Irish Rail Strike again !

[Celbridge traveller]

A (very) bad night for IE.

17.15 Announcement by driver "..delay while a technical problem is sorted.. will be under way as soon as possible.."

Doors closed.

Twenty minutes later doors still closed..no interim update.. passengers getting a bit restless.

I ring "customer care" 01-8366222. Ask for an update - they knew nothing. Asked a helpful voice at the end of the line to get word to the train driver to open the doors & provide an update on his tannoy - that is why he has it. This happended within a few minutes.

I de-trained at the door next to the driver position - counted 7 IE people busy but not appearing to be achieving anything.

Noticed an IE staff (female) member who was carrying a two way radio and asked her what was the status. She was particularly poor. Asked her her name - refused to give it. As I tried to read her name badge she turned at right angles to me! - unbelievable? re-run the CCTV tapes IE management and see for yourselves.

As an aside, why are these people kitted out in dark clothes without any obvious IE branding?

With all of the hundreds of millions being spent on kit why not recruit a few junior staff with customer liasion skills? These staff could then train up the existing "customer care" experts dotted on the Heuston platforms!


In the end it was a mad dash back along platform 1 and 2 to the concourse and down platform 3/4. As we were boarding the 17.50 (to Galway?) the tannoy burst into life with meaningless apologies. Much too little, far too late.

For my part I was not sure that I was on the right train until it made an unscheduled stop at Cherry Orchard.

I did not see any provision made for those passengers additionally stressed because of sight impairment / pregancy etc.


IE really need to get some planning in place to cover off these (fairly regular) occurences - last week it was engine failure at Sallins.

[NB1]

Yesterday I boarded the 17.15 "service" for my daily slog back to Newbridge,at 17.18 I became suspicious that all was not well but the doors closed at 17.20 so I assumed we were on our way ! wrong ! This was obviously done to prevent victims (commuters) from fleeing the doomed 17.15 & getting the 17.25 instead as Irish Rail no doubt wanted at least one "service" to leave on time. A half a hour & one announcement later it was announced to everybody's shock...not! that the 17.15 was stuffed so we were released to get the 17.50 with the hope of getting as far as Sallins ! Having boarded the 17.50 my fellow victims (commuters) & myself as usual had a laugh & a joke about how rubbish a "service" we are getting....but after a while anger kicked in again and I mused the point that we live in a country obsessed with the regulation of so many services (banks,e.s.b,fuel etc)
that surely somebody somewhere must be monitoring this sad pathetic company consistently provide an inefficient half-ar*ed "service" to consumers from whom it extracts exuberantly high fares....Wake up Irish Rail u are a joke.....

[Mark Gleeson]

Originally Posted by Celbridge traveller

Noticed an IE staff (female) member who was carrying a two way radio and asked her what was the status. She was particularly poor. Asked her her name - refused to give it. As I tried to read her name badge she turned at right angles to me! - unbelievable? re-run the CCTV tapes IE management and see for yourselves.

I know who that is and she is a customer service official not train staff, since train staff don't have name badges.

You should try ringing 01 703 4499 which is the southern and western office for info.

Originally Posted by NB1

but after a while anger kicked in again and I mused the point that we live in a country obsessed with the regulation of so many services (banks,e.s.b,fuel etc) that surely somebody somewhere must be monitoring this sad pathetic company consistently provide an inefficient half-ar*ed "service" to consumers from whom it extracts exuberantly high fares

There is but its a total fake, IE even tried to bury the facts, have a read
http://www.platform11.org/resources/2006_MOU_intro.pdf
We have another 112 pages of stuff like that, full 2006 MOU is in the members section http://forum.platform11.org/showthread.php?t=1824

[NB1]

Having had a brief look at the the 2006 MOU link it would appear that IE are regulated in word only. This is a company which holds the country to ransom by the fact that they hold a monopoly on rain transport. Irish Rail would appear to accountable to nobody and certainly don't put hop on the thought or concerns of their customers. This kind of approach would be unacceptable in any other service industry so why should people who pay a lot of money for a sub-standard have to put up with this rubbish.Would Irish Rail continue this anti customer approach if they had some competition in the market...I think not ???

[Mark Gleeson]

You wonder why they are scared of us

There are various things we can do to get at IE's service through non standard channels, we have threatened legal action on one issue and IE reserved there view and did what we wanted

We know who that official on the platform was, so does half of IE

[CSL]

oooooo...

[Derek Wheeler]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

You wonder why they are scared of us

There are various things we can do to get at IE's service through non standard channels, we have threatened legal action on one issue and IE reserved there view and did what we wanted

We know who that official on the platform was, so does half of IE

If its who Im thinking of, then Im very disappointed. Hey Mark, there is only one female customer service rep on the concourse in Heuston? Right? The smoker?

[Mark Gleeson]

There be only one