[14-8-2008] Portlaoise to Heuston 6:30 am Cancelled
 

The 6:30am service from Portlaoise was cancelled this morning. There was an announcement in Portalington as well as Kildare. The 05:35am train from Limerick stopped in Portalington to pick up passengers. As a result some passengers who got on in Kildare had to stand.

Anybody know why the train was cancelled and if it is a once off?

At least 15 seats left in the back coach after Kildare. 0630 did run, but behind the Galway (seen arriving at Heuston) about 30 minutes late. Train failure on depot, according to traincrew.

LC

That excuse doesn't hold

The train is made up of 2 independent 3 car sets, one set would still be ok. Even then its the depot, its got piles of other trains around.

Depends on what the problem was. Modern computer-controlled trains often fail to talk to each other correctly, and uncoupling sets can make it worse. If the problem occured as the train was due out, then there would inevitably be a delay. For all you or I know, a replacement set may have been used - but that itself takes time to prepare.

"Piles of trains"? Hardly - and all with other booked work. Modern railways do not operate with large numbers of spares.

As regards sending a three car set out, that's fine - but the 0820 Westport / 1240(?) return would also then have been a three car, which would have been more of a problem. OK, the 0535 ex Limerick could have done it (arrived at around 0745), but then the 0925 to Limerick would have been a 3 - and so it goes on.

As I said, train did operate, in 6 car mode, albeit late - and the 0820 Westport should have departed on time - so only one train affected.

LC

Fact is train did not operate as timetabled and resulted in delays to passengers.

I don't want excuses, I want a train

Find it hard to believe there wasn't another train that could have been sent out instead while the first was fixed for a later service. They do have a spare train at the depot, Heuston has a spare train on standby as well

Of course there was no notice on the Irish Rail website this morning about it

Classic mess.

In an ideal world, everything would run like clockwork and failures would never happen. <Irony> Like on our road system, for example <\Irony>

Back in the real world. So a train ran late this morning. What was the actual impact? 0630 was due in Heuston at 0740. Passengers from Kildare inwards would have got the 0630 ex Carlow, due Heuston 0752. Passengers from other stations (including Portarlington additional stop) were on the 0535 ex Limerick. As the latter arrived Hesuton at about 0745, the Carlow must have arrived about 0740. So inward of Kildare, zero delay on scheduled time; from Portlaosie - Monasterevin, around 5 minutes on scheduled time. The only real losers would be passengers travelling from west of Kildare to Sallins, who would have had to use the Galway (and, in the case of Portlaoise, change trains en route).

The 0630 ran late, but got to Heuston in sufficient time to work it's next train (0820 Westport). thus there was no further impact.

Not, I would suggest, earth shattering in their impact, so in my view the correct decision was made.

As I said, neither you or I know whether the 0630 was worked by a spare train, or whether the original fault was fixed. Starting a train from cold is not like getting in a car and turning the key, as you (as technical officer) should be aware - it takes 15-20 minutes I believe for a 22K to be booted up from cold.

IE do not always get things right, as I would be the first to accept (I had about 20 minutes sounding off at the "meet the manager" session at Heuston a few weeks ago), but to give out about such a minor incident with such little effect on passengers overall casts doubt on the seriousness and credibility of this board, and in turn RUI.

LC

Well, IE must be an ultramodern railway then, since it operates a negative quantity of spares :D