DART News story

[Derek Wheeler]

The article below appears in the Sunday Business Post today. The information about the DART refurbishment project going badly wrong was provided to this Newspaper by Platform 11. It would not be in the public domain unless we had made it available.While we respect a newspapers right to put any angle they choose on a story,we wish to distance ourselves from the way this particular story was reported. It is not representative of the story we provided to the Sunday Business Post. It does not credit Platform 11with making the discovery and makes no mention of the inconvenience caused to thousands of DART customers as per the supplied Platform 11 statement. Irish Rail have made every effort to keep this story from the public. Their annual report makes absolutley no mention of it. Platform 11 is disappointed that the story has been reported in such a manner. Many questions remain unanswered.

If Irish Rail are to seek damages, why are they continuing negociations with Siemens? In fact why haven't legal proceedings been issued already?

Irish Rail knew of the problems in May 2005, when they suspended further shippments. Why did they not recall the already shipped units to Dublin so they could continue in service until a new tender could be issued?

The new Mk 4 trains are also experiencing problems. They arrived in the country in the Summer of 2005 and still havent been fully introduced to service. In fact the new 2007 timetable has been delayed due to the problems with these trains.

Irish Rail management like to blame somebody else for their own shortcomings. If its not the staff, its the unions. If its not the unions, its the Dept. of Transport or maybe the Dept. of Finance. This time its multi-national company, Siemens. Do they ever take responsibility for anything?



We will be issuing our own press release today, that will pull no punches and intend writing to the editor of the Sunday Business Post to express our disappointment at how the matter was covered.

Irish Rail to seek damages from Siemens over carriage repairs

12 November 2006 By Ken Griffin
Irish Rail is seeking damages from engineering giant Siemens over delays to the state’s largest-ever train refurbishment contract, which the company says could affect Dart capacity next year.

Irish Rail is seeking damages from engineering giant Siemens over delays to the state’s largest-ever train refurbishment contract, which the company says could affect Dart capacity next year.

Under the €59 million contract, which was signed in December 2004, Siemens was to modernise 76 20-year-oldDart carriages within two years.

However, just four carriages have been refurbished since then. Another 16 carriages - more than 10 per cent of the Dart fleet - have been at Siemens’ works in Leipzig, Germany, for more than 18 months.

The remaining 56 carriages are still in Ireland after Irish Rail suspended shipments to Siemens in May 2005. According to Irish Rail, the delays have occurred because Siemens was unable to fulfil a condition of its original tender for the contract.‘‘The delays mainly resulted from Siemens’ need to design and supply a new traction system [for the carriages]. Overhaul the existing one, was the basis on which it originally tendered,” said a spokesman for Irish Rail.

He said Irish Rail had told Siemens that it would ‘‘avail of its remedies under the contract’’, including damages. He refused to comment on the extent of these penalties but said that no additional cost would be incurred by the taxpayer or Irish Rail.

He admitted, however, that the pace of refurbishment had to be improved to avoid capacity problems on the Dart from January, when the company plans to increase the number of eight-carriage Dart services.

‘‘The number of vehicles out of service at any time will determine the overall length of the project,” he said. ‘‘This is still under discussion with Siemens and is subject to the successful completion of testing and commissioning of the first four carriages returned.”

Siemens refused to comment, stating that ‘‘our position is that we do not comment on contractual arrangements with our customers’’.