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Unread 28-01-2008, 20:46   #1
Derek Wheeler
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Default Derek's Irish Railway Almanac

Welcome to the first post in Derek's Irish Railway Alamanac. It's purpose is to outline the various past actions of Government, Irish Rail and the RPA, to a lessor extent, in relation to rail based services. We will jump from year to year in no particular order. Many may already know much of what I will put here, while others could be gobsmacked by it. You may ask, what am I trying to achieve? Well I just think that the public have a right to know that the history of planning rail transport in Ireland is mired in political interference and poor management at operator level. So join me on a voyage through time and space as we make our way back to the year 2001. We are in Dublin, Ireland and witnessing current developments........

1. The light rail project office (the CIE boys building luas) has begun preliminary work and consultation on the metro. But the minsiter has now decided to give that responsibility to the forthcoming RPA. Despite this the consulatants Ernst & Young continue to sound out interested bidders for building it. 100 submissions are received and 30 are said to be significant. It is reported that a budget of 7.24 billion euro will do the trick and metro could start running to the airport by 2007/8.The rest will come on stream by 2010.

2. The Government advised the Dail that the scheduled date for reopening of the line from Clonsilla to Dunboyne is "envisaged" to be 2006. The expected date for completion of the Navan section is 2010!

3. In July 2001 the "Iarnrod Eireann: The way forward" report is released by the external review group established by the Minister for Transport. The report had many findings that included the following:

A. That IE be seperated from the CIE group and establish itself as a seperate company with its own board.

B. A renewed focus on customer service supported by the appointment of a full-time person at a senior level with responsibility for improving service quality.

C. The review group noted that there does not seem to exist, either at Government level or in CIE or IE, an adequate resource for the development of long term rail strategy. (this of course lead to yet another report that was to become the strategic rail review and was ignored in large parts)

D. The review group recommends a thorough evaluation of the IE rolling stock policy. The consistent view expressed by people outside of IE is that the clear trend in rolling stock policy is away from loco hauled and towards DMUs. Against this view IE management have pointed out that these high spec' railcars are very expensive and that modern locomotive trains have push pull capacity and do not require shunting. Furthermore it is argued by IE management and in one of the submissions made to the review group by a private sector tourism user of the railway (Rail Tours Ireland) that locomotives are essential for the longer journies because they provide higher comfort levels, better catering facilities and other benefits.This view has to be balanced by the national priority of providing an efficient high volume frequent passenger service rather than a low volume luxury service.

I'll leave it there for now, but I have much more to reveal from Derek's Irish Railway Almanac. A real insight into Government incompetence and IE tomfoolery. Remember these are the people in charge of running it all.
Stay tuned and please feel free to comment.
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Unread 28-01-2008, 23:22   #2
James Shields
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Nice one, Derek. Think where we could be now.
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Unread 24-02-2008, 20:46   #3
Derek Wheeler
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Due to the problems created by my original posting, Ive decided not to post any further additions to this thread. However I have decided to set up a resource web site that will document as best as possible the various plans of CIE/IE and Government in relation to rail transport from the 1970s to the present day. It will not be a campaign web site, but merely a tool by which one can examine the litany of broken promises and political interference that have affected rail transport in Ireland. It was a project that I had planned a couple of years ago and now have the time to set up. The relevence of this resource is directly related to much of what I have said here on this forum. Obviously I would have preferred it, if it could've been part of this web site, but unfortunetly, due to problems, my contributions and offers of help to the organisation (since resigning) are not always treated in a manner that appeals to me.

I'll post a link in due course and hope people enjoy it.
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