Kildare Line Service - 6.58 Hazelhatch to Heuston 27/08/2007
 

At about 07.10 morning it was announced over the PA that the 06.58 train was cancelled due to technical failure.

A few matters arise.

If the train was cancelled further down the line - the status was known about well before 07.10 - Why were passengers not advised earlier? If passengers had been notified on arrival at the station many could have availed of the early Morton busses.

The following train (due in Hazelhatch at 7.22) arrived about 15 minutes late and was pretty packed. There was no announcement as to this train's time of arrival status at any stage.

None of the train staff made any effort to ask on board passengers to move down the carraiges to let those on the platform board the train - so quite a bit on time was lost as boarding passengers had to force their way past those passengers who were unwilling to move down the carraiges.

The Hazelhatch PA system is virtually inaudible when the announcent is made from the central location (Connolly?). It is fine when used by the local Hazelhatch staff.

there was probably a knock-on effect; the 8:35 arrow from Kildare never appeared, a Cork-Dublin express made an unscheduled stop in Kildare to pick up passengers at around 8:40.

I was on the cancelled train. The Arrow (29000) stopped in Newbridge on time @ 0640 but failed to pull away.

No announcements were made until about 0655 when we were told to detrain and board the Waterford Early Bird. This is always late on a Monday and it arrived in Newbridge @ about 0715.

No other announcements were heard (by me anyway!!)

This gets to me more often than not. Whether you are on an Intercity, DART or Commuter is the same issue there is more room than people think.

MarkG has pointed out so many times before, we may complain that trains are packed to capacity they're not. they're designed to handle so much more than we think. It's the people who make it look as if it is. The driver and pa can help things by making an announcement but in all honesty can they be responsible for passengers behaviour and reaction to these announcements?

If you were on a packed train and you saw room and passengers were crammed up against the door area would you scream/ask them to move up to let more people on? I've done it twice recently but only after being on the other side myself before, i would have never thought of doing it! as long as you were on the train would you care if passengers couldn't get on?

This along with passengers not moving down to the end carriages gets to me. I arrived for a train months ago noticing that there passengers standing half way on the train unable to get on. despite the driver saying move down towards the end carriages they wouldn't. the train drove off leaving them behind and much to my shock the last two carriages were empty!

To be honest I think that IE can deal with this by educating passengers with a few advertisements. because its amazing how blind passengers are to reality on the railways.

More for buses than trains, but I've stood on people making my way past them to get a seat. I then sit for 15-20 and stnad on the same people on the way out again. Petit Darwinism.

I made the point in another thread about IE advertising more in the area of safety and customer service initiatives. This is an area Im very interested in and an area that IE fails everytime.

I suggest that Barry Kenny and his well paid department take a long hard look at their remit. Good TV campaigns, backed up by on the ground organisation, can make a huge difference. But IE would rather spend fortunes on reminding farmers to close accomodation crossings, so poor little lambs don't get killed. In a day and age, where rail journies are on the rise, overcrowding is rampant and the general experience of rail travel is unpleasant for many, its about time that IE spent some of the cash on relevent ad campaigns that help passengers to help themselves. Its about awareness. No more stupid PR bull**** with Craig Doyle. More safety and customer service driven campaigns. Or both. They have the dosh. Full stop.

An alomost exact repeat happened today, only this time it took 20 mins before we hit the platform!!

29000's were supposed to be the most reliable unit, does anyone know what the issue was?

I know it's little comfort, but, if this happens and you get to your destination more than 60 minutes later than timetabled, are you entitled to a 50% refund?

Supposedly. I've applied twice, got it once (when I had a reservation) and refused the other time because I couldn't prove I'd been on the particular train in question (there were others the same day delayed 50 minutes).