Irish Rail seeking director of train operations
 

https://jobs.theguardian.com/job/680...-undertaking-/

Wow - 100 million tons of freight !!!

One hopes that the Director of Train operations can sort out the self inflicted mess that now afflicts virtually all services on the "Connolly" side of the operation.

The new timetable has exceeded all expectations in terms of its disruptive and destructive impact all to provide a 10 minute off peak DART service for which there is little or no demand in any event.

What are the current lot doing who are tasked with the job besides failing to grasp or deal with the problems. Another level of managers/directors means more book passing!

CEO could stand in Connolly for a half hour in the morning and evening to see for himself what a mess it is. Perhaps its time driver training resumed and 2 more could be hired for the same price as this new person.

The CEO's position is really easy

My unit costs are declining
Record passenger numbers

Passengers are just a obstruction towards cutting costs further.

Is Director of Train Operations a new post within IE Senior Management? The Guardian job description goes well beyond what most sensible people would think of a "train operations", such as industrial relations. The ad also speaks of core IE values of "team work and customer centricity" (sic), the latter being surely a new level of bulls**t managerialspeak.

Basically this is just a deputy CEO position, from the job description, except calling it that would leave IE open to the charge of having too many managers, so better invent a totally new and misleading title .

Its a real job and a seat a the table.

There is a director of infrastructure so a director of train operations isn't unreasonable

In the old days it would be GM Intercity and GM Suburban

Isn’t this simply recruiting for a replacement for Jim Meade (now CEO) in the Director, Railway Undertaking role (basically head of railway operations), albeit with a different title?

You don't honestly believe anything will change with this appointment do you?

There is still MarkIVs parked up doing nothing yet there are still scenes like when capacity is cut (unconfirmed) most likely due to a failure but still not exactly acceptable.

https://twitter.com/collinsf/status/1063449780712550406

The only good thing is the ICR on Belfast runs was very short lived and they had to stop them and hopefully for good. Little surprised they were as considerate to customers on routes they were purchased for.

There aren’t any Mk 4 sets in storage. They are all in use on rotation.

As I understand it the maintenance requirements were too tight previously so hence less sets are now in daily use.

ICR covers the first round trip to Belfast during the leaf fall season due to the locomotives suffering severe low rail adhesion north of Dundalk.

They coped for 20 years on the route, using the ICR is the easy way out. Last year they had capacity, this year they had to use the spare ICR and have now had to stop it. From what I understand it returned to Drogheda to stable each day therefore not available if required. ICRs should not be operating Belfast services, no excuses. If they could have got away with removing it from the 07.19 ex Newbridge it would still be operating to Belfast today.

Didn't IE remove sanding equip out of 201s in the past, prehaps it should be re-installed on a few?

There is not 6 Mark IVs in full time usage and they still have a spare set. This must be addressed because its frankly unacceptable that a 7 car ICR operates the 19.00 to Cork Friday. If there are maintenance issues (I don't believe this excuse) then its up to IE to sort them out. They were generally reliable towards the late 2000s.

I fully appreciate the fleet is under serious pressure however it doesn't mean IE cannot provide a better service.

It was at a talk at some point that a member of CME staff said that the Mark 4 sets were under too much pressure. As I understand it there are 6 sets in daily use, the sixth coming out later in the day (earlier on Fridays and weekends).

That leaves one full spare set and then a second as maintenance cover.

As for Belfast - the LRA causes massive issues on the first northbound train on the bank north of Dundalk. That is a fact - I’ve experienced it which you clearly have not. It crawled and I mean crawled. It could barely move.

This is the third year they have temporarily used an ICR to cover that trip - the loco hauled trains are ok after that.

As far as I know the ICR has now been removed from Belfast as the issue has diminished to manageable levels. Nothing more than that. I think you’re adding two and two and making five!

I fully accept its bad on Belfast route, if the refurb didn't happen the ICRs would unlikely have passed the border so again I refer back to the fact for 20 years they didn't have such an option and coped all be it with problems.

They don't even run the washer on the line. Yes i know it does commuter runs but doesn't mean they couldn't make a better effort around other problem areas. Removing sanding from 201's makes the problem worse and there is no accountability for that.

This year could probally be considered a good year but it was removed in a hurry last week (?) because it was a case of remove it or cut capacity on one of the Heuston rosters.

As for the MarkIVs been "overused", the failure rate is likely 201 heavy than MarkIV and surely changes to maintenance practices and or extra staff would solve most of this problem.

NIR have been running their washer wagon to Newry but only once a week (Sunday afternoons)

Good to know ideally IE should be running Drogheda-Newry and possibly Heuston-Kildare once a week.

I am open to correction but they used to run other areas on the network years ago when they had a second machine. On the plus side they did decide to fit 2600 fleet with sandite equipment. A couple of 201s need there's restored.