Archive for the ‘Decline on Irish Railways’ Category

Trip to M3 Parkway - Not.

Saturday, September 4th, 2010


Well I thought I had it figured. Park at Barberstown, walk the canal towpath to Clonsilla - allowing me to photograph the completed railway bridge over the Royal Canal and get a return ticket from Clonsilla to M3 Parkway. Of course, I made the mistake of actually trusting Irish Rail to have their ticket machines updated. But then, when you see this inside the station, preceded by the old timetable still proudly on display outside the station, what would you expect.

I have photos of the pages for stations with D (for Dunboyne), M (for M3 Parkway) and just for good measure, I took a photo of the page for P (Pace) - just in case. Not one of the pages has the new stations on it. I also decided to look at the zone tickets. After all, it is about the same distance from Clonsilla to M3 Parkway as it is to Maynooth. Therefore, common sense would suggest that the inner and outer short hop zone tickets would apply. The zone map in the ticket machine is here. But then, these haven’t been updated for the new stations on the Kildare line either, so quelle surprise.

You cannot buy a ticket to access the new line. But wait you say, board the train and pay at the other end. Obviously, you are unaware of the penalty fare system. So, a trip to M3 Parkway costs €100.

Rather than pay this fare (whatever kick I may get from travelling on a new railway, it ain’t worth €100 and a civil penalty which would cost me my professional qualification), so I was left with no choice but to see the train to M3 Parkway come and go, without me on it.

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South Wexford line to close - EU looks the other way

Friday, September 3rd, 2010


When you voted for the Lisbon Treaty, you assumed that Ireland would be subject to the laws of the European Union, right? Wrong. Where is the EU now that the State needs to be forced to sell rolling stock and provide open access to our railway network to third parties to interested in operating the South Wexford Line.

The new EU president was referred to as a damp rag by UKIP MEP Nigel Farage. I would go further than that. Herman Van Rompuy isn’t even fit for use as toilet paper.

To those accountants in IR who have massaged the figures to load the line with network costs based on the misuse of full overhead absorption costing, a complaint of professional misconduct awaits you in due course.

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Irish Rail to sell rolling stock

Friday, August 20th, 2010

The Belfast Telegraph has a report about Irish Rail looking to sell surplus rolling stock. I assume that Deutsche Bann or whoever is looking to run the South Wexford Line will be allowed to buy them.

Posted in CIE, Decline on Irish Railways, Irish Rail, Transport, We Don't Care | No Comments »

Kildare Route Project cancelled

Sunday, April 11th, 2010

This is a headline I wanted to see, 4 years ago, before gobshite rail wasted over 400m of our money on this unnecessary project, adding fuel to the building bubble that has now burst. The Sunday Tribune has reported that the project is now being mothballed

Unfortunately, the cancellation leaves an unused station and two unused tracks between Cherry Orchard and Hazelhatch and at least one family evicted from their home to allow this dick extension to be built - a dick extension that will not now be used. If Anglo Irish Bank is the representation of the Bertie Bubble era, the KRP is its manifestation in Irish Rail.

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DETI proposes tourist train for Derry Line.

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

Well, I suppose it takes so long to get to Derry by train that it probably counts as such! In all seriousness though, if this is what counts for strategic thinking on railway development, the future is not bright for railways in Northern Ireland.

Read the full story here.

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15th August 2009 - NIR

Saturday, August 15th, 2009

Well, they were right about NIR on IRN (careful with the letters there!). They are incompetent. In fact,I’d go so far as to say that they are the worst railway company I have ever had the misfortune to do business with - beating Irish Rail to that title by many miles.

I ended up spending an unreasonable length of time (probably enough to have NIR try to prosecute me for loitering) at Balmoral Station in south Belfast trying to get back into the city centre to ensure my return to Dublin on the 1810 ex Central. Trains stopped but were like cattle ships - full to the gills with useless NIR employees standing at the doors shrugging their shoulders.

Whilst an attempt was made to make PA announcements, those at Balmoral were emitted as white noise rendering them purposeless. Eventually, as one of the few remaining passengers who hadn’t given up and left the station (having walked for 5/6 miles around Belfast ending up at Balmoral, I didn’t fancy walking back in again), I managed to board a Bangor bound service. No ticket checker came along the train to sell me a ticket, leaving me with the joy of facing a penalty fare as I exited at Great Victoria Street. Fortunately, the staff at the exit gate at Great Victoria Street had the sense to issue me with a ticket for the trip from Balmoral to Great Victoria Street only as otherwise, citizens arrest for harassment and extortion would have followed.

All this from the UKs “Rail Business of the Year” winner. If this is the service standards that gets you classified thus, the railway companies in Britain must be absolutely appalling.

And so to the return to Dublin. Despite having a ticket from Irish Rail which gave me a seat number on both the outward and return journeys, NIR don’t do seat reservations and so started the public transport’s answer to Ryanair rush for any available seat as a result of gross overcrowding on the return service to Dublin. Next time I go to Belfast, I’ll drive.

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Irish Rail to cease all services - nuclear powered cars on the way

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

Honest! Seriously though, the latter part of that statement is the sort of BS answer that Julie O’Neill, soon to retire (thank God) Secretary General of the Department of Roads - Sorry, Transport - might give.

The first part, however, does have some potential seriousness to it. Whilst IR are reopening the Ennis to Athenry line, there is now, once again, a serious threat to the existence of the railway between Limerick and Rosslare via Waterford.

With global warming and higher oil prices well identified and on the way, the notion that any Western European state would contemplate railway closures is scary - head in the sand stuff. I fear that the beancounters have taken over IR again (potential conflict of interest - I am a qualified accountant - albeit one who can see the wood for the trees).

It also shows Dick Fearns up to be the know nothing that I have long suspected him to be. You would have to wonder, if he was so brilliant at running a railway, why did he leave Britain and come over to Ireland?

Recently (today!) I read on IRN (the only informative website on what is happening on railways in Ireland apart from this one) that the crossovers at Merrion on the DART line have been removed - thereby reducing operational flexibility in the event of a train failure. Perhaps they were costed out of existence - ’sure they were never used so why pay for them’. Sort of like saying I’ve never had a fire in my house so why put batteries in the smoke alarm. I’m sure that IR’s beancounters would declare insurance to be out of the question because the return on paying it could not be deemed economical (Oh wait - this is what they do).

I have set up a new category on this site “Decline on Irish Railways” which will cover both IR and NIR as it is quite clear that the gombeens who unfortunately run this island have no vision and foresight to see that the days of car dependent societies are over.

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