[14/04/11] Northern Line 15 min delays AM

Rashers · 14-04-2011, 20:20

The 07.15 Drogheda-Bray service developed a fault prior to departure. Left 14 mins late. Driver made no announcements from Skerries to Lansdowne Road - not sure about before that. CTC and local staff made lots announcements at Skerries.
By the time he resumed the service, there was already 1 more Northern line suburban trains sitting behind this one. Plus another one 5 minutes behind that.
Despite keeping to the original stopping pattern, with stops at Rush and Lusk, Donabate, Malahide, Portmarnock, Clongriffin, and Howth Junction. it actually made back up about 5 mins on the delay.
Carbon copy of the issues in Feb + Jan....more it was not as overcroweded as previously.

Inniskeen · 14-04-2011, 21:59

Delay actually occured shortly after the train had left Drogheda, not prior to departure.

As usual IR control slept through the problem and made no effort to minimise delay. Allowing the delayed 0712 from Drogheda skip some of the the normal multitude of intermediate stops would have allowed an on time arrival in Connolly and avoided most of the delay to the following 0700 from Dundalk and 0645 from Newry, not to mention the 0810 from Howth and the 0815 and 0830 from Malahide.

There is almost no downside to this approach as passengers waiting at the skipped stations would have arrived Connolly at 0828 or 0831 - little, if any later, than the arrival time of the delayed 0712 this morning.

The lazy IR approach ensured that thousands, rather than hundeds, of passengers arrived late for work.

James Howard · 15-04-2011, 11:54

This seems to be pretty much standard behaviour for IE - no thought whatsoever gets put into dealing with delays.

We had an issue last week on the Longford commuter service where there was a problem with a train. This resulted in the 0615 (ish) form Longford ended up leaving Edgeworthstown around 10 minutes before the 0545 from Sligo was due thus causing anybody turning up on time for the normal Intercity service to have to wait for the next train. Then we ended up waiting in Enfield for the down train in any case, so we were knocked back to the original time.

The logical response would have been to let the intercity service go on as normal rather than holding it behind a stopping train especially when the stopping train ended up arriving in Maynooth at exactly the same time as the Intercity was due.

14-04-2011, 20:20	#1
Rashers Really Regular Poster Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 431	[14/04/11] Northern Line 15 min delays AM The 07.15 Drogheda-Bray service developed a fault prior to departure. Left 14 mins late. Driver made no announcements from Skerries to Lansdowne Road - not sure about before that. CTC and local staff made lots announcements at Skerries. By the time he resumed the service, there was already 1 more Northern line suburban trains sitting behind this one. Plus another one 5 minutes behind that. Despite keeping to the original stopping pattern, with stops at Rush and Lusk, Donabate, Malahide, Portmarnock, Clongriffin, and Howth Junction. it actually made back up about 5 mins on the delay. Carbon copy of the issues in Feb + Jan....more it was not as overcroweded as previously. __________________

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14-04-2011, 21:59	#2
Inniskeen Really Regular Poster Join Date: Oct 2010 Posts: 951	Delay actually occured shortly after the train had left Drogheda, not prior to departure. As usual IR control slept through the problem and made no effort to minimise delay. Allowing the delayed 0712 from Drogheda skip some of the the normal multitude of intermediate stops would have allowed an on time arrival in Connolly and avoided most of the delay to the following 0700 from Dundalk and 0645 from Newry, not to mention the 0810 from Howth and the 0815 and 0830 from Malahide. There is almost no downside to this approach as passengers waiting at the skipped stations would have arrived Connolly at 0828 or 0831 - little, if any later, than the arrival time of the delayed 0712 this morning. The lazy IR approach ensured that thousands, rather than hundeds, of passengers arrived late for work.

15-04-2011, 11:54	#3
James Howard Really Really Regluar Poster Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: Sligo Line Posts: 1,115	This seems to be pretty much standard behaviour for IE - no thought whatsoever gets put into dealing with delays. We had an issue last week on the Longford commuter service where there was a problem with a train. This resulted in the 0615 (ish) form Longford ended up leaving Edgeworthstown around 10 minutes before the 0545 from Sligo was due thus causing anybody turning up on time for the normal Intercity service to have to wait for the next train. Then we ended up waiting in Enfield for the down train in any case, so we were knocked back to the original time. The logical response would have been to let the intercity service go on as normal rather than holding it behind a stopping train especially when the stopping train ended up arriving in Maynooth at exactly the same time as the Intercity was due.