[25/10/2011] Connolly, DART, Luas - disruption potential
 

http://www.met.ie/forecasts/Tides: http://www.sailing.ie/LinkClick.aspx...=211 &mid=666

Based on Monday's floods, there are specific risks to the following areas.

• Entire Dublin area (not Heuston-side services) may have signalling issues.
• Enterprise / Northern Line - Killester-Clontarf Road and possibly other locations.
• Sligo / Maynooth Line - Broombridge
• DART - Killester-Clontarf Road, Seapoint, Sandycove-Dun Laoghaire
• Luas Red Line - from Blackhorse to The Point (especially at high tide 11:00 and 23:00) and from Saggart to Belgard.
• Luas Green Line - from Beechwood to St. Stephen's Green

[25/10/2011] Nothing seems to be working
 

Luckily enough, I'm not on the train today but a summary of Irish Rail's twitter feed is pretty typical of Irish Rail. In 20 minutes, delays have gone from 20-30 minutes to 30-60 minutes.

Delays now 30-60 mins on DART, Maynooth, Northern, apologies, and thank you for your patience
5 minutes ago

IrishRail IrishRail
Delays worsening on DART, Commuter & Sligo/Belfast services - approx 30-45 mins delays. Trains now suspended thru Lansdowne Rd, tree down
11 minutes ago

IrishRail IrishRail
Very slow through Connolly in particular, signalling equipment damage means one route through Connolly for all trains, apologies for delays
22 minutes ago

IrishRail IrishRail
Delays now 20-30 mins approx on DART, Northern/Maynooth Commuter, Belfast, Sligo, Rosslare flood damage to signalling equipment Dublin area
24 minutes ago

Looks as if Irish Rail need to urgently revise their contingency plans during periods of significant signalling disruption. It is clear that DART operations are not compatible with other than minor signal failures as typically such failures render coded signals inoperative resulting in DART movements being restricted to a maximum running speed of about 10 mph.

While such working over short sections (say between two signals) may be practical, DARTs crawling along at 10 mph over lengthy sections of line simply collapses the DART service and massively delays other services. Yet another operational disaster for Irish Rail with attendant misery for their customers.

Irish Rail 08:55
 

http://irishrail.ie/news_centre/travel_alerts.asp?action=view&news_id=1225

Luas 09:45
 

Given the scale of difficulties two stations closed due flooding major flooding near Glenageary and the odd tree falling to provide any service is something

Given Dart carries way more people it is entitled to priority. There was probably a lot of pass signal xx at danger this morning. Given the slow speeds at Connolly a coded circuit failure is not going to be that bad. Having to run single line due to equipment damage is the real problem

Irish Rail 10.15
 

http://irishrail.ie/news_centre/travel_alerts.asp?action=view&news_id=1225

Weather forecast 05:22
 

Irish Rail 10.25
 

http://irishrail.ie/news_centre/travel_alerts.asp?action=view&news_id=1225

Is everything OK elsewhere in the country?

I know the worst of the rain was around Dublin and Wicklow, but it hasn't exactly been dry elsewhere.

When I came up to Dublin yesterday, there were parts of Western Laois where it looked like the line was crossing the middle of a lake. Any more on top of that and there could have been problems.

And it normally takes some light drizzle to flood the Limerick-Ennis line.

Advice from Irish Rail this morning was as follows
"Reduced speed primarily at Serpentine crossing near Sandymount; Harmonstown; Broombridge. DART/Commuter will operate with 5-10 min delay"

In reality the delays were catastrophic. This is not to criticise train crews, signal maintainers and others who were faced with horrific conditions in getting to work. I am criticising the fact that Irish Rail do not appear to be able to reliably evaluate the likely effect on services of operating constraints. This is a recurrent theme especially in respect of DART operations which are especially sensitive to disruptions to the signalling system.

As regards DART being entitled to priority based on numbers carried - this is a dubious argument given that 1) average DART journeys are very short (around 9km, I believe), 2) DART usage is similar or less than combined northern and western commuter service usage and 3) average peak loading per DART path is less than average northern or western commuter usage.

DART is now so slow that even on a good day the service is essentially incompatible with even modestly competitive longer distance commuter and intercity services on the northern line beyond Howth Junction - this issue is one of the major reasons for the flight away from the railway along the northern corridor and the deep scepticism about future investment, particularly the ill conceived Clongriffin to Dublin Airport scheme.

DART carries 17 million per annum which is more than twice the sum of Northern and Maynooth usage

There is flooding (Serpentine Ave is a known problem location). All routes are running

Compare to Luas which has just given up between Balally and City because they have no redundancy in there power supply

Line now closed Newry to Portadown due to flood damage

Why was Drumcondra closed?

Glasnevin junction was badly flooded

Major disruption - NO DARTs NORTH OF CONNOLLY - Major signalling fault

Don't think your numbers are entirely correct. DART services according to the CSO (based on figures from Irish Rail) indicate that 17.520 million journeys were made on DART in 2009. During the same year 11.868 million journeys were made on other Dublin suburban services. The latter figure would essentially relate to northern and western services (presumeably stations stations from Kilcock eastwards and Balbriggan southwards). Working the numbers would suggest that usage of inbound northern line combined with inbound western line services significantly exceed inbound northern line DART services. Likewise in the reverse direction. This calculation discounts intercity journeys from Enfield westwards and Gormanston northwards.

When you take into account the much lower average DART journey length, the near absolute priority given to DART is on somewhat shaky grounds. On top of this DART usage has been essentially stagnant for years while there has been massive growth in western and northern services.

[25-10-2011] NO services north of Connolly - major signal fault at Howth Junction
 

Major disruption due to major signalling fault as a result of flooding at howth junction

update

Any idea's what time this started impacting services? Seemingly large number of passengers to be sent back into Connolly. As someone who got what I believe was the last northbound Drogheda train last night (18.40), and was delayed by 1 hour between Howth Junction and Donabate, my heart goes out to them.
Must be very serious to impact so many travellers.