06/03/2007 - Train failure at carlow

[kevin]

07:30 Heuston-Waterford failed just north of Carlow station.

This blocked the 07:30 Waterford-Heuston which crosses with it at Carlow.

Initially we were told that there was a train failure and that an engine from a goods train in Bagenalstown would be here shortly to move the waterford train into carlow station.

That never materialised, instead after an hour the engine from the carlow train was used to:

- Take the failed engine through carlow station and shunt it to the sidings.
- Bring the rest of that train into the station. Passengers for carlow were detrained but this left the engine unable to be returned to the dublin bound train.
- 30 more minutes later the Waterford bound passengers were detrained and told they would be either bused or could wait for the 09:30 Heuston-Waterford which was in Athy.
- The waterford train was then shunted to the sidings and abandoned.
- The engine was reattached to the dublin bound train and it departed from carlow 2 hours behind schedule

Met the 09:30 in athy which had the replacement engine trailing it.

Arrived in Heuston at 11:58, 7 minutes short of a full refund. They were giving out the refund forms on the platform and had a row of taxi's waiting for connections.

kevin

Aside: The sidings in carlow used to be accessible from both ends of the station, however during the resignaling and track upgrade it was changed to be accessible from the south end only. In the old configuration it would have been much easier to use the good engine to pull the failed train into the station and still have an 'escape route' to get back to it's original position.