[Article] Train hits vehicle at level crossing - Birdhill

[Colm Moore]

http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0903/tra...-crossing.html

Train hits vehicle at level crossing
Updated: 21:10, Monday, 3 September 2012

A train has struck a vehicle at a level crossing in Co Tipperary.

Iarnród Éireann says the incident happened around 8pm at Kelly's Crossing in Birdhill tonight.

The 6.20pm train from Ballybrophy to Limerick was involved.

Emergency services are at the scene. The driver was the sole occupant of the vehicle, while the driver and between six and eight passengers were on the train at the time, but there are no reports of injuries.

[Destructix]

:O it actually had passengers on it.

[doherty jack]

Originally Posted by Destructix

:O it actually had passengers on it.

why wouldnt people be on it?

[dowlingm]

So that was what - 104-106 empty seats?

[Inniskeen]

Thousands (maybe tens of thousands) of empty seats on DART every day. There are eight car trains running around off peak with hundreds of spare seats, - loads on the busier DART trains (in the city centre) after 1930 are frequently well less than 100 and could be easily accommodated in a two car formations. Many of these DART trains would have barely a handful of passengers closer to the end of their journeys.

Easy to play the empty seats game ! If Irish Rail are looking for economies it might make sense to reduce off-peak formations before messing around with peak service formations.

[Mark Gleeson]

Average number of passengers who travel per DART service is of the order of 400. 65,000 per day, 154 services per day. Seating capacity per 6 coach set 384.

Nenagh carries in a week little more than what a single average DART service carries.

Those are the hard facts, Nenagh is in serious trouble simply because the population density isn't there and the arrival of the M7 has made rail in any format uncompetitive, the location of Limerick station doesn't help

Athenry Galway is the opposite, chronic traffic congestion and roundabout hell, but a centrally located station and very quick rail journey

[Thomas J Stamp]

Originally Posted by dowlingm

So that was what - 104-106 empty seats?

as it was past nenagh its not important really, i was surprised that there were still 5-7 people on board (figure would include the conductor i imagine).