[zag]

I was stuck in this earlier this morning. Got on a train which had been sitting in Booterstown for about 10 minutes. An announcement came on saying that there was a 15 minute delay. 5 minutes later an announcement came on saying there was a 20 minute delay . . . at least they were providing realtime information, after a fashion. I imagine if we hadn't moved off a few minutes later they would have been on a little later to tell us about the 25 minute delay.

Once I heard it was the barriers at Landsdowne I knew it wasn't going to be an easy passage.

We shot out of Booterstown, across the level crosssing and sat outside Sydney Parade for a further few minutes. After getting to Sydney Parade the driver came on and said we would all probably be better getting the bus because there was a string of trains ahead of him all waiting to get past Landsdowne.

Long story . . . short . . . I got back on the same train in Pearse about 40 minutes later after walking half way into town and getting on the only bus that passed that way.

Here's the question - when something like this takes place and they eventually re-open the crossing, why can't they simply send all the backlog past the problem instead of insisting that every train stop at every station, further increasing the backlog ?

I appreciate that some people (in this situation) would have been getting off at Sandymount, Sydney Parade, etc . . . but the vast majority would have been going through into town. They could stop each train at one station with an announcement that there would be a 'stopping train' following on in X minutes. Then just close the barriers at Landsdowne and send the trains which are backed up all the way to Monkstown through. They could do some short runnings to Grand Canal Dock if they were ever allowed use the extra platform there.

The way I see it, whenever there is a backlog like this it seems to take an unduly huge amount of time to clear it up *after* the actual blockage has been removed.

z