On train information and the lack thereof, post your experience

[Thomas the Tank]

Hi there,

Sorry for the really really dumb question but would someone mind explaining what timetable padding means? Is it that IE puts a departure time on their timetables but leave before that to get to their destination earlier, thereby making them look great??

Also just a ramble on the 8:16 Maynooth-Bray train. I've been travelling on that train for six months now and I would say 99.99% of the time there is a long stop between Drumcondra and Connolly stations. I believe the train is supposed to get into Connolly at 08:41 - this morning it was 8:47. Apart from the usual stop between Drumcondra and Connolly the doors did not open upon arrival at Connolly for at least 1 minute.
With regards to lack of information - only ONCE in that six months was an announcement ever made as to why we were not moving despite having only just pulled out of Drumcondra. On that one occasion the driver came on over the PA system, apologised profusely and told us that we were waiting for a platform in Connolly to clear. While we were still waiting a few minutes later he came on and apologised again and for the first morning I didn't feel p*ssed off about it! At least for once it showed that somebody in that bl*ody company was concerned (however slightly) about customer service. I cannot believe that we are delayed every morning on a roasting hot, crowded train by between 3-5mins and we're just supposed to accept it as one of them IE traditions!!

[Thomas J Stamp]

Padding the timetable works in the opposite way than you think: A train that can get from say Templemore to Heuston in 1hr 20 min is given a journey time of 1.30. You get the train at 12.00pm and get in say at 13.25 and you think great its early, its not, its late because it can get there in 1.20.

We have noticed that over the years the times have expanded on most journeys. This can be for safety reasons, eg KRP will add time onto everything coming into and out of Heuston and also a lot of the added time in the past few years has beena s a result of IE not trusting their rails, thus slowing down trains.

Of course, the fact that this is a very handy way of escaping obligations under the customer charterer (it makes it vittually impossible for trains to be late, hence the wonderfull stats) is jusy a handy benifit.

As for waiting to get into Connolly, it is a matter of waiting for station clearance, you have to cross DART tracks AFAIR but MarkG will explain that. 8-9am in a bottleneck in Connolly for which we know the solution, in fact we've told them the solutiuon, they have in time honoured fashion, ignored it.

Sure what do we know?

[Thomas the Tank]

Thanks for the info Thomas. Those posters you see from time to time on the trains saying how ninety-something percent of all IE trains were on time in the previous year make me laugh....and then cry....

I know the new timetables aren't out yet but do you think IE will take into account that waiting time between Drumcondra and Connolly when publishing the new one so that even if the train leaves Maynooth 3-4 mins later, at least we'd be moving the whole way to our destination and not just stood there in a traffic jam?

[Mark Gleeson]

There is no obvious padding on commuter services

If the Drogheda Bray train ahead is late you have to wait and if the Drogheda train is more than 3 minutes down the next northbound DART service is allowed, both of these trains block the Maynooth service

Basically bad timetabling easy enough solve

Give a classic example
8:00 Mallow Cork (24 minutes)
9:11 Mallow Cork (31 minutes)

They are both Mk4 trains difference is the 8:00 starts in Mallow, 9:11 left Dublin at 7:00. There is a consistent issue where trains pick up 3 to 5 minutes delay enroute no idea why seems to be a combination of slow station stops and poor driving i.e doing 25 mph when the limit is 60 mph

[Colm Donoghue]

Unfortunately there is padding on commuter services.

From to date time time
Malahide Portmarnock 04/01 06:28 06:31 3min
Malahide Portmarnock 04/01 07:29 07:36 7min

or 230% longer time to travel the same distance.


Another example
Donabate Connolly 04/01 08:00 08:28 28min
Donabate Connolly 04/01 08:14 08:36 22min

or over 27% longer to travel the same distance

on a Saturday,
Donabate Connolly 06/01 08:04 08:25 21min
This service makes 3 intermediate stops. the two services above make none i.e. nonstop is >33% slower than 3 stops

[Rashers]

Thomas, I get the Drogheda-Bray service which is due to arrive in just before the Maynooth service you refer to. I would say at least 90% of the time we arrive on Clontarf Road on time, and sit north of Connolly waiting for a free platform.The average delay is just under 5 minutes.
This has gotten a lot worse since the previous Maynooth service ( a new service for 2006) sits on a 'prime' DART platform in Connolly (I think it's 6 or 7). Therefore the northbound DARTs are pushed into 1 platform, which is often shared with soutbound DARTs. If the earlier Maynooth service was sent to another platform (1/2/3/4), this might help.

[Mark Gleeson]

15:44 Greystones Howth
Rear destination display showing Greystones

16:15 Bray Malahide
Rear destination display showing Howth

18:16 Malahide Bray
Rear destination display showing Malahide

[Mark Gleeson]

16:00 Bray Howth
No destination shown on front coach 8203

Side displays on rear 4 coaches (8613/14) had Destination Bray/Next Bayside up

[Mark Gleeson]

9:30 Greystones Howth
No destination shown on front coach 8203

[shweeney]

0730 Greystones - Malahide this morning

all displays inside and out were showing "Destination Bray, Next station Dun Laoghaire" for the entire journey. The driver did announce the correct destination a few times.

[MOH]

18:20 10/01/07 - yet again northbound platform display at Blackrock blank.

18:20ish northbound DART had 'Out of service/As Serbhis' scrolling displays the whole way in, no on-train information working.

[Colm Donoghue]

Wednesday 10 Jan2007.
Got 1734 DART Pearse to Malahide to get Dundalk train.
Inside one display said "as serbhis" other was blank.
No announcements for stations.

I was haging around on the platform in Malahide.
Driver comes down to go back to Bray. As he's about to leave,
old lady flags him down to ask him if he knows there is a lad
passed out on one of the carriages.

He picks up in cab telephone, starts shouting hello several times into it, hangs up.
leaves the cab, walks slowly down the platform, away from the train, to the bridge where there must be another telephone.
comes back.
goes into the cab again gets his hi-vis jacket
coems out walks down the train, sees said passed out lad.
goes into carriage. I hear some shouts. after a while driver comes back and gets into cab and dart moves off. as it passes I see the passed out lad on a seat but doubled over

a few minutes later the delayed dundalk train pulls in, fairly full and aircon not working.

In all this time I heard no announcement re- delay. Maybe the dart driver made an announcement after he left Malahide, but I'm sure the dundalk train passengers had no announcement

Oh yeah the dart was originally to depart at 18:16 the driver only closed the doors at 18:20 before the incident started.

[Mark Gleeson]

To contact control you push button and wait a good 10-15 seconds before it rings back, only then you pick the handset

Driver is responsible for the passengers on board (where its driver only operation) its serious breech to leave a station knowningly with someone ill onboard. No one will complain if the driver checks and takes the train forward to a station closer to a hospital where a ambulance can reach quicker

[Colm Donoghue]

Car 29229 on 18:50 Pearse Dundalk 15 Jan2007

Display said next station is Malahide/an cead staisuin eile Mullach Ide
when we were coming into Donabate and again when we were coming into Rush and Lusk.

[hhf8]

07.02 ex Balbriggan to pearse
2900 train,no PA At all,no displays,Driver informed passengers of delay just before connolly

[2Funki4Wheelz]

18:05 Dub - Portlaoise (this is a regular offender - it's a mk3)
Inaudible announcements from the driver about the late departure. The announcement that the doors were about to close was a little louder but you would still strain to hear. Only the chimes are clear.

The announcements from the station outside about other trains are actually easier to hear than the onboard PA.

[zag]

Was on the DART home from Clontarf Road last night about 1715 - the first one South after the Enterprise went through if that helps anyone identify it.

At first it looked like the announcements and display were in synch with themselves and reality . . . and all at the same time too.

However, it turned out that there were two sets of recordings & displays in action at the same time. About a minute or so after being told we were approaching Connolly we we told we were approaching Booterstown too. I checked the display and it was displaying both Connolly & Booterstown. This proceeded all the way through town until commuters were given a very clear announcement on the approach to Landsdowne Road that they should alight at the next station if they wished to connect to a ferry.

Seems harmless enough, but imagine you are a tourist relying on this information and getting off at the wrong stop because of the announcements. This is similar to me getting off at Connolly the other morning because the announcement on the train said the train was going non-stop to Howth Junction, when in fact it wasn't.

What I don't get about the poor quality of the announcements is that we are not talking thermonuclear devices here, we are not even talking about a network with multiple lines and many many possible route options. It *cannot* be that hard to program the small set of routes in and get them to work correctly. There must be maybe 6 routings in each direction, with a few oddities like the peak hour DART that skips Clontarf Road sometimes. How hard can that be ? It really seems like IE have their priorities all over the place and don't actually care about the customer experience in some regards.

z

[MOH]

17/01/07 Display gone as usual on northbound platform at Blackrock

[Mr T.]

17/01/07 - 17:25 Heuston to Limerick: announcements so loud your ears would bleed. Needless to say no-one missed their stop. Or no-one was able to snooze.

18/01/07 - 18:05 Heuston to Portlaoise: announcement bell audible and not too loud but voice of announcer at volume which was too low as to be inaudible.

[ThomasJ]

I'm just wondering was on the 7.56am Coolmine-pearse this morning and on the train I noticed a number of things:

Visual: Destination, next station, cctv etc are all now displaying in english and irish on the 29000 trains. Also ticket "inspection" has been replaced by ticket "validation".

Audio: I don't know whether it was just this train it was happening on butthere was just one liners ie. the next station is dublin pearse, this train is for dublin pearse. were now arriving at dublin pearse. In fact it has been like that for days. Is this the new thing?