"Customer Service"

[portarlington_user]

Yesterday evening arrived to Heuston to get the 20 to 7 train home. As per usual the boarding was delayed and we were still waiting at quarter to 7 to get on. The Q beside us for the 19:05 started boarding on platform 4 so me and the 3 people I was with decided to take our chances and get on that train and if we thought the 18:40 was going to go first we'd just run across the platform and hop on. While walking up alongside the 18:40 we noticed in the drivers car at the end of the train a conference taking place between about 5 luminous orange jackets. This never looks healthy so we saw another jacket walking towards us and thought we'd ask for some friendly advice from a reliable member of IE staff as to which train he thought would leave first.
My friend: " Hi, can you tell us what the delay with the 18:40 train is?"
Jacket: " No", served with a nice blank stare
Friend: " Do you have any idea which train will leave first?"
Jacket: "Are you going to Galway?"
Friend: "No, Portarlington"
His mobile rings, he rolls his eyes at us, 'shoos' us away with his hand while shaking head and walks away.

That pretty much sums up the level of so called Customer Service we can expect from Irish rail, totally unbelievable. My jaw actually dropped! Unfortunately he was gone so fast I never asked for his name.

[Mark Gleeson]

I was in the queue as well and what I think was a senior IE manager legged it at about 18:35 out of Heuston he was at the top of the queue, at that point we copped a problem

Word spread and a good few changed to the 19:05, I got the 19:00 to Cork. The 18:40 did leave at 18:50. Tom Stamp stuck it out and the 19:00 overtook him in Port Loaise

No explanation was given

[portarlington_user]

yeah as it happened we ended up getting off the 19:05 and got on the 18:40 when the gates opened.

An aside: I was on the 90 bus up to Heuston at about quarter past 6. The supervisor type guy who organises the buses coming and going got on the bus with us, and I heard him talking on his radio thing. He caught my attention when I'm fairly sure he mentioned 18:40 and carried on to speak to someone telling them to hang on and don't leave until quarter to 7 as there was a 90 on it's way up.
Now he could have been talking about another bus leaving Heuston but when I got there there were no other buses. Is it possible that they can control trains leaving later than schedule during heavy traffic?

[Thomas J Stamp]

Nah, that set (6102) does get a lot of breakdowns, from the control cab end. There were indeed six jackets in the cab as i passed, and another inside the first carraige. Noticbale that it took off like the proverbial rocket and we were spared the hanging around Ballybrophy.

Was ten mins late all the way though, and the 1900 was only about two mins behind at Portlaoise.

[Mark Gleeson]

19:00 stopped outside Sallins and in Portarlington but we really ate the miles once we overtook the 18:40, 36.4 miles from Portloaise to Thurles including a stop in Ballybrophy took 31 minutes

For reasons unknown the 19:00 also called in Ballybrophy costing a further 4 minutes delay, no explanation of the delay which was 12 minutes by Thurles, there was no catering trolley on 19:00 and the train was not actually powered up when I boarded so seat res was not on when most boarded