Platform 11 have no interest in lobbying for rail frieght. If you wanted to start a group lobbying for frieght we would deal with you (something like MoT) but we (the committee) have enough going on without doing what we consider flogging a dead horse. :)

If you are intested in starting a group and would like some help send Derek a mail about it.

ok
thanks for the feedback guys :D
Kinda got the impression from IRN alright that they mostly dont care about service but just prefer to take pictures.

If you think the people on IRN don't like 201's here's what they've got to say about railcars

Doesn'nt matter that thousands travel on them daily not knowing or caring about whats up front (or not)

You're spot on there Colmoc.
They just want freight for photos not for any commercial or economic reason even empty boxes or wagons will do as long as theres a loco (not 201) pulling it around for no good reason.

What we want is a boringly reliable railway which just works, thats completely against the I photo something different mantra

To be fair to Irish Rail they run a decent fleet, the 29K is putting in 50,000 miles per failure thats not far off the DART and easily 3 to 5 times the best the UK can manage even with kit with the same engines, the 29K is possibly the most reliable DMU in the world.

Ah yes but what beautiful, powerful, glorious photos...you can almost feel the throbbing...
(sorry nearly got carried away there. You know what I'm like about locomotive-hauled freight trains.)

As you may have noticed the committee is unaminous about freight - it's great but its not a part of the P11 remit - passengers are.

That dosnt mean in the slightest that freight cannot be discussed here on the message board in fact I would personaly encourage realistic debate on it (no Foynes rubbish please) if fopr no other reason that we know who reads these boards and it may be useful for them to hear suggestions.

Just trying to get an idea of the state of non passenger movement in IE since I have very limited knowledge of this. I was wondering

Is fast trak a seperate entity from passenger rail and is it a profitable section of IE?
What are fastrak able to carry in terms of size volume etc :confused:

Fasttrack is actually a parcel service where you use the train to get stuff from station to station. I have used it to get documents from down here in Tipp up to the Four Courts and the various registries. Problem is getting it to and from the station, you need a courier to get it to your home station and another one to pick up. I know one courier firm that uses it a lot to get stuff down country and local taxis to get it form the station but pretend (and charge joe sod) on the pretext that they have driven the parcell to the destination themselves.

Dont know about size limitations but it is only a parcel service. If there's a white van man anywhere near the board he might be able to fill you in.

A mate of mine worked for Fasttrack and complained that they had to compete with a courier firm that hired OAPs to carry parcels for free around the network. Smart, huh?

Im your very own white van man!

Fastrack will not take anything more than a "parcel", that cannot be lifted by one person comfortably. Ive had very many experiences of parcels being refused at offices, because they were "too heavy", eventhough, they may be no be bigger than a shoebox. No joke. Honestly. (I'll come back with exact weight)

In modern day terms, a large printer(for a pc) or small photocopier will be deemed too heavy and not be carried as one unit. We all know that you cant take them apart and pack seperately.

So Fasttrak is not exactly a courier service as I thought rather an crap postal service but faster.
If they dont take things the size of a small office printer then they are doing themselves out of alot of business.
So fasttrak dont have any contracts with local couriers to get items to and from the station which is crazy.

whats the point in having to ring a courier to bring your item to the station then ring fasttrack to bring the item to say dublin then ring another courier to bring it to its drop off point

The ideal would be to take anything that could be reasonably easily moved without a pallet lift and have local couriers contracted to collect and drop off the items from the station. one point of contact minimal hassle.
Do fastrak have any contracts for the likes of UPS or DHL??

On the "trainspotters" (IRN) issue, yes I do get the impression that many of them are British-based and see Irish Rail as a wonderful quriky old system that has lots of loco-hauled stuff which is strange and different. They've no interest in the network other than as a living museum of ancient GM locomotives.

It's a bit like having a vintage car enthusiast dissussing motorway planning.

IE isn't a theme park for trainspotters, nor should it ever be. We have train-based themeparks for that sort of thing.

The 201s, Commuters, CDEs, Enterprises, DARTs and arrows may be boring and modern, but they're doing what railways are meant to do and what all of those old quirky technologies did to the best of their ability in their day - move a huge number of people as efficiently, comfortably and rapidly as possible.

Would these guys also like to see Aer Lingus doing transatlantic flying boats?!

We had similar arguments morning the demise of operator-switched telephone services in the west of ireland. "the friendly voice of the operator being replaced by heartless monotonous digitally produced tones." back in the early 80s. --- However, I don't think many people in rural areas were complaining!

Fastrack do offer a door to door service that can be same day or overnight. While they have a fleet of vans, they also use a company called GLS.The most popular method, though, is station to station.

At the moment all Fastrack movements on the Sligo and Wexford/Rosslare lines is carried by van as the railcars have no space for parcels.

Ive christened it...."fastruck".:D

Question:

will the Mitsui IC railcars be able to take FastTrack parcels?

I would imagine so, Sean, they are proper intercity trains, the ones we have at the moment, even though they are doing intercity work, are commuter trains. The new DMUs will even have food facilities, they will be the same as what we have at the mo except the engines might be underfloor.

Have at look at the mitsu website, I would pay real money for that to be our DMU!!! It might even get the IRN lads excited.

I would imagine there will be a small van section next to the driver's cab at one end, similar to what's on the Enterprise. The configuration might be something like: Driver's Cab-Van Compartment-First class seating.

Otherwise, we'll no longer be able to bring bicycles on IC trains, which would not be popular.

As far as I know, the order will be split between 3-car sets and 6-car sets. I would expect some differences in the level of facilities provided on each - the 6-car sets might have a full restaurant car while the 3-car ones only have a trolley service, but I would think the van section will be a requirement on both.

We'll find out for sure at the end of the year!

There must be a better way for railfreight though. Its sickening to be caught in places like Gort behind countless container, cement and fertilizer lorries, I know Gort station is closed but surely there is a market for somebody to lease a lot of the dead yards like Ennis, Athenry etc. and make money from bulk buying cement, fertilizer etc., getting it delivered to the yard in full train loads and supplying to local customers.

Apparently the yard in Tuam is full of fertilizer, I know I've seen fertilizer in the Ennis yard recently. How is it more economical to transfer the stuff on maybe 18 individual trucks instead of one train?

It appears to me that there is no will to get stuff back on the tracks and off the road.

Most fertiliser went by rail but IFI closed down since then its all imports

Most of the freight business was withdrawn by third parties who ceased trading, new business is not an option since the DoT refuse to fund an inch of new track for freight, eg Lisheen mine

Does the fertilizer arrive at the port in bags and on pallets etc? I know nothing about it but if it arrived in Cork by ship then surely its economical to move full train loads of it to somewhere like Ballina or Dundalk?

Same goes for bagged cement, I assume its bagged in somewhere like Limerick, can they not fill a train and move it to places like Waterford in one movement.

(You'll probably tell me that all the fertilizer arrives into Foynes:D )

It just doesn't add up for me, kegs, cement etc. one train bringing it across the country instead of maybe ~18 trucks, how can it not be at least competitive?

This is business and road is significantly cheaper

Diageo moved to road not since rail wasn't doing a good job but since the road option was cheaper