Cork Area Services
 

It appears there are major problems in Cork due to a lack of serviceable trains. Several trains have been cancelled as a result on the Cobh line.

Nothing on the Irish Rail site.

If we get details of further cancellations we will update

Due to a massive shortage of railcars in Cork a large number of trains have been cancelled, of course no one is saying anything in IE about it

Morning
The 7:00 and 8:30 Cork Cobh and the 7:30 and 9:00 Cobh

Evening
The 16:30, 17:30 and 18:30 Cork Cobh and the 17:00, 18:00 and 19:00 Cobh Cork

These cancellations are expected to continue for some time

The Mk3 citygold coach set used as a standby for Cork Dublin is now running Tralee - Mallow to substitute for the missing railcars, this however leaves Cork Dublin services at risk

Buses are on standby in Mallow since a 2 coach railcar is not able to take the load where a 4 coach is normally used

The 19:30, 20:30 Cork Cobh and 20:00 and 21:00 Cobh Cork and the 5:35 Cork Millstreet remain cancelled as a result of the ongoing issues in Irish Rail, again no notice to that effect on the IE site

Are the railcars dead or have they been transferred up the country?

2 up country, gearbox related issues
1 in Cork not mobile
1 in Cork mobile but short an engine

If things couldn't get any worse

This is expected to continue for a number of weeks

Things get worse

Should of course point out the 19:30 and 20:30 trains are nearly always buses anway

A 6 coach push pull set is now based in Cork which somewhat resolves the situation.

Its back to front from operational reasons, so the engine faces Dublin instead of Cobh

Is that a Mk3? And I didn't think some of the platforms (Fota and Carrigaloe come to mind) could handle that length of a train.

Irish Rail don't have agreement on the supervision of trainee drivers, someone foolishly in the company seems to want to cause trouble instead of minimising it

The arrangement that is being pushed is the senior driver is responsible for everything while the trainee is driving, doesn't appear to be 100% fair now does it

seems foolish to start this arrangement before aggreement was made, was progress on this issue not being made?

Also given the impact the original issue was having on other services what is the chance it could spread?

It doesn't seem fair

Situation is that they tried to do some training in Cork this morning, this is voluntary anyway it appears, guy said no to taking the train out the issue seems to come before even the mentoring thing, he sent home, other guy in Dublin won't come back down until the first guy is back in work.

With the exception of the 11:00 all Dublin Cork seems to be ok

Seems pretty stupid then for IE to brag that this could cause significant disruption to cork services.

If it is voluntary for the driver to do the training, why refuse to take the train out. Why just say no to the training?

updated

updated again, does not look good

A total of 6 Cork based staff have been struck off the payroll, that will increase steadily

Effectively there are no services into or out of Cork

The issue at hand is management asked to the pilot driver in Cork to take out a train with trainee drivers. Driver refused on the grounds that as pilot he operates only within Cork station

Heuston should be fun tonight!

The media don't seem to be covering much.

Is there bus transfers planned for the cancelled services?

Doesn't suprise me that the whole thing just happened too late for the 1pm news

Buses provided, however they aren't enough of them and the budget to pay for them has been exhausted

This isn't good at all. What are the chances of this happening tomorrow morning.

On a personal note, my father is flying out of Dublin tomorrow afternoon and hoping to get the 10:30 train out of Cork.

10:30 out of Cork is a Dublin driver, drives the 7:00 to Cork then the 10:30 back

It looks like this is going to be a real mess but you really have to question the sanity of IE management since they knew the outcome of their actions would result in a serious number of cancellations

Bear in mind Irish Rail management are now in breach of their obligations to provide a public transport service and also are in multiple breaches of the service level agreements

Would a Dublin driver "cross the picketline" of cork drivers by driving the train all the way into cork?

Update

There ain't no picket line, no strike, the problem in Cork is there won't be a driver to move the train around when it arrives, the pilot driver was the first to be sent home

From breakingnews.ie

http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/mhgbmhaugbgb/

RTE seems to have Made a mess of this note the area highlighted. (not mentioned on irish rail website)

http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0522/rail.html

Update on my father. He was actually going to go from Dublin from Mallow, hoping to get the train that leaves Cork at 10:30. He called up the station in Mallow about 20 minutes ago, not knowing what was going on, to buy a ticket for tomorrow. He was advised not to buy it and keep an eye on the news tonight and in the morning.

With a flight a 4pm, its really a catch 22 tomorrow morning. Because he will have to make the decision to drive at about 8:30 tomorrow morning.

It goes to show that for all the issues in which it resulted in bus transfers costing the company dearly that an agreement with Bus Eireann might help IE.

Update on RTE Website:

http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0522/rail.html

[23-5-2008] All services at risk
 

As of Friday May 23rd there is likely to be widespread cancellations

Services may run in the morning and then disappear, if you are looking to travel tomorrow, travel early or make alternative arrangements asap

All services Cork area and most Cork Dublin cancelled
All services Heuston likely to cancelled
All services Galway likely to cancelled

DART services are also at risk

Linked to the Cork situation Mark?

How come DARTs?

Updated

[23-5-2008] All services at risk
 

Well be fairly sure there won't be a 5:15 or 6:30 out of Cork tomorrow

Im at Heuston now was meant to be going down to Cork on the 1800 didnt know anything about the problems till i got here and read a small notice on the display board, though there are also announcements every 10 minutes or so. Killarney, Farranfore and Tralee passengers were being sent to Limerick on the 1725 for bus transfer, now that its gone they and people for every where else south of Thurles are being put on the 1835 to Thurles, with bus connections from there. Its going to be a long evening.

Luckily the staff at the info desk do have a ready supply of refund forms.

Anyone with a reservation is entitled to a full refund if any part of the journey requires a bus

There are no trains south of Thurles, 18:35 last train beyond Portarlington

is it CTC boys going out on the picket or drivers ?

where's my old ILDA t-shirt ?

There shall be no picket

All drivers who have not been struck off the payroll are reporting for work as normal

At this point few if any trains country wide are likely to operate tomorrow

You got to admire the confidence that there will be a service tomorrow morning. There won't be any train turning a wheel in Cork station tomorrow

I demand proof of your ridiculous claim of no trains running at all tomorrow. As far as I can see RUI are making this up to make Irish Rail look bad (worse)