[article] Enough Empty Trains to get to the Moon
 

Sunday Tribune, today, front page.

Waiting for the online edition to post the full text

Front page of Tribune:

http://www.tribune.ie/news/article/2...t-to-the-moon/

and inside:

http://www.tribune.ie/news/home-news...off-the-rails/

Would be good if they'd checked their facts. For example it says there is no service from the city to Greystones before 0825, but a Rosslare service leaves Connolly at 0726 and calls there.

Its not phrased well, first train to arrive Greystones does so at 8:24. First DART service arrives 9:19 (but it only runs from Bray). The first real service arrives at 10:23am! There are 6 empty Bray Greystones DART services ahead of the 8:24.

Anytime I've travelled to Greystones a significant number of passengers joined at Bray

Well there's a railcar service gets to Bray in time to meet that first DART. But I suppose they have a good point overall.

This was front page of the Metro today also.

great work guys, well done

Provide a bit more detail to this

The total distance is over 516,000km per annum, this does not include all empty trains just those of interest, so the Saturday Ballina Drogheda empty isn't there, nor is the Inchicore Connolly Inchicore empty railcar. The figures can't be denied and Irish Rail haven't tried

The highlights

18:50 Howth Bray empty despite a 24 minute gap between services
22:00 Heuston Portlaois empty despite a promise to have a later train to Portlaois
4:30 Connolly Arklow empty, runs in service to Rosslare from Arklow, would be handy for the ferry
21:55 Ballina Claremorris on a Friday
21:10 Longford Connolly empty, why can't it stay the night and operate in place of the morning train from Enfield?
5:50 Connolly Enfield
4:10 Connolly Gorey, why can't it run at 22:00?

Then there is a the crazy Galway Dublin empty and Athlone Dublin empty and indeed a Dublin Athlone empty. 90 odd other ones to go with them.

Today FM 16:40 tonight

I can't wait to see how Irish Rail dig themselves out of this mess

Hi, I'm the author of the Tribune piece. As Mark said, I was refering to the arrival time into Greystones rather than the departure time from the city. Any confusion is due to my phrasing rather than lack of research. It took me three weeks to carry out all the work involved.

Regards,
Ken Griffin

Any chance of a podcast/recording Mark, i'm snapping I missed it!

Will do shortly

Should be here http://www.radioireland.ie/lastword/2992008-16.wmv about 10 minutes in


Edit

http://www.railusers.ie/podcasts/aud...hostTrains.mp3

Thanks for the clarification and apologies for assuming the negative.

However, if a journalist can't phrase things clearly and concisely (when writing is his job) how can he criticise others??

LC

Just two quick points: (a) I wasn't criticising IE's mastery of the English language so there is no hypocracy involved and (b) the sentence makes perfect sense but I hadn't realised that it could be read in a different way.

Unfortunately, with the sheer amount of writing we have to do, the occasional phrase which is open to different interpretations sometimes creeps in.

Regards,
Ken

I read the text in the article as meaning arrival in Greystones

Dick fearn had a letter in this mornings Metro in response. Movements are vital to allow for early starts...

Curiously enough the key complaints is not the early starts

Its the 18:50 Howth Bray, 22:00 Heuston Portlaois and so on

Irish Rail seem to want to both ways, when they got caught spending €70,000 per annum on taxis to Longford, they relocated the drivers to Longford problem solved

Curiously the solution isn't workable elsewhere. Until IE place staff in Gorey a late evening service isn't a runner

How many crews are at Longford - and how many trains start there? A Gorey starter is only likely to require two shifts - a morning and an evening. Factor in spare cover for rest days, leave, sickness, training etc, and you would need at least 4 crews to cover those two shifts - three if it was Monday - Friday only, although even this would probably require additional cover from Dublin. Less, and reliability will be poor. Cost is too great for the amount of traffic likely to be on offer.

There are (I believe) crews at Portlaoise. I share the frustration about the evening train which runs empty, but suspect that as the trains worked by the new units has varied during the introduction period so has the time of movements to and from the new depot - as well as the effect of the KRP works. As the letter in Metro says, this will be consolidated when the new fleet is fully up and running. Having said that, driving down the N7/M7 at about that time in the evening it is near empty after Naas, so again how much of a market is there is open to debate.

LC

woah there!!

When the fleet is up and running? That date is in two months. The draft timetable for December is already being poured over. So, it is either there for next year or it isnt. The trains are there. So, whats the missing element? Why is it missing? Whose job is it to ensure it isnt missing?