Packed 4-coach 22k this morning
 

The 4 coach 22k has made an appearance on the 0545 from Sligo this morning. All seats gone in the rear coach at Enfield and seriously packed in from Maynooth. I guess this is the future but it makes for a significantly less comfortable journey in return for a 10% fare increase.

Hard to justify 2 vehicles all the way from Sligo just for Maynooth passengers.

The thing is I'm not just talking about Maynooth. There were people standing from Enfield which is almost an hour from Connolly on this train. If you have to do this 5 times a week, it gets old pretty quickly.

There is also the comfort factor for those of us coming from further out. I spend 3.5 hours per day on the train and have been doing so for 9 years with little prospect of any change in the near future given the dire state of the economy in the midlands. The only thing that makes it bearable is the comfort of having an empty seat beside you for a good chunk of the journey so that you can spread out a bit to make it easier to get a bit of work done. Yes, it's a bit of a first-world problem to be complaining about the lack of space but losing the space at the same time as a massive fare hike sticks in the craw just a bit.

It is perfectly justifiable to run 2 extra cars from Sligo give that this train fills a 2-hour hole in the Longford commuter timetable and so is the the train that several hundred people in Longford, Edgeworthstown, Mullingar, Enfield and Kilcock depend on for the ability to earn a livelihood. If Irish Rail can't afford the diesel they could consider stabling 2 or 3 extra cars in Longford overnight and hitching it up there.

As I said elsewhere, there is going to be an element of trial and error on this while the set reformation process is under way.

While you may get away with a 4 piece set on the next two departures, I'd suspect that this one will have to remain 2 x 3 piece.

There is a lot of equipment tied up on the Sligo line - six car sets appear to be an overkill in many instance, while three car sets are inadequate. Having said that, standing for an hour is unacceptable. Perhaps the 0545 from Sligo should run non-stop from Mullingar with a following service from Enfield.

Running a following stopping service doesn't really work as it would have to be at least 20 minutes behind and the 0545 gets you to town on time for 9AM. Adding another three cars in either Mullingar or Longford would work but the problem is that the two Longford-based drivers have left for the day running two earlier services and I guess you would have to have a driver in each set.

There is a lot of equipment tied up on the Sligo line primarily because there is a lot of traffic between Longford and Dublin but it is very strongly biased towards Dublin in the morning and away from Dublin in the afternoon.

But even services like the 15:05 to Sligo will run something like 70 - 80% full to Mullingar with a 6 car ICR. Cutting the capacity on the Sligo line is just stupid - all they are doing is driving business away. They will very quickly find themselves running 4 cars in place of 6 at the same occupancy level and while they will save something like 5-10% on running costs, they will find themselves losing 25-30% on income.

If they want to save money on the Sligo line, the way to go about it is to find ways of delivering more capacity to Longford without having it going to Sligo.

As I said above, there's probably scope for the 05:45 to remain 6-car along with the 17:05 return, but I'd imagine that all the other Sligo services will become 4-car or remain 3-car.

Fridays may require reconfigurating beyond that to match with the increased demand.

It's a lot quieter this week but it normally is quiet the week after a bank holiday. It will be interesting to see if traffic stabilises at a lower level.

On a related note, wasn't there an issue with a lack of sanding equipment that was preventing reformation of 22Ks into 4-car units? How did they ever get around that or did they just ignore it. The leaf-slip season seems to be a lot worse this year than it was last year but I guess it could just be something to do with the weather.

The centre car on a 3 car has no sanding equipment, some 4 car should have 1 B1 car and so should be better in poor conditions, but not all

Its unknown if mods were made to create more B1 cars

DART appears to be the main issue - severely impacting other services particularly on the northern line. Problem is greatly exacerbated by the half hourly Greystones service which means that delays in one direction are transferred to the other direction.

Do the RSC not require all services have B1 car?

No, 3 car set don't have them

Outer cars always have sanding equipment

0900 ex Sligo is a four car 22k set this morning

Very busy no room from Carrick / Longford onwards

I'd say they are tinkering, well hopefully as the config are not right at the moment.

I am going to refrain from giving out as I get shot down by other folk here on this forum.

So much for getting an earlier train for a little confort to avoid the 29k later on

No ticket inspection for the whole journey, normally they are rampant on the Sligo line at least once but almost every time checked twice.

So the future is 4 car sets on the Sligo line?
Just mothball it sure....

I love it when it is claimed that there is a fantasy the numbers just arent there on the Sligo line.... Sarcasm.

I'd also love to know the numbers using for example, m3 parkway clonsilla to warrant a 3 car 22k set most commonly or a 4 car 29k set. If they can put two car dart on off peak why cant they get a two car sets from the west or cork - Middleton line for m3 parkway clonsilla

I'd imagine that the future for most routes is 4 piece trains with occasional longer trains at peak times.

Personally, I think that there are going to be too few 3 piece sets available going forward to get train sizes right.

As for moving sets from Cork or Limerick - where are you magically going to find these? Virtually all of those sets are already in daily use (except for necessary maintenance cover)?

The M3 situation arises due to a combination of set availability and maintenance schedules. Bear in mind that sets have to be maintained during the day as well as at night.

When you say "no room" - what exactly do you mean?

No sitting room all seats taken, standing room only.

Plenty standing from Longford onwards to Dublin.

Im not giving out merely expressing a view. Thankfully I'd a seat as I started my journey in Sligo, but wouldnt have fancied paying an already extortianated fare to stand for an hour n three quarters

I don't necessarily disagree - but I do wonder how this is going to be sorted out, given that there will only be 18 3 piece sets to go around.