected to the branch line train at Ballybrophy. Not ideal, but not disasterous. The train to Cork pulled out before the (late) branch train had arrived. Hopefully, there was nobody trying to make the connection.

For comparison, last summer, I took a train from Bristol to Melksham. Melksham is on a branch that involves changing off London-Bristol-London trains at Chippenham. Despite being on a train that left Bristol around 6pm, you could count the numbers making the connection on two hands. This was with the benefit of a London-Bristol train also delivering passengers to it.

[Colm Moore]

Originally Posted by comcor

This reads to me as a case of lies, damned lies and statistics.

No, we've had a case where an RUI member was the only person on the train from Nenagh(?) to Heuston - it was running so late they put on an extra train from Portlaoise.

[Thomas J Stamp]

Originally Posted by Colm Moore

No, we've had a case where an RUI member was the only person on the train from Nenagh(?) to Heuston - it was running so late they put on an extra train from Portlaoise.

it was brophy to heuston. it was the other limerick train which took them on board at brophy. also seen it jumping stations to make up time. the fact that it can jump stations and the numbers form them can be easily accomodated on other services shows hwo redundant it actually is.

on an aside point, when this train gets into newbridge, it gets jammed with passengers whilst a six car sits empty waiting to trundle into Heuston half an hour later empty.

[Thomas J Stamp]

Originally Posted by comcor

Anyway, I was on the 18:00 to Cork last Friday and there were at least 25 connected to the branch line train at Ballybrophy. Not ideal, but not disasterous. The train to Cork pulled out before the (late) branch train had arrived. Hopefully, there was nobody trying to make the connection.

sorry to say this, but the vast vast majority of those 25 go straight to their cars which are parked in BB car park and go home.

i also get the 18.00 train, and the most i have counted on the connecting service, which can indeed be late, is six. That said, the 2700 is a lovely warm train.

[comcor]

Originally Posted by Thomas J Stamp

sorry to say this, but the vast vast majority of those 25 go straight to their cars which are parked in BB car park and go home.

These passengers were definitely waiting on the platform for the connecting train.

Although as was noted earlier, the IEC may have bumped figures up last week, especially for passengers with free travel who wouldn't get that off the private bus service.

[Thomas J Stamp]

Originally Posted by doherty jack

@ comcor - your dead right -

that train needs 23 people to breakeven , the 5:05am limerick - dublin service has an average number of 153 using it daily!

ah now jack, speaking as someone who actually uses this service, we both know that the numbers up to Ballybrophy are in the region of 1-8. Your 153 people misleadingly counts in all the others who get on post brophy, and who would be getting other services within 10-15 mins of this train anyway.

the most i have ever counted on that train as it pulled out of roscrea, inclusing myself, was 8.

the fact is, the indo reporter got onto the train and counted heads on the branch. this is what i have done and posted about here. on your figure of 23, it aint breaking even on the branch, and that is what this is all about.

[Mark Gleeson]

You can dream all you want but the head count Tom has is a fair and accurate sample, the Indo numbers also match up (two days were checked at random) as do Irish Rail's numbers

Last week and a bit had the Eucharistic congress so any numbers for that week must be discounted as being artificially high and not representative of ongoing demand

To break even (as in make a loss not greater than the average train) would require close to 50 passengers per day

The train if course could start from Portlaoise and serve onwards from there

[dowlingm]

Originally Posted by Inniskeen

If your ambition for the closure of the Nenagh road (and the WRC) is realised you might just see the flood gates opened to other line closures and service curtailments.

Then there is the issue of the huge new stations and facilities in the Dublin area which may not be fully utilised for decades, if ever - KRP, Dunboyne, Docklands, doubling of DART capacity etc etc ...

Oh no Inniskeen, not whataboutery/Palerail. I credited you with more class than that. I'm all for examining alternative timetables but the 0505 is not working by any metric. I have several ideas about what could be done better - notably replacing the 0505 with a Nenagh-Ballybrophy shuttle which meets the Cork 0515 which stops there anyway - but every month of exemplary losses that go by makes that harder to countenance.

[Inniskeen]

I am not remotely suggesting that the existing arrangements on the Ballybrophy line are the most appropriate to the current condition, constraints and configuration of the line. As long as the speed limits remain as they are (even on upgraded track) and the existing signalling arrangements persist it is very difficult to conjure up a useful service.

I agree the 0505 from Limerick is anything but ideal. Not only is it slow on the branch, it is pathetically slow on the main line. Like Rail Users Ireland, Irish Rail want this service to fail and have effectively designed it in such a way as to ensure it does. I am not remotely surprised by low usage, I would be more than surprised by any other outcome. It needn't be that way.

As for investment in IR igenerally, a lot of money has been spent with relatively small return. Operating costs may well have gone down somewhat but service quality and performance does not match the investment. It needn't be that way.

I strongly suspect that if you were to travel on any of the very early services from Galway, Athlone, Cork or Rosslare that there would be literally a handful of passengers until the service was at least 50% through its journey - probably not that much different to the Limerick via Nenagh service.

[Thomas J Stamp]

Originally Posted by Inniskeen

I agree the 0505 from Limerick is anything but ideal. Not only is it slow on the branch, it is pathetically slow on the main line. Like Rail Users Ireland, Irish Rail want this service to fail and have effectively designed it in such a way as to ensure it does. I am not remotely surprised by low usage, I would be more than surprised by any other outcome. It needn't be that way.

I think this issue should be clarified. RUI most certainly does not want any service to fail. The problem with the 0505 service is that it replaced and prevents the running of perfectly marketable and sensible commuter services to and from Limerick on that branch. What is overlooked here is the 0505 and the connecting train to the 1700 ex Heuston has scuppered this.

The problem that we have, and this is a perfectly valid point, is that this train is a political gambit which we are of the opinion was imposed without any consultation or reserch, and without adhering to the proper proceedures, simply to allow the local TD to print lots of leaflets and gets nice mentions in the Tipp Star and Nenagh Guardian. That is entirely in line with our long standing view on the interferance in rail issues by local TD's and ministers over the years.

It is indeed paradoxical for a rail users representation group to take that stance, when it may lead to us questioning the proper use of the assets of the rial company. But that is all that it is. IE could have a much better service on this line, one that truely develops it and ensures its continued existance. It chose long ago not to do this.

Why? Well, you may be correct in your view that IE is ok with the line closing. Since the McCarthy reports and the troika, things are not as rosy for IE as they once were. Like Minister Howlin, IE has its own low hanging fruit which can be plucked easily, and that includes the Nenagh branch. Not that this is acceptable either, but you do have to wonder why, in the face of all the evidence, IE continued to run a train every day for years when the traffic was going the other way.