[09/07/2013] Severe delays to/from Heuston (second incident)

[laoisfan]

Originally Posted by Jamie2k9

http://www.irishrail.ie/cat_news.jsp?i=4870&p=116&n=237

Irish Rail are some shower of............

The above link contains a link to the claim form....for the Northern & Eastern lines...basically Connolly Station.

They should be posting up the link for the Southern & Western line....Heuston.

I notice also that that news article is no longer visible on the News & Service Updates section of their website. George Orwell's 1984 springs to mind

[Jamie2k9]

Combining services in hot weather and having them way overcrowded isn't a good mix and as a passenger I would prefer to be on less packed trains and stopped.

I still think their is more than meets the eye, as after the machine was moved, and things got moving, then Cherryville Junction was blocked for 40 minutes, Even after all this services were still taking 2hours to get to Kildare with nothing blocking them, it was lather that evening that the signal fault returned.

If they wanted to they could of pushed the track machine to Kildare by the Westport train but no that would be to sensible so that's why I think it was something with the track.

They should of stopped departures from Heuston and had some bus transfers and not back up lines to from Nass to Inchicore.

[laoisfan]

Originally Posted by Jamie2k9

Combining services in hot weather and having them way overcrowded isn't a good mix and as a passenger I would prefer to be on less packed trains and stopped.

I still think their is more than meets the eye, as after the machine was moved, and things got moving, then Cherryville Junction was blocked for 40 minutes, Even after all this services were still taking 2hours to get to Kildare with nothing blocking them, it was lather that evening that the signal fault returned.

If they wanted to they could of pushed the track machine to Kildare by the Westport train but no that would be to sensible so that's why I think it was something with the track.

They should of stopped departures from Heuston and had some bus transfers and not back up lines to from Nass to Inchicore.

I can understand the over crowding....but lets be honest about this....they really don't give a $hit any other time now do they?

They replied to me on twitter and said they did not have the capacity to combine/merge etc.

Not a swipe at you mate :shake:

[grainne whale]

It's just very poor management from top to bottom.

[Jamie2k9]

Originally Posted by laoisfan

I can understand the over crowding....but lets be honest about this....they really don't give a $hit any other time now do they?

They replied to me on twitter and said they did not have the capacity to combine/merge etc.

Not a swipe at you mate :shake:

They may of not had correct capacity after the Kildare problem, trains for work in Portlaose would of being schedule and then this happened in the middle of the afternoon when trains operate to Dublin for the evening peak.

[Mark Gleeson]

Yesterday was just plain unfortunate

The fatality at Kildare earlier put everything out of order to start with

The maintenance train failure occurred mid afternoon (Kildare was its base), single line working was implemented around the train. And this time since the new signalling was in place it was actually do able unlike incidents in the past where trains could not get in to the loop at Sallins

This left a large portion of the fleet south of Kildare, i.e, not able to get to Dublin for the evening rush

The later Cherryville Junction issue was by standards a relatively straightforward issue.

The only operational issue is that no shuttle service was operated from Hazelhatch to Heuston in the evening and from Newbridge to Heuston in the morning, that's the kind of on the go change that should be automatic. It doesn't help everyone but it gets a significant number of passengers moving to destination and can quickly be shifted to operate through to destination

[laoisfan]

Thanks Mark.

Well I've filled out the Southern & Western refund claim form. Seeing as I am an annual ticket holder (valid until Jan 2014) I've included a photocopy of the annual pass.

[grainne whale]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

Yesterday was just plain unfortunate

The fatality at Kildare earlier put everything out of order to start with

The maintenance train failure occurred mid afternoon (Kildare was its base), single line working was implemented around the train. And this time since the new signalling was in place it was actually do able unlike incidents in the past where trains could not get in to the loop at Sallins

This left a large portion of the fleet south of Kildare, i.e, not able to get to Dublin for the evening rush

The later Cherryville Junction issue was by standards a relatively straightforward issue.

The only operational issue is that no shuttle service was operated from Hazelhatch to Heuston in the evening and from Newbridge to Heuston in the morning, that's the kind of on the go change that should be automatic. It doesn't help everyone but it gets a significant number of passengers moving to destination and can quickly be shifted to operate through to destination

Passengers are very sympathetic regarding fatalities, but signal failure and train breakdowns are a reasonably regular occurrence now.

[Jamie2k9]

Originally Posted by grainne whale

Passengers are very sympathetic regarding fatalities, but signal failure and train breakdowns are a reasonably regular occurrence now.

Wouldn't say breakdowns but whatever signalling we have here is always failing. From living in Europe and commuting twice daily, I never had a signalling problem and this was on partly single line and train crossings were down to perfect timing. Don't know what's different but IE probably went for a cheaper option or the systems they use over in Europe are better than IE's.

It always tends to be the same areas where they happens, so are they being checked often enough, a lot of the time at Cherryville its the points that are the problem.

[grainne whale]

Originally Posted by Jamie2k9

Wouldn't say breakdowns but whatever signalling we have here is always failing. From living in Europe and commuting twice daily, I never had a signalling problem and this was on partly single line and train crossings were down to perfect timing. Don't know what's different but IE probably went for a cheaper option or the systems they use over in Europe are better than IE's.

It always tends to be the same areas where they happens, so are they being checked often enough, a lot of the time at Cherryville its the points that are the problem.

Possibly lack of investment.

[Jamie2k9]

Originally Posted by grainne whale

Possibly lack of investment.

On the Heuston side its all very new.

The DCC signalling which is on hold has a lot to do with the Dublin area commuter network and the daily problems.

[Mark Gleeson]

The problem in Cherryville is probably a detection fault at the junction, on an extremely warm day steel expands and that can cause things to slight move out of alignment, yesterday was the warmest day in 7 years plus the rail temperature would have hit 50C getting close to the pre stress limits

For comparison there has been massive problems in London in recent days as there infrastructure is old and cannot safely cope with the heat.

Having traveled by rail in 15+ countries none are perfect but Irish Rail would be above average. 2 of 6 trains I took in Switzerland last year were late by more than 5 minutes.

[Jamie2k9]

The problem in Cherryville is probably a detection fault at the junction, on an extremely warm day steel expands and that can cause things to slight move out of alignment, yesterday was the warmest day in 7 years plus the rail temperature would have hit 50C getting close to the pre stress limits

I see 50c is a lot, clearly we won't see this weather for a long time but what sort of procedures are in places where this weather is normal and in some places would be considered cold like Madrid.

Since the Cork route was renewed they don't see to have any of these left

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ex...int,_Hayle.jpg

They have these every few miles on the Galway, Waterford route, is there another way for heat to expand tracks?

[grainne whale]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

The problem in Cherryville is probably a detection fault at the junction, on an extremely warm day steel expands and that can cause things to slight move out of alignment, yesterday was the warmest day in 7 years plus the rail temperature would have hit 50C getting close to the pre stress limits

For comparison there has been massive problems in London in recent days as there infrastructure is old and cannot safely cope with the heat.

Having traveled by rail in 15+ countries none are perfect but Irish Rail would be above average. 2 of 6 trains I took in Switzerland last year were late by more than 5 minutes.

Previously a gap was left between rails to cater for this linear expansion, however modern rails do not require this, as coefficient of thermal linear expansion is less. Explaining the delays due to the heat is questionable to say the least.

[laoisfan]

Originally Posted by grainne whale

Previously a gap was left between rails to cater for this linear expansion, however modern rails do not require this, as coefficient of thermal linear expansion is less. Explaining the delays due to the heat is questionable to say the least.

Are you sure about this ? I would have thought all modern railways ( from Irish Rail to the French TGV ) would require some sort of expansion gaps.

[Kilocharlie]

Originally Posted by laoisfan

Are you sure about this ? I would have thought all modern railways ( from Irish Rail to the French TGV ) would require some sort of expansion gaps.

When rails are laid the are stretched so that they are always in tension when the temp is below a certain temperature. Expansion and contraction are absorbed within the rails themselves and movement is restricted by having heavy sleepers and wide bases on the rails. In Ireland the 'certain temp' is about 50C rail temp or 26-27 air temp. Problems happen when rails go from tension to compression when track can lift.

There are no expansion joints in the KPR. They can be found around points and crossovers where its not always possible to tension the rails.

[grainne whale]

Originally Posted by laoisfan

Are you sure about this ? I would have thought all modern railways ( from Irish Rail to the French TGV ) would require some sort of expansion gaps.

Apparently not nowadays, that gap was what gave you the 'clickidy click' in years gone by. I can't remember where I picked that up - possibly Nationwide - they featured Irish Rail a number of year ago. There was one statistic I remember as well, the Dublin to Cork track is renewed every few years as they are always doing ongoing maintenance. Pity about the rest of the service, ha, ha.

[ACustomer]

Generally Continuous Welded Rail (CWR) is stressed by heating it before finally clamping it. Given that steel wants to expand/contract as temperature rises/falls the trick is to avoid excessive tensile stress in very cold weather and excessive compressive stress stress in very hot weather. These stresses can lead to rails fracturing in the cold or buckling in the heat.

As Ireland has a temperate climate, these issues are less acute than in countries with a continental climate, with temperatures frequently ranging from -10c to + 40c. A problem on some lines (notably the Nenagh line) is that stressing may not have been done as part of the CWR relay - something which would have catastrophic consequences in central Spain.

[ACustomer]

Renewal of rails in Ireland should not be such a big issue: arguably sleepers, ballast and drainage are more critical. Given the low traffic levels, Irish rail life should be quite long in many places.

There are expansion joints in CWR track: adjacent rail lengths can have about a metre of overlap with the ends cut away at an angle (a bit like point blades, but of course not allowed any lateral separation): this allows the overlapping ends to expand or contract quite a lot.

Sorry, but it's hard to describe this without a diagram.

[grainne whale]

Originally Posted by ACustomer

Renewal of rails in Ireland should not be such a big issue: arguably sleepers, ballast and drainage are more critical. Given the low traffic levels, Irish rail life should be quite long in many places.

There are expansion joints in CWR track: adjacent rail lengths can have about a metre of overlap with the ends cut away at an angle (a bit like point blades, but of course not allowed any lateral separation): this allows the overlapping ends to expand or contract quite a lot.

Sorry, but it's hard to describe this without a diagram.

Thanks for the information, yep I've often seen the sleepers maked with yellow paint that are to be replaced, especially as I frequently spend a lot of time waiting on platform 4 at Hazelhatch for trains that are running late in the mornings.