[article] - 13.00 Heuston/Cork Failure 1 August

[Jamie2k9]

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news...-31435856.html

How Irish Rail left passengers in limbo on busiest weekend of year
When network suffered major bank holiday delay, there was neither information nor a staff member in sight

We're among 5,000 passengers enjoying the summer sunshine in stations across the country after a train broke down, paralysing the network.

More than 25 trains leaving Heuston Station are delayed for a minimum of 30 minutes. I'm waiting on the Galway train, which ends up being three hours late.

It's the worst delay of the year, but Irish Rail doesn't feel the need to tell anyone what's happening.

FYI - I would phrase it as "More than 25 trains leaving Heuston Station were delayed for a minimum of 3 hours!

Irish Rail is unable to communicate with customers in dozens of stations across the country unless a staff member is present.

The company has admitted that large parts of the network are communications blackspots, as controllers are only able to tap into public announcement (PA) systems in a limited number of stations to alert passengers of delays or cancellations.

A detailed plan for customer information systems, including screens at all stations, centralised PA and interactive displays, would cost up to €30m, he said. Cheaper options were being considered as a short-term solution.

"We have centralised PA from our Dublin Central Traffic Control covering the entire DART network, northern line to Dundalk, then lines to Maynooth and M3 Parkway, Rathdrum and Monasterevin," he said.

"We have centralised PA in Mallow and Athlone also. Athlone covers stations between Ennis and Athenry, and Mallow covers the Midleton line.

Over 3 hours to get a replacement locomotive it's like it gets longer and longer as each failure happens and the closer to Dublin. There was absolutely no power in the locomotive after it shut down so a replacement should be been sent to haul it back to Kildare or push it into Portarlington loop.

If IE were through to form I bet they decided to bring the locomotive, removed the failed one to Portarlington and ran back and continued to Cork. You know the way to that causes the most disruption and inconvenience to passengers.....

They really seem to hate hauling services, back a few years ago and you had 2700 hauling failed 22000 and so on but today it's we need to fix on the spot. Anyone remember a number of years ago a 201 was driving a Cork-Dublin service after the DVT failed en route and the pushing loco was kept on.

Am I missing something as to why the have changed have the RSC for example told them they can't?/