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Mark Gleeson · 02-06-2006, 14:00

I don't work for Irish Rail, in fact an investigation was conducted within IE to find out if I was operating under an alias they came up dry. All the costs are publically available, Irish Rail have no problem writting long articles for the trade press

Its fairly simple to work out the fleet size and allocations and there is no spare, problem is finding space to run an extra train if you could find a train set. In fact Irish Rail are short by about 40 suburban coaches currently

Next question is there was 4 coaches are available where should they be deployed, options are
1) Drogheda line, over crowding levels resulting in numerous people fainting, track capacity available, also possible extend lenght of some trains
2) Maynooth, over crowding levels resulting in numerous people fainting, track capacity available, also possible extend lenght of some trains
3) Kildare Dublin, patchy service but extreme track capacity limits, the one possible slot for an extra train has been rejected by Irish Rail as available.

Its either 1 or 2 without question

The only thing wrong about the evening service is you have to change at Portarlington if you get the 18:35, still its only a 70 minute journey, 3 trains 30 minutes apart in the rush hour which is reasonable its a lot better than some places

Costs are very important, at the moment its possible to get 2 fully loaded trips per rush hour out of a set running Dublin Newbridge, if you extend beyond Kildare the set won't be back in Dublin to cover other services, so you need more equipment. Mornings are easy enough as you can position stuff and simply depart earlier

This is not simple stuff, timetabling is a nightmare, we are working on a off peak time table for Dublin Portlaois/Athlone since thats a major issue in Kildare and Newbridge and on paper a train to and from Monestervin every 2 hours is just about possible, the peak timetable is resource constrained

You can't go in to Irish Rail management and ask for what is impossible you have to go in with a reasoned case backed by proof it works at that point you are in a position to force the issue, we have been there and Irish Rail changed there story very fast once we proved the previously impossible possible

19:15 is a Fridays only to Limerick
The 21:00 to Cork already makes far too many stops

There is talk of a later suburban service to Port Laoise but Irish Rail have the usual excuses about not doing it, they need a an extra driver, takes 70 odd weeks train one

02-06-2006, 14:00	#22
Mark Gleeson Technical Officer Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Coach C, Seat 33 Posts: 12,669	I don't work for Irish Rail, in fact an investigation was conducted within IE to find out if I was operating under an alias they came up dry. All the costs are publically available, Irish Rail have no problem writting long articles for the trade press Its fairly simple to work out the fleet size and allocations and there is no spare, problem is finding space to run an extra train if you could find a train set. In fact Irish Rail are short by about 40 suburban coaches currently Next question is there was 4 coaches are available where should they be deployed, options are 1) Drogheda line, over crowding levels resulting in numerous people fainting, track capacity available, also possible extend lenght of some trains 2) Maynooth, over crowding levels resulting in numerous people fainting, track capacity available, also possible extend lenght of some trains 3) Kildare Dublin, patchy service but extreme track capacity limits, the one possible slot for an extra train has been rejected by Irish Rail as available. Its either 1 or 2 without question The only thing wrong about the evening service is you have to change at Portarlington if you get the 18:35, still its only a 70 minute journey, 3 trains 30 minutes apart in the rush hour which is reasonable its a lot better than some places Costs are very important, at the moment its possible to get 2 fully loaded trips per rush hour out of a set running Dublin Newbridge, if you extend beyond Kildare the set won't be back in Dublin to cover other services, so you need more equipment. Mornings are easy enough as you can position stuff and simply depart earlier This is not simple stuff, timetabling is a nightmare, we are working on a off peak time table for Dublin Portlaois/Athlone since thats a major issue in Kildare and Newbridge and on paper a train to and from Monestervin every 2 hours is just about possible, the peak timetable is resource constrained You can't go in to Irish Rail management and ask for what is impossible you have to go in with a reasoned case backed by proof it works at that point you are in a position to force the issue, we have been there and Irish Rail changed there story very fast once we proved the previously impossible possible 19:15 is a Fridays only to Limerick The 21:00 to Cork already makes far too many stops There is talk of a later suburban service to Port Laoise but Irish Rail have the usual excuses about not doing it, they need a an extra driver, takes 70 odd weeks train one Last edited by Mark Gleeson : 02-06-2006 at 14:09.