Refurbished enterprise failure
 

1650 Belfast currently lying failed at Harmonstown

Doors broken apparently, how that happened outside a station I have no idea.

Been stuck on the DART behind it to Malahide for the last 20 minutes at Kilester, driver advised people to take taxis since it could be quite a while.

I was hoping that today would be a rare stress free commute home avoiding the 17:58 DART crush at Clontarf, but alas not!

After about a 30 minute delay, Northbound Darts used Southbound platforms at Harmonstown, Raheny, Kilbarrack, before reverting to usual platform at Howth Junction.

Enterprise was still stuck there at the time we went through Harmonstown.

Passengers off the Belfast are being turfed out at Harmonstown, train will go empty to Clongriffin. No current arrangements for onward journey.

Developing into a real classic - a real horror story for abandoned passengers ?

Looks that way.Apart from the one tweet about the service being stopped about 45 minutes there is no information whatsoever on that Enterprise service, really feel for the passengers.

The NI Railways website mentions no disruption, and even lists the service as running on time. Not even any mention of any issue with DARTS or Commuter service let alone enterprise on IrishRail.ie.

Since it is a refurbished set obviously it causing such chaos would create a lot of unwelcome bad press, so it almost seems that they are trying to avoid drawing too much attention to it.

16:50 Dublin Connolly to Belfast Central will terminate at Dundalk...This train will no longer call at Newry, Portadown, Lisburn and Belfast Central.

Passengers for Dundalk will use local Irish Rail service. Passengers for cross Border will use 19.00 Dublin to Belfast service (boarding at Dundalk).

Really impressive !

Downright lie from translink it terminated at Harmonstown and left empty for Belfast with a door on 9204 half open. I know for a fact this is the third door fault on 9204 since it came back but the first causing a train failure

Very random for doors to break en route, could be a serious issue for such a fault to show up on a moving train or something worse....

I am one of the extatic 1650 passengers who have just left Dundalk 23 late on the 1900 ex Dublin. Thought it would be packed but I am.in.the front car of 22039 with several empty seats ( we were taken from Harmonstown to Dundalk on the 1713 ex Pearse)

The first tweet that Translink made said that the train was delayed as the result of a broken down train, rather than stating it broke down itself, check out the below tweet.

https://twitter.com/nirailways/statu...50616189771776

Every tweet from Translink tonight refers to disruption to the service but does not give a reason why or mention a fault, there is a lot of face saving going on here it seems and very little information.

Irish Rail are happy to talk a lot about disruption to DART and commuter services on their twitter but next to no information on the enterprise disruption tonight.

I'm curious what it was, something must have happened en-route, or maybe there were some warning signs before the train left Connolly or on it's previous journey?

However there was a lot of rowing back going on, the driver on our DART clearly said doors the first two announcements, the station announcements first said doors on Enterprise, then operational problem on Enterprise, then just a delay due to a train broken down at Harmonstown.

The return working is now showing an unspecified delay.

It will be around 2135 before 1900 gets to Belfast it is behind 2045 all stops Portadown-GVS

they have just done something unheard of 2045 looped at Lisburn for us to overtake !!!

It was the door.

A speed picks up there are some forces on the door, especially passing under bridges or when a train passes the other way.

Why the door could not simply be closed and locked out of service I don't know.

Clongriffin is the easiest place to dump the train, passing loop there is handy

Still out of service this morning

Being replaced with a 6 car unit.

How can a train that has just been refurbished have so many problems in the limited time it has been back in service?

It speaks volumes about the quality of the refurbishment.

On 1405 this afternoon, already 15 late. How far will it get??

Arrived into Connolly approx 30 mins late. 16:51

16:50 Dublin Connolly to Belfast Central due 19:05 This train has been delayed from Dublin Connolly by 12 minutes, will be further delayed at Dundalk and is expected to be 25 minutes late.

The 1100 ex Dublin this morning was a single C3K not becuase of a train.failure but because Lisburn to Belfast was closed due to signal failure and the southbound train started in Portadown. Serious signal failures on translink are becoming more common, that is the third this week

What were the other two ? Was today's self inflicted like Lurgan a few weeks ago.

Both on the line between Belfast and Coleraine. I don't know what caused this morning's failure

The biggest single source of disruption on today's railways are signalling failures. Some of these are minor but any event that requires the suspension of services is major and disturbing. There are occasions when a partial suspension is the appropriate response as a degraded signalling system can such such delays as to make suspension the lesser of two evils.

This, like so many other handicaps of modern railway operations, is something which was virtually unknown on the traditional railway where signal box failures were generally confined to a fire or structural collapse.

Irish Rail from the same phenomenum with Heuston, Kildare, Portarlington, Clonsilla, Maynooth and DART locations featuring on a reasonably regular basis.

The other problem especially in Dublin is the fact that we have two line two platform stations everywhere so when something breaks down it blocks pretty much everything and everything gets stuck. The infrastructure for turn back and refugee / recovery sidings is woefully underdeveloped, it's a joke that in a capital city one train breaking down can take down the entire network.

If you remember following culture night in 2014 there were MANY signal failures at a regular basis at exactly the same time of the day for several weeks before they eventually called some external experts in to look at it and apparently they found the problem very quickly.

Only logical reason is they are not been maintained enough however there has been a big improvement in DART, Howth J was almost a weekly problem last winter especially after they just replaced the points and that seems't to be gone. DART seem's to be having a good run lately generally.

I wouldn't say Heuston side features very often, granted Portarlington went down on Wednesday (late night) but there has been no major disruption since the ESB failure at Kildare a few weeks ago and prior to that I can't recall another recent one.

I thought Sallins was in trouble in the last few weeks, Blakestown last Monday and DART at least once last week (not Merrion).

Think that was a train fault a few weeks ago, even if a signal issue I wouldn't put Heuston into the same box as the disasters which happens through Connolly week in week out whether it be signal/bridge/LC been hit/medical issues etc.

Signal failure at Raheny caused delays this morning

There are delays on the Heuston route each week ie signalling issues, technical issues, we get the same 'old apologies' the 07.52am train from Hazelhatch to Heuston hasn't run on time for about 2 weeks - it showed up this morning about 15mins late. Perhaps when the new timetable is published it should have printed of the front "The Fairy Tales of Ireland" - turn up on the hour and on the half hour you might catch a train.

more signal failures
 

Two for the price of one it seems:

Delays of up to 25mins to DART services due to signal fault in Bray, services currently suspended between Bray/Greystones. [1 hour ago]

Update: Services have resumed between Bray & Greystones following earlier signal fault, delays of up to 25mins to DART services as a result. [ 37 min ago ]

Update: Delays of up to 30mins to DART services due to signal fault in Bray, services currently suspended between Bray/Greystones. [ 3 min ago ]

as of 1331 Dublin time 22.12.2015

Last time I posted something positive about IE there was a spate of signal faults again. Maybe next time I will say nothing.

Lets hope it doesn't turn into a repeat of what happened in late Autumn / early Winter last year when faults at the same place appeared over and over again

The issue last year was a very specific issue, GE Signalling had to fix an issue with the code. That issue will never happen again, the signalling system was fully functional at all times, just that running it without a computer isn't fun

Water and track circuits don't mix and that generally is the problem

They have been known to fail between Belfast and Antrim when there is very heavy rain.

Anyway back to the refurbished enterprise. 1405 left Belfast 26 late due to mechanical problem on set and is currently showing 29 late at Newry

It missed out Lisburn as well.

32 late ex Drogheda. Problem this time was failure of locomotive 206 at Belfast Central, 208 was brought from the depot to replace it

37 late now meaning ETA 1654. 1650 Belfast will be at least 10 late

Just gone through Malahide at 1640 directly behind a local from Drogheda which in turn is directly behind a DART. Return 1650 will probably be at least 20 minutes late and maybe double that by the time it gets to Drogheda. Yet again the lack of overtaking facilities compound the original delay.

1520 to Belfast delayed by DART failure at Killester.

IE Real time shows 1650 23 late passing Clontarf Road

I actually got to Clongriffin tonight and on getting off heard the sound of a loco before the doors even opened on the DART.

At first when I heard the sound before I saw anything, I fully expected to see the enterprise carriages attached but it was just on it's own and appears to be waiting for something in the loop platform.

The failure of a DART explains the odd sighting of a 4 car DART going southbound out of service at Raheny, I guess it turned back at Clongriffin. thank god for the loop there, even if it's only one way.

Just noticed 0800 ex Belfast was 27 late today but no idea why