A Christmas Tale: My (re-)introduction to Irish Public Transport #1

apwhite · 22-12-2005, 23:32

After living in Germany for 9 years, a country where public transport generally starts at 4.30 am and finishes at 1am, a country where one travel ticket for 2 EUR will let you change transport modes as many times as you want to get to your destination within 90 minutes, a country where you can get the 550 km from Frankfurt to Berlin in 3:30 hours whilst sipping a freshly poured glass of beer, brought to you by a waiter in the subdudely lit restaurant car of a sexy white train, I arrived back to Dublin at the beginning of this year.

Everything looked all shiny, spanking new cars on the road, metallic Luas gliding and honking by, SeaCats speeding off to Hollyhead and Dublin busses without rust! Ain't progress wonderful?

But on one of my first trips around Dublin I was brought back to the horrors of Irish Public Transport with a bang...

* A true story *
All I wanted to do was get from Blackrock to Parnell square and back again. Easy. I decided to do it by bus to save me the walk to the Dart station. First mistake. After bravely standing at the bus stop for 15 minutes a bus approached. A 45. First problem - where does it terminate? "An Lar" is a great f**king use in a medium sized 1.5 million inhabitant city.

I hopped on and waited to be surprised and see where the journey would take me. My first surprise was the fact that I handed 2 EUR to the driver and he issued me a ticket, I was about to ask where my change was when he told me the 2nd half of it was a receipt... Anyone know of other countries (not including those muppets in the UK) where exact change is required to travel??

The second surprise was the amount of bloody bus stops on the route. 10 seconds after leaving Roches Stores we were stopped again at a bus stop where there are no visible houses in the vicinity - a large wall behind it, Blackrock park in front and minimal housing left & right. This carried on ad nauseum. Does anyone know Dublin's bus stop per km ratio??? It must be the highest in the world. We carried on through Booterstown and Ballsbridge and I quickly observed a quirky phenomenon - bus leapfrog, it seems as if one bus is always overtalking the other. It stops at the next busstop and the bus behind it then has to swing out to overtake and the fun starts again. I know of no other country where this happens...

Anyway we made it as far as Bewleys hotel when the fun started. A lot of people wanted to get on and there was a throng waiting to get off. I always understood that God had invented the world with 2 types of doors - the IN door and the OUT door. But obviously Dublin Bus knows better so we all waited while the people squeezed by each other. A tourist family from Scotland got on and asked the driver for 2 adults and 2 kids, the driver told them the price and told them exact change, no notes. How the f*ck are you expected to have 5.30 (or whatever) change in coins in your pocket for a bus journey? They managed to scrape it together (even with wee Hamish donating 60 cents from his hard earned pocket money).

The ride went smoothly for about all of about 20 seconds until the RDS. Then the driver just stopped the bus and told us to get out. I thought he was throwing a hissy-fit due to excessive bus-leapfrogging but I quickly learned it was simply the end of his shift.... Heh????? Imagine your denist half extracting a mouldy molar and him then telling you that he has to clock off... There is a dentist next door that will carry on from where he left off. Also another world first for me. I presume those weirdo European bus drivers have to be slave-driven to complete the journey before they can clock off...

The rest of the journey was uneventful and we made it into An Lar. And in the 30 minute journey I was already planning an open letter to Dublin Bus. But wait, I had to get back to Blackrock, the fun was only beginning.... TBC

22-12-2005, 23:58

It mattered not if you were in Germany for 9 years or 999 years. As long as CIE control public transport in Ireland there was, and never will going to be real progress.

I was going out to see my bother in Tallaght a few years back and I got the 77B (?) bus. The bus is meant to go to West Dublin and there had been an attack on a bus driver the previous night.

I have no problem with BAC drivers being pissed off about this. But did they have to terminate all buses in the The Square and then say nothing to the passengers?

So we sat in the Square carpark in the bus all looking confused and at each other wondering what was going on. So I start to see passengers leaving the bus and I eventually followed. There were about 40 buses parked inthe square and about 15 yards away I see a group of men and I recognised one of them as the driver of my bus.

So politiely I go over and ask as we going to Raheen? Apart from interupting a surly grunting session with his fellow CIE neaderthals with a nasty momentary glace in my direction he stated nothing. So I ask again. One of the other drivers replied in a nasty and arrogant manner "no fookin buses past the Square tonight cos of anti-social behavior".

Now the irony of this statement struck me as odd considering how the passengers were marooned, not told why and then treated like ****. How were we to blame to what happened to the driver in West Tallaght the night before, whom I and 99.99 of the people on the bus would of had total sympathy for.

So as I had determined that my journey was terminated I asked for some of the fare I paid back. Was told that the money is in a sealed box. I was looked upon as if I was a headcase for requesting this and how dare I ask. By the same shower of pricks who dumped us in the Square. Doing that to the passengers, including pregnant women, young kids and older folks on a winter's night was perfectly acceptable to them.

Next morning I called Dublin Bus with all the details on the bus, route the driver refused to give me his name. Nothing ever came of it.

A few weeks later they were marching through the streets of Dublin with posters of Seamus Brennan made up like Hitler demanding that 'CIE Not Be Broken Up to SAVE PUBLIC TRANSPORT'.

You should have stayed in Germany and I should have bought a car a lot sooner. CIE are a disaster. I am simply amazed how some people out there are nostalgic, almost romantic about this appalling organisation which has served our nation so badly and will continue to do so till we get a Government with guts who can take the unions on and removed CIE from the face of the earth once and for all.

sean · 23-12-2005, 01:08

Everything you say is true. Public transport in Dublin especially is a joke.

From someone used to German transport, this reintroduction must have been a real bummer. The Germans put us to shame.

Maskhadov · 23-12-2005, 21:15

I was in Germany for a couple of months and travelled about while I was there. I have to totally agree, Germany is kick ass when it comes to public transport. I was very impressed with their whole attitude and the thinking they put into things. I wish we just had more germans over here to do all the planning and investment for us. Our public transport is slap stick

23-12-2005, 23:41

Every country is Western Europe has far superior public transport to Ireland. Not just Germany.

MrX · 24-12-2005, 13:37

Believe me, Dublin's public transport's LIGHT YEARS ahead of Cork (and possibly other cities in Ireland too)

If Dublin Bus' system is a joke, Bus Eireann's Cork City/Suburban services are beyond a joke.

We've had similar curtailment of routes due to antisocial behaviour. They thought nothing of stranding elderly and other vunerable customers in their homes. Why can't they just do something about the anti-social behaviour if it is a problem e.g. install proper driver protection / CCTV that is actually switched on and get the gardai involved quickly.

We've no electronic tickets, it's all pay at the door nonsense.

They're constantly late, the busses are grossly undersized for the amount of traffic that uses them and would use them if they were remotely pleasant to use.

The "Bus Full - Extra Bus following" lies that scrolls across the display as a bus whizzes past your stop and you end up having to call a taxi in the rain is another unique Bus Eireann Cork practice.

There are a % of drivers who, thanks to management's total fear of the unions, treat passengers/paying customers like dirt and get away with it. If they worked in any other company they'd be long since fired.

I remember as a 15 year old I was entitled to reduced fares. One particularly driver simply wouldn't believe any of my ID. Accused me of using my brothers and I constantly had to pay full fare. I was in a school uniform!!!! When I took it up with the driver he simply threatened to throw me off the bus and get me banned from all BE services.

I took it up (As did my parents) with Bus Eireann and got nowhere.

(This was back in the mid 90s)

sean · 24-12-2005, 13:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas Sheridan

Every country is Western Europe has far superior public transport to Ireland. Not just Germany.

Yes. But the Germans really put us to shame.

Beekeeper · 28-12-2005, 02:28

from Southside People

Quote:

No demand for Christmas DART Print E-mail
IARNROD Eireann has defended its decision not to run the DART on Christmas Day and Stephen’s Day on the grounds that not enough people would use it.“There’s never a DART on Christmas Day because the demand isn’t there,” spokesman Barry Kenny told Southside People.
The company was responding to a complaint by local Progressive Democrats activist Victor Boyhan who described the lack of DARTs on Christmas Day as “a disgrace”.
“If an elderly person or someone without a car wishes to visit family or friends on Christmas Day they should have that opportunity on public transport,” he said.
Mr Boyhan added that he felt CIE’s policy was directly in conflict with Government policy of encouraging people not to drink and drive.

“At a festive time like Christmas when we are encouraging people not to drink and drive, the provision of a comprehensive public transport network including the DART is both responsible and essential,” he said.
However Iarnrod Eireann say there’s never been a call for a Christmas DART service and they’re convinced there wouldn’t be a demand for one.
They’ve also stood by their policy of stopping DART services at 9pm on Christmas Eve on the grounds that people tend to stay in their localities after that time.
However, Mr Kenny said the company would “keep under review” the possibility of introducing a service on St Stephen’s Day in future years but not Christmas Day.

Derek Wheeler · 01-01-2006, 03:08

Don't you know?

CIE think we still hibernate on christmas day around a log fire with micky playin a fiddle. We spend the next day trying to get the fiddle out of micky's....eh......fiddle case. Of course on Christmas eve, we must be home by 9pm or we all turn into pumpkins.

But remember to take this into account, the Luas doesn't operate on xmas day either. So obviously the forward thinking non CIE company that is Connex

haven't looked at this yet. However our local PD activist didn't mention the luas, did he?

Our xmas tradition is cultural, not operational. Change the culture and the operation will change for you.

I really hope it doesn't take 50 years for us to "have a go" at Connex.

Mark Gleeson · 01-01-2006, 15:24

There used to be a DART service on St Stephen's Day until the early 1990's but it was cancelled since no one used it. This is however a bus service

Most of the pubs in town throw out at 8-9pm on Christmas eve and of course Christmas day is the safest day to travel by road. Our transport system is not designed to visit your relatives its all focused on the city centre which is effectively a ghost town on the 25th. I personally cant see running trains on the 25th to be a sound idea, the bus would be a more flexible solution, there was a time they ran for part of the 25th

It would have been impossible to operate a rail service this year anyway as Howth Junction was closed to allow for the removal of a bridge

Dublin Bus and Bus Eireann do run late night services year round which neither Connex or IE do

Now if IE played smart you could run a service on the 26th at tiny cost, its simple, you send out 2 coach trains, all stations unstaffed bar Howth, Connolly Pearse Dun Loaghaire and Bray, stick a conductor on the train for tickets and security

Morlan · 01-01-2006, 18:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

the city centre which is effectively a ghost town on the 25th.

Just to back you up on that comment: A Vacant city - Dublin on Christmas Morning

02-01-2006, 00:20

Very good pictures there, but it does not really prove there is no demand for public transport on Christmas day, all day. Tens of thousands of Dubliners are on the move all during the day and all over the city visiting relatives after the kids have opened the christmas presents. The roads are fairly busy at certian times and it public transport was there people would use it. Right now these Christmas day housecallers all drive.

So do National Toll Rolls close the Westlink down because of "no demand"?

One moment in time in the city centre is not indicative of the entire Christmas day all over the city of Dublin and it's suburbs. There is vast movements of people in the suburbs.

There are also lots of people living in the city of Dublin now who are not Christians. 80,000 Chinese for start.

CIE's 1970's timewarp mentality again?

Thomas J Stamp · 03-01-2006, 10:41

there used to be bus services in dublin untill 1980 on christmas day. My uncle was a conductor in Ringsend and he told me they ran untill 6pm but I dont remeber what sort of service it was, a sunday or skeleton. He also said the pay was huge, about 4 days worth for doing it. The demand was nil, and that was why they stopped it. I think the BAC spokesman said before christmas that they have never had a single request for it and never recived a complaint about it either from passangers.

philip · 03-01-2006, 13:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by thomasjstamp

there used to be bus services in dublin untill 1980 on christmas day. My uncle was a conductor in Ringsend and he told me they ran untill 6pm but I dont remeber what sort of service it was, a sunday or skeleton. He also said the pay was huge, about 4 days worth for doing it. The demand was nil, and that was why they stopped it. I think the BAC spokesman said before christmas that they have never had a single request for it and never recived a complaint about it either from passangers.

That's 25 years ago! Ireland has many new citizens since then, many of whom aren't even christian, let alone catholic. I know my employer was open for business on xmas day, as was Intel and HP, probably plenty more multinationals (especially the ones with a financial year ending with the calendar year!) and everyone who was working had to get taxis in at my employer's expense. If the drink laws are ever changed to allow pubs to open on xmas day (and they should be because it's totally discriminatory to close pubs when many of us have no belief in xmas) then there will be a huge increase in demand. I wonder will the CIE group respond then?

A lack of public transport actually hits some of the lowest paid irish and immigrant workers hardest. People on good salaries rarely have to work xmas day, it's cleaners, porters, hotel staff etc. who need to get to work on xmas day but they can't. Many of the most vulnerable migrant workers will have to pay for taxis (or walk miles) themselves.

03-01-2006, 14:49

Quote:

That's 25 years ago! Ireland has many new citizens since then, many of whom aren't even christian, let alone catholic.

and the population of Dublin is about 800,000 more than back then and most of these people live in West Dublin and are not going to go to O'Connell Street on Christmas Day anyway. It there were actually orbital bus routes and a DART service on Christmas day, people would use it. Immigrants alone would probably justify it.

I don't think thomasjstamp was claiming that 1980's Christmas Day CIE data is how we should measure demand for Christmas Day services in 2006, but rather this is how CIE make decisions when planning public transport services in 2006 and beyond (coupled with how it suits the lifestyles of the CIE unions).

The culture of CIE has yet to make it to 1979, yet alone 1980. If we could get them to 1980 that would move them about 6 years culturally forward from where they currently are now.

Mark my words. When the Stephen's Green Metro/Luas/DART station opens in 2015, that unles the likes of P11 and others can kick up a storm, the Metro and Luas parts will be buzzing with passengers over the Christmas holidays and the CIE Interconnector Station will be closed because of "no demand".

You, I and everybody else knows this is going to happen and for me this must question the wisdom of giving Irish Rail the money to build an underground rail tunnel, when they do not have the intelligence, nor desire to use it to provide an underground rail SERVICE.

I think any financial commitment for capital investment the Government gives to CIE/IE from this point forward should be based on how they are going to use it in terms of integration with Bus, Luas and Metro and will it operate according to 21st demands and not the CIE union's and Irish Rail management's 1974 mindset.

A tunnel between Spencer Dock and Hueston is pointless if the CIE traditional hours of operational service is the end result of this investment.

philip · 03-01-2006, 15:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by ThomasS

I don't think thomasjstamp was claiming that 1980's Christmas Day CIE data is how we should measure demand for Christmas Day services in 2006

I just reread my post, it did sound like I was tackling thomasJ, which I wasn't. I know he wouldn't think such a thing.

Derek Wheeler · 03-01-2006, 22:54

The luas doesn't operate on xmas day and thats controlled by Connex. JJ Kavanagh & Sons coaches, Aercoach etc don't operate on xmas day either. A taxi has to be prebooked and additional charges are made on xmas day. As I said in an earlier post, the culture of not operating public transport on xmas day, is a culture that has spawned from traditional Irish values and not the boardroom of CIE.

While Im no fan of CIE and on media record to prove it, some of the material here is bordering on the, "blame CIE for everything". Its getting boring. If we want to talk about the lack of public transport provision on xmas day, please have the decency to include all the private operators who dont provide a service either.

Points about businesses operating on xmas day and the amount of cultures that don't celebrate xmas are all valid. But Ive never seen a chinese takeaway open on xmas day. Why? I can only guess that its a mark of respect to our culture. Theres that word again...culture. I suppose CIE came up with the idea that all work and business stops on xmas day.

The committee is working on improving Sunday services on a lot of lines and getting them introduced on lines that need them. Xmas is a whole different ball game. However we won't be doing this by blaming CIE for the war and everything else. We know the mentality. But constant attacks and vitriole on the board achieves nothing. Anyone got any ideas on how to change things within IE in the present circumstances?

04-01-2006, 00:03

Quote:

some of the material here is bordering on the, "blame CIE for everything". Its getting boring.

CIE is rubbish. There is nothing wrong with people on this board constantly venting about how bad they are at public transport. Maybe CIE might actually read this board one day while they are taking a break from building apartment blocks.

Mark Gleeson · 04-01-2006, 00:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by ThomasS

Then don't read it. CIE is rubbish. There is nothing wrong with people on this board constantly venting about how bad there are.

They where as I keep pointing out CIE ceased to exist in 1987 as a transport provider. This board is for the discussion issues primarly with respect to the Irish railway network, not what happens in shell company which exists only as a holding company.

I couldn't give a monkeys what CIE did in the past as this is now and the past is past. Joe public doesn't care about the past they care about getting home tonight and getting to work tomorrow. By all mean go after Irish Rail, given CIE doesn't exist in the public they are the only target that exists

Christmas day is a no transport day it doens't matter which company or by which means there are no public transport services on Christmas day its got squat to do with unions squat to do with public or private sector its the reality the numbers to travel don't make up sufficent demand, no boats trains or buses you won't see them in the UK either or a long list of countries

We have enough trouble getting public transport on many routes on Sunday at least that has a chance, there is demand

philip · 04-01-2006, 11:54

If CIE doesn't exist in the public then why was it Dr. Lynch announcing the ordering of the 30 extra IC DMUs?

CIE does exist and it's culture certainly does. It's easier to refer to CIE than IE/BAC/BE, that's why I refer to CIE and will continue doing so. We are a rail lobby group, fair enough, but we above all recognise that without integration (with buses in the main) that rail isn't really worth a whole hill of beans.

Has anybody thought that if CIE operated services on xmas day that Connex would too? I think Connex look at their two lines (they don't even operate a network thanks to Mary O'Rourke) and realise that with BAC at least running that their passenger numbers would be far too small. I'm not blaming CIE for Connex's decisions but it will certainly be a big factor. I know that I personally can only use Luas if IE services are running to get me to Connolly, and I have made these journeys quite a few times.

I hear what you're saying about CIE bashing Derek, but Connex are a brand new outfit with a tiny passenger base compared to CIE, who had 50 years as a virtual national monopoly to provide integrated transport & ticketing. They failed miserably and you still have to pay two fares on two buses to make one journey across Dublin. That's why people are so angry with them-they could have done all this years ago but they have never really been interested in provided a quality experience for the public.

Our own board shows this ever day-they repeatedly fail to display the most basic information at stations, on trains etc. That is happening today, not 25 years ago. They really haven't improved at all in decades and looking at old maps of a fragmented tram system (pre-CIE) you can see flat 1p fare boundaries so we have actually gone backwards under CIE.

22-12-2005, 23:58	#2
ThomasS Posts: n/a	It mattered not if you were in Germany for 9 years or 999 years. As long as CIE control public transport in Ireland there was, and never will going to be real progress. I was going out to see my bother in Tallaght a few years back and I got the 77B (?) bus. The bus is meant to go to West Dublin and there had been an attack on a bus driver the previous night. I have no problem with BAC drivers being pissed off about this. But did they have to terminate all buses in the The Square and then say nothing to the passengers? So we sat in the Square carpark in the bus all looking confused and at each other wondering what was going on. So I start to see passengers leaving the bus and I eventually followed. There were about 40 buses parked inthe square and about 15 yards away I see a group of men and I recognised one of them as the driver of my bus. So politiely I go over and ask as we going to Raheen? Apart from interupting a surly grunting session with his fellow CIE neaderthals with a nasty momentary glace in my direction he stated nothing. So I ask again. One of the other drivers replied in a nasty and arrogant manner "no fookin buses past the Square tonight cos of anti-social behavior". Now the irony of this statement struck me as odd considering how the passengers were marooned, not told why and then treated like ***. How were we to blame to what happened to the driver in West Tallaght the night before, whom I and 99.99 of the people on the bus would of had total sympathy for. So as I had determined that my journey was terminated I asked for some of the fare I paid back. Was told that the money is in a sealed box. I was looked upon as if I was a headcase for requesting this and how dare I ask. By the same shower of pricks who dumped us in the Square. Doing that to the passengers, including pregnant women, young kids and older folks on a winter's night was perfectly acceptable to them. Next morning I called Dublin Bus with all the details on the bus, route the driver refused to give me his name. Nothing ever came of it. A few weeks later they were marching through the streets of Dublin with posters of Seamus Brennan made up like Hitler demanding that 'CIE Not Be Broken Up to SAVE PUBLIC TRANSPORT'. You should have stayed in Germany and I should have bought a car a lot sooner. CIE are a disaster. I am simply amazed how some people out there are nostalgic, almost romantic about this appalling organisation which has served our nation so badly and will continue to do so till we get a Government with guts who can take the unions on and removed CIE from the face of the earth once and for all. Last edited by ThomasS : 23-12-2005 at 00:08.*

24-12-2005, 13:37	#6
MrX Really Regular Poster Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 585	Believe me, Dublin's public transport's LIGHT YEARS ahead of Cork (and possibly other cities in Ireland too) If Dublin Bus' system is a joke, Bus Eireann's Cork City/Suburban services are beyond a joke. We've had similar curtailment of routes due to antisocial behaviour. They thought nothing of stranding elderly and other vunerable customers in their homes. Why can't they just do something about the anti-social behaviour if it is a problem e.g. install proper driver protection / CCTV that is actually switched on and get the gardai involved quickly. We've no electronic tickets, it's all pay at the door nonsense. They're constantly late, the busses are grossly undersized for the amount of traffic that uses them and would use them if they were remotely pleasant to use. The "Bus Full - Extra Bus following" lies that scrolls across the display as a bus whizzes past your stop and you end up having to call a taxi in the rain is another unique Bus Eireann Cork practice. There are a % of drivers who, thanks to management's total fear of the unions, treat passengers/paying customers like dirt and get away with it. If they worked in any other company they'd be long since fired. I remember as a 15 year old I was entitled to reduced fares. One particularly driver simply wouldn't believe any of my ID. Accused me of using my brothers and I constantly had to pay full fare. I was in a school uniform!!!! When I took it up with the driver he simply threatened to throw me off the bus and get me banned from all BE services. I took it up (As did my parents) with Bus Eireann and got nowhere. (This was back in the mid 90s) Last edited by MrX : 24-12-2005 at 19:53.

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22-12-2005, 23:32	#1
apwhite New to the board Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 15	A Christmas Tale: My (re-)introduction to Irish Public Transport #1 After living in Germany for 9 years, a country where public transport generally starts at 4.30 am and finishes at 1am, a country where one travel ticket for 2 EUR will let you change transport modes as many times as you want to get to your destination within 90 minutes, a country where you can get the 550 km from Frankfurt to Berlin in 3:30 hours whilst sipping a freshly poured glass of beer, brought to you by a waiter in the subdudely lit restaurant car of a sexy white train, I arrived back to Dublin at the beginning of this year. Everything looked all shiny, spanking new cars on the road, metallic Luas gliding and honking by, SeaCats speeding off to Hollyhead and Dublin busses without rust! Ain't progress wonderful? But on one of my first trips around Dublin I was brought back to the horrors of Irish Public Transport with a bang... * A true story * All I wanted to do was get from Blackrock to Parnell square and back again. Easy. I decided to do it by bus to save me the walk to the Dart station. First mistake. After bravely standing at the bus stop for 15 minutes a bus approached. A 45. First problem - where does it terminate? "An Lar" is a great f*king use in a medium sized 1.5 million inhabitant city. I hopped on and waited to be surprised and see where the journey would take me. My first surprise was the fact that I handed 2 EUR to the driver and he issued me a ticket, I was about to ask where my change was when he told me the 2nd half of it was a receipt... Anyone know of other countries (not including those muppets in the UK) where exact change is required to travel?? The second surprise was the amount of bloody bus stops on the route. 10 seconds after leaving Roches Stores we were stopped again at a bus stop where there are no visible houses in the vicinity - a large wall behind it, Blackrock park in front and minimal housing left & right. This carried on ad nauseum. Does anyone know Dublin's bus stop per km ratio??? It must be the highest in the world. We carried on through Booterstown and Ballsbridge and I quickly observed a quirky phenomenon - bus leapfrog, it seems as if one bus is always overtalking the other. It stops at the next busstop and the bus behind it then has to swing out to overtake and the fun starts again. I know of no other country where this happens... Anyway we made it as far as Bewleys hotel when the fun started. A lot of people wanted to get on and there was a throng waiting to get off. I always understood that God had invented the world with 2 types of doors - the IN door and the OUT door. But obviously Dublin Bus knows better so we all waited while the people squeezed by each other. A tourist family from Scotland got on and asked the driver for 2 adults and 2 kids, the driver told them the price and told them exact change, no notes. How the fck are you expected to have 5.30 (or whatever) change in coins in your pocket for a bus journey? They managed to scrape it together (even with wee Hamish donating 60 cents from his hard earned pocket money). The ride went smoothly for about all of about 20 seconds until the RDS. Then the driver just stopped the bus and told us to get out. I thought he was throwing a hissy-fit due to excessive bus-leapfrogging but I quickly learned it was simply the end of his shift.... Heh????? Imagine your denist half extracting a mouldy molar and him then telling you that he has to clock off... There is a dentist next door that will carry on from where he left off. Also another world first for me. I presume those weirdo European bus drivers have to be slave-driven to complete the journey before they can clock off... The rest of the journey was uneventful and we made it into An Lar. And in the 30 minute journey I was already planning an open letter to Dublin Bus. But wait, I had to get back to Blackrock, the fun was only beginning.... TBC Last edited by apwhite : 23-12-2005 at 11:58.

23-12-2005, 01:08	#3
sean Member Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Dublin Posts: 707	Everything you say is true. Public transport in Dublin especially is a joke. From someone used to German transport, this reintroduction must have been a real bummer. The Germans put us to shame.

23-12-2005, 21:15	#4
Maskhadov Regular Poster Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 74	I was in Germany for a couple of months and travelled about while I was there. I have to totally agree, Germany is kick ass when it comes to public transport. I was very impressed with their whole attitude and the thinking they put into things. I wish we just had more germans over here to do all the planning and investment for us. Our public transport is slap stick

23-12-2005, 23:41	#5
ThomasS Posts: n/a	Every country is Western Europe has far superior public transport to Ireland. Not just Germany.

01-01-2006, 03:08	#9
Derek Wheeler Registered user Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Kildare Posts: 1,555	Don't you know? CIE think we still hibernate on christmas day around a log fire with micky playin a fiddle. We spend the next day trying to get the fiddle out of micky's....eh......fiddle case. Of course on Christmas eve, we must be home by 9pm or we all turn into pumpkins. But remember to take this into account, the Luas doesn't operate on xmas day either. So obviously the forward thinking non CIE company that is Connex haven't looked at this yet. However our local PD activist didn't mention the luas, did he? Our xmas tradition is cultural, not operational. Change the culture and the operation will change for you. I really hope it doesn't take 50 years for us to "have a go" at Connex.

01-01-2006, 15:24	#10
Mark Gleeson Technical Officer Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Coach C, Seat 33 Posts: 12,669	There used to be a DART service on St Stephen's Day until the early 1990's but it was cancelled since no one used it. This is however a bus service Most of the pubs in town throw out at 8-9pm on Christmas eve and of course Christmas day is the safest day to travel by road. Our transport system is not designed to visit your relatives its all focused on the city centre which is effectively a ghost town on the 25th. I personally cant see running trains on the 25th to be a sound idea, the bus would be a more flexible solution, there was a time they ran for part of the 25th It would have been impossible to operate a rail service this year anyway as Howth Junction was closed to allow for the removal of a bridge Dublin Bus and Bus Eireann do run late night services year round which neither Connex or IE do Now if IE played smart you could run a service on the 26th at tiny cost, its simple, you send out 2 coach trains, all stations unstaffed bar Howth, Connolly Pearse Dun Loaghaire and Bray, stick a conductor on the train for tickets and security

02-01-2006, 00:20	#12
ThomasS Posts: n/a	Very good pictures there, but it does not really prove there is no demand for public transport on Christmas day, all day. Tens of thousands of Dubliners are on the move all during the day and all over the city visiting relatives after the kids have opened the christmas presents. The roads are fairly busy at certian times and it public transport was there people would use it. Right now these Christmas day housecallers all drive. So do National Toll Rolls close the Westlink down because of "no demand"? One moment in time in the city centre is not indicative of the entire Christmas day all over the city of Dublin and it's suburbs. There is vast movements of people in the suburbs. There are also lots of people living in the city of Dublin now who are not Christians. 80,000 Chinese for start. CIE's 1970's timewarp mentality again?

03-01-2006, 10:41	#13
Thomas J Stamp Chairman/Publicity Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: The Home of Hurling Posts: 2,708	there used to be bus services in dublin untill 1980 on christmas day. My uncle was a conductor in Ringsend and he told me they ran untill 6pm but I dont remeber what sort of service it was, a sunday or skeleton. He also said the pay was huge, about 4 days worth for doing it. The demand was nil, and that was why they stopped it. I think the BAC spokesman said before christmas that they have never had a single request for it and never recived a complaint about it either from passangers.

03-01-2006, 22:54	#17
Derek Wheeler Registered user Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Kildare Posts: 1,555	The luas doesn't operate on xmas day and thats controlled by Connex. JJ Kavanagh & Sons coaches, Aercoach etc don't operate on xmas day either. A taxi has to be prebooked and additional charges are made on xmas day. As I said in an earlier post, the culture of not operating public transport on xmas day, is a culture that has spawned from traditional Irish values and not the boardroom of CIE. While Im no fan of CIE and on media record to prove it, some of the material here is bordering on the, "blame CIE for everything". Its getting boring. If we want to talk about the lack of public transport provision on xmas day, please have the decency to include all the private operators who dont provide a service either. Points about businesses operating on xmas day and the amount of cultures that don't celebrate xmas are all valid. But Ive never seen a chinese takeaway open on xmas day. Why? I can only guess that its a mark of respect to our culture. Theres that word again...culture. I suppose CIE came up with the idea that all work and business stops on xmas day. The committee is working on improving Sunday services on a lot of lines and getting them introduced on lines that need them. Xmas is a whole different ball game. However we won't be doing this by blaming CIE for the war and everything else. We know the mentality. But constant attacks and vitriole on the board achieves nothing. Anyone got any ideas on how to change things within IE in the present circumstances?

04-01-2006, 11:54	#20
philip Member Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 632	If CIE doesn't exist in the public then why was it Dr. Lynch announcing the ordering of the 30 extra IC DMUs? CIE does exist and it's culture certainly does. It's easier to refer to CIE than IE/BAC/BE, that's why I refer to CIE and will continue doing so. We are a rail lobby group, fair enough, but we above all recognise that without integration (with buses in the main) that rail isn't really worth a whole hill of beans. Has anybody thought that if CIE operated services on xmas day that Connex would too? I think Connex look at their two lines (they don't even operate a network thanks to Mary O'Rourke) and realise that with BAC at least running that their passenger numbers would be far too small. I'm not blaming CIE for Connex's decisions but it will certainly be a big factor. I know that I personally can only use Luas if IE services are running to get me to Connolly, and I have made these journeys quite a few times. I hear what you're saying about CIE bashing Derek, but Connex are a brand new outfit with a tiny passenger base compared to CIE, who had 50 years as a virtual national monopoly to provide integrated transport & ticketing. They failed miserably and you still have to pay two fares on two buses to make one journey across Dublin. That's why people are so angry with them-they could have done all this years ago but they have never really been interested in provided a quality experience for the public. Our own board shows this ever day-they repeatedly fail to display the most basic information at stations, on trains etc. That is happening today, not 25 years ago. They really haven't improved at all in decades and looking at old maps of a fragmented tram system (pre-CIE) you can see flat 1p fare boundaries so we have actually gone backwards under CIE.