[Article] Disruption for rail passengers

[Colm Moore]

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...breaking75.htm

Disruption for rail passengers
PAMELA DUNCAN

Up to 3,000 rail passengers experienced delays of around 30 minutes this evening following a signal failure which disrupted services on all Waterford, Sligo and Galway services.

“Our central control centre in Athlone looks after all the level crossings on the Waterford, Galway and Sligo lines. The system went down for about 30 minutes at which time we had no control over the level crossings on those lines,” a spokeswoman for Irish Rail said.

All drivers were alerted and around six trains were stopped for up to 35 minutes before engineers rectified the problem.

A spokesperson for Iarnrod Eireann said the company regretted any inconvenience caused to passengers. However she noted that it was company policy not to compensate passengers for delays under an hour.

Passengers on the 15.05 service from Galway to Heuston also experienced delays last night following a mechanical fault separate to the signal failure.

Meanwhile the Limerick/Ennis line, which was scheduled to open in March resumed yesterday.

The line, which had been closed since the end of November due to flooding in the Ballycar area, has resumed full operation.

The €106.5 million redevelopment of the Ennis-Athenry line, which was due to open on January 9th due to flooding in the area in November, is now scheduled to open in March.

[Mark Gleeson]

Of course this had nothing to do with the work on the Sligo line which is controlled from Athlone

There was no risk to any train as the signals protecting the gates only clear after a human has given the ok