Irish Rail Strike again !

[Celbridge traveller]

A (very) bad night for IE.

17.15 Announcement by driver "..delay while a technical problem is sorted.. will be under way as soon as possible.."

Doors closed.

Twenty minutes later doors still closed..no interim update.. passengers getting a bit restless.

I ring "customer care" 01-8366222. Ask for an update - they knew nothing. Asked a helpful voice at the end of the line to get word to the train driver to open the doors & provide an update on his tannoy - that is why he has it. This happended within a few minutes.

I de-trained at the door next to the driver position - counted 7 IE people busy but not appearing to be achieving anything.

Noticed an IE staff (female) member who was carrying a two way radio and asked her what was the status. She was particularly poor. Asked her her name - refused to give it. As I tried to read her name badge she turned at right angles to me! - unbelievable? re-run the CCTV tapes IE management and see for yourselves.

As an aside, why are these people kitted out in dark clothes without any obvious IE branding?

With all of the hundreds of millions being spent on kit why not recruit a few junior staff with customer liasion skills? These staff could then train up the existing "customer care" experts dotted on the Heuston platforms!


In the end it was a mad dash back along platform 1 and 2 to the concourse and down platform 3/4. As we were boarding the 17.50 (to Galway?) the tannoy burst into life with meaningless apologies. Much too little, far too late.

For my part I was not sure that I was on the right train until it made an unscheduled stop at Cherry Orchard.

I did not see any provision made for those passengers additionally stressed because of sight impairment / pregancy etc.


IE really need to get some planning in place to cover off these (fairly regular) occurences - last week it was engine failure at Sallins.