Cork Area Services

[ThomasJ]

Looks like good news!

Update: 14.15hrs Cork & Kerry, service disruptions, Thursday 29th May by Corporate Communications


UPDATE: 14.15hrs, Thursday 29th May

Iarnród Éireann is pleased to announce that Cork & Kerry services are expected to resume on Friday 30th May.

Regrettably,the following services will remain disrupted today, as follows (evening service arrangements will be confirmed later today on this website)

Service disruption, Thursday 29th May

The following services are expected to be cancelled on Thursday 29th May:


13.30 Cork - Heuston

14.30 Cork - Heuston

15.30 Cork - Heuston

16.30 Cork - Heuston

15.30 Cork - Heuston

18.30 Heuston - Tralee

Afternoon Cork/Cobh and Cork/Mallow services

Afternoon Cork/Tralee services

Services operating on Cork and Kerry routes are:

11.30 Cork to Heuston (with bus transfers between Cork and Mallow)

12.30 Cork to Heuston (with bus transfers between Cork and Mallow, and between Tralee and Mallow)

14.00 Heuston - Cork (with bus transfers between Mallow and Cork)

15.00 Heuston -Cork (with bus transfers between Mallow and Cork, and Mallow and Tralee)

16.00 Heuston-Cork (with bus transfers between Mallow and Cork)

17.00 Heuston - Cork (with bus transfers between Mallow and Cork, and Mallow and Tralee)

Limerick Customers should note:

Some Services to and from Limerick that connect with Cork services at Limerick Junction may be affected by the cancellations, outlined above. Limerick customers are advised to ring 1850 366 222 or contact their local station before travelling. All direct Limerick services are operating as normal.

Please note bus transfers from Cork and from Tralee depart 30 minutes earlier than scheduled train time.

All other routes will operate normally.

Iarnród Éireann apologises for the inconvience caused to customer during these disruptions.

http://www.irishrail.ie/news_centre/...ew&news_id=379

[Donal Quinn]

the question is - was this a fudge or have some of the crappy practices on both sides been sorted out?

[ThomasJ]

RTE News

Cork train drivers to return to work
Thursday, 29 May 2008 14:28
The meeting of train drivers at the centre of the dispute in the south has ended.

Union officials said the workers have voted to return to work at a minute past midnight.

But the unions have stated that they were angry at management comments over the past few days, which portrayed them as mavericks.

A meeting convened by the Labour Relations Commission will now take place next Thursday between management and the unions to thrash out the core issues at the centre of this eight-day dispute which caused havoc for more than 100,000 commuters and travellers.

Management at Iarnród Éireann have welcomed the Cork drivers' decision to resume normal services.

Spokesman Barry Kenny said they are delighted that they will be able to restore full services on the Cork and Kerry routes and added that the LRC meeting and the document accepted by both sides, has strengthened the company's ability to provide service continuity in the future for customers.

The meeting at a Cork city centre hotel began shortly after 11am this morning.

Earlier, a letter Irish Rail management demanded drivers sign has been withdrawn.

The letter instructed drivers not to engage in unofficial industrial action.

But the unions said they will commit to working with management to ensure unofficial action does not happen again.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0529/rail.html

[ThomasJ]

Originally Posted by Donalq

the question is - was this a fudge or have some of the crappy practices on both sides been sorted out?

I hope so! Too many times issues like these crop up again and again. Lessons need to be learned. Something needs to come out of the past week, hopefully the talks have done that!

[Mark]

I know its not as black and white as this but isnt it amusing that the drivers complain that they work too many days and that IE havent increased their numbers while refusing to train new drivers?

[Mark Gleeson]

They changed the training program compared to the one agreed back in 2000. The whole driver mentor thing

Had a driver been rostered specifically for the job on Thursday there would not have been a problem. That was the normal case

A large amount of the training requires the trainees to sit with a driver and simply watch and learn the road thats the biggest part of the training course, however a driver has the right to operate alone, indeed in the UK recently trained drivers are not allowed to have someone with them. The practical drive under supervision is actually a very small part of the job

[ACustomer]

Two points: the return to normal service does not seem to be exactly a matter of urgency: nothing restored to-day. And this coming from drivers who said a few days ago that they wanted to drive and were being prevented from doing so.

Also "a driver has the right to operate alone". That really made me laugh. Do you mean that hey are unwilling to have a trainee colleague sit alongside and learn the road. Any normal person should love to have someone along to whom they can pass on a few comments. Don't tell me they might be distracted: after all drivers in the UK used to go on strike in defence of double-manning in the (alleged) interest of safety.

There has been far too much mollycoddling of drivers in this descussion.

[Mark Gleeson]

One of the key causes of accidents is getting confused as to where you are,

Obviously in 99% of cases there isn't a problem to have someone else in the cab once they have the right pass

Since the line Cobh Cork, Cork Mallow and Mallow Tralee haven't seen a train in Thursday last a test train has to run to confirm the line is clear, also several of the trains need to be inspected since they have gone too long without a routine maintenance inspection obviously that can't be done if its not in Cork station, of course Cork was short serviceable trains anyway

There should be something running today, assuming there are trains in the right place to run the service

For Friday the 7:15 Tralee Dublin likely to be canceled or run only from Mallow

[dowlingm]

As a layman, I can understand why a driver would have to be "type-rated" to a specific train but not why the driver would have to be cleared on a given line. After all, buses can be chartered to anywhere you like without a prior visit, as can aircraft.

I'm sure there's a good reason for it - stuff like acceleration/deceleration profiles so you stop accurately on the platform, who to ring when the LC operator hasn't got out of bed, that sort of thing...

It just seems a lot like Mark Twain's book on apprenticing to be a Mississippi steamboat pilot. I mean, feck there seems to be more automatic guidance in private cars these days with all the GPSes being sold, you'd think Garmin could come up with an equivalent to assist train drivers

[Mark Gleeson]

Friday 30th May

All services on the Cork/Dublin, Tralee/Dublin, Cork/Tralee, Cork/Cobh and Cork/Mallow routes will operate normally except the following services, which are cancelled on Friday 30th May, due to the requirements to move trains into position following this week's disruption:

05.25 Tralee / Mallow
09.15 Tralee / Mallow
06.15 Cork / Tralee
07.45 Cork / Mallow
08.50 Cork / Mallow
08.30 Mallow / Cork
09.00 Mallow / Cork
10.46 Mallow / Cork

Iarnród Éireann apologises to customers for the serious disruption to Cork and Kerry services over the past week.

Curiously too many trains in the wrong place

Services resume at 00:01 on Friday May 30th

[Mark Gleeson]

Originally Posted by dowlingm

As a layman, I can understand why a driver would have to be "type-rated" to a specific train but not why the driver would have to be cleared on a given line. After all, buses can be chartered to anywhere you like without a prior visit, as can aircraft.

I'm sure there's a good reason for it - stuff like acceleration/deceleration profiles so you stop accurately on the platform, who to ring when the LC operator hasn't got out of bed, that sort of thing...

Location of signals as well as the speed limits, braking points, gradients etc must be learned, its not easy in the pitch black dark at 100mph remember it takes 2km to stop at that kind of speed and you have a target you can't see where you have to be accurate to within 1.5m. Airline pilots are somewhat similar certain difficult airports must be flown by senior captains

Not all Cork drivers are able to drive all trains in Cork which causes some problems when a freight train appears and the guy isn't passed out to drive it

[Mark Gleeson]

20:00 and 21:00 Dublin Cork only made it to Mallow last night as there was no driver available in Cork to handle the incoming trains

7:00 Cork Cobh and 7:30 Cobh Cork where cancelled this morning

[Mark]

Why do the Cobh service problems not have the users up in arms. Is it due to low patronage? Im just saying that I dont hear much about the cancelled services except from this board.

[Mark Gleeson]

There are about 450,000 journeys per year

Cancellations are common as services are killed to ensure the Dublin Cork service stays running, this is the flexibility Irish Rail talk about

Rail is the fastest way to Cobh given the layout of the Cork

[Mark Hennessy]

Presumably Cork-Cobh service fall under the service level agreement between the DOT and Irish Rail?

Makes you wonder why not a single local politician has even raised a peek about this.

If DART's were being canceled like this, there would be war.

[Mark Gleeson]

Management of course are selling this as the strike, when in fact they are so desperate to keep the Dublin Cork running everything else is sacrificed

Remember this is an operational matter for Irish Rail......

And yes it is in breech of the DOT agreement

[Mark Gleeson]

Since it hit the paper this morning, we can go public on this.

Two drivers were suspended on Monday, the two drivers chosen were far from random

This explains the issues with the 20:00 and 21:00, though the Cobh changes are different issue

Curiously training train showed up Tuesday and no one was asked to take it out

[Mark]

I assumed that there were two driver pools. One for the Commuter services and one for the intercity services. That would make more sense would it not?

Something drastic either has to be done or is going to happen, again.

So much potential in cork for a decent commuter network. Pity.

[Mark Gleeson]

Its been brought to our attention that there is some class of weird timetable in use on the Cork Cobh service

The 19:30 Cork Cobh and 20:30 Cork Cobh have been cancelled and a 20:00 Cork Cobh added

The 20:00 Cobh Cork and 21:00 Cobh Cork have been cancelled and a 20:30 Cobh Cork added

As a result Irish Rail are now in breech of the service level agreement by running two trains less than agreed

Of course no notice has been issued telling the public of this

[Dkettle]

Isn't this just last year's timetable, with the infuriatingly sparse service in the evenings?

I was surprised also last Sunday to see how few matchgoers used the train to go into the city. It seems people prefer to face the joys of Cork matchday traffic to park in the city centre rather than park in a near empty station and have a 7 minute ride into Kent. While it's a bit of a trek to the ground it is no worse than it would be from most parked cars.