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Unread 06-11-2013, 08:54   #36
James Howard
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Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Sligo Line
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That would be an excellent solution for both of the early Longford services - just run a stopping train immediately behind them. It is crazy running stopping commuter trains from as far Longford especially when one of them is an ICR which makes getting on and off extremely difficult. However, I would think that you would find that these services would end up very popular with Maynooth commuters as they would be about 15 minutes quicker than the other train on the line and so would end up jammed anyway.

Something is going to have to give with this on the Sligo line. The main issue is that probably 75% of the daily up traffic is on the first two trains and they really can't get away with running these as 4 cars without causing serious passenger discomfort.

They may have given up on 4 cars for the 0540 from Longford - the 1805 was 7 cars yesterday. So in effect, they have basically added an extra car to a train that was already fairly generously provisioned with 6 cars. This train was 4 cars on Monday and while crowded to Maynooth, wasn't that bad for most of the journey.

This whole thing has a whiff of new management coming in from England where crazy levels of peak-time overcrowding due to lack of capacity is completely the norm. In one week they have managed to turn the Sligo line into UK mode by putting the fares up 10% and cutting capacity so that everyone is crammed in like sardines.
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