Waterford/Rosslare Strand Railway reaches the buffer stops (again)!

Judgement Day

corktina wrote: »

Use it or lose it.... noone wants to go by train outside the Inter City routes and commuter-land. Everyone wants to go by car

And as for students coming over by ferry and then taking the train to College:rolleyes: Far cheaper quicker and more conveniant to fly.

If all this potential was out there, surely the existing trains would be packed.

Are you serious or are you just taking the piss? How can people avail of a non-existent service? Trains with no connections; at the wrong times and no marketing of what little is on offer. :rolleyes:

corktina

Southsider1 wrote: »

With respect, it is not our place to work out where IE should make their savings. The management are paid substantial sums to do that. At the end of the day, they are a rail company and as such should be maximising use of their assets not diminishing them. And yes, few people use the line and, as I'm sure you've read above, more people would use it if:
A. the train times were more user friendly
B. the train departed Wexford Town (Pop 18,000) instead of Rosslare (Pop 1200)
C. the train went all the way to Limerick and joined the line to Galway.

It may also have helped if freight trains could run into the port at Rosslare but, hey, the geniuses at CIE ripped up the last 2 km of track going to into the port.

Simple business sense should prevail, not rocket science. In any other business, if an asset is underperforming, you make EVERY effort to regenerate it before disposing of it.

they ripped up the last 1ooyds or so to the peir and built a new platform by the turntable. IF there was any freight flowing by rail in that direction, it could still access the port

corktina

Judgement Day wrote: »

Are you serious or are you just taking the piss? How can people avail of a non-existent service? Trains with no connections; at the wrong times and no marketing of what little is on offer. :rolleyes:

Of course Im serious....theres noone on the trains that do run apparently, so who is likely to be on an improved service? The service wasnt always this poor, Im sure they didnt take off well-patronised trains.

Hungerford

corktina wrote: »

The service wasnt always this poor, Im sure they didnt take off well-patronised trains.

Ahem. The line used to have carraige shortages during the summer season as recently as 15 years ago. But then IE slashed the summer trains. :eek:

corktina

rolling stock shortages eh? the same excuse for shutting the Youghal line.

the problem with extra summer services though is you have staff and rolling stock sitting round doing nothing the rest of the time. Very hard to balance the books .

Run_to_da_hills

We will also see property prices devalue further along this and other routes that are withdrawing their rail service more so with the inevitable decommissioning and decay of the railway lines. This would include residential and hospitality.

invinciblePRSTV

Southsider1 wrote: »

With respect, it is not our place to work out where IE should make their savings .

But it is our place to tell them what lines they shouldn't close right?

Southsider1 wrote: »

The management are paid substantial sums to do that. At the end of the day, they are a rail company and as such should be maximising use of their assets not diminishing them. And yes, few people use the line and, as I'm sure you've read above, more people would use it if:
A. the train times were more user friendly
B. the train departed Wexford Town (Pop 18,000) instead of Rosslare (Pop 1200)
C. the train went all the way to Limerick and joined the line to Galway.

It may also have helped if freight trains could run into the port at Rosslare but, hey, the geniuses at CIE ripped up the last 2 km of track going to into the port.

Simple business sense should prevail, not rocket science. In any other business, if an asset is underperforming, you make EVERY effort to regenerate it before disposing of it.

Indeed i can see the merits in this, its certainly a lot more to the point then the original poster i was replying to. But as i understand IR are mandated to open the WRC with a reduced subvention. I ask what are they supposed to do to accomodate this? reduce frequency on better patronised lines? close somewhere else? its fine to speculate on the hitherto unseen potential of the Waterford - Rosslare line and what it might achieve with x amount of new resources, but is that going to happen in the immediate future, i think not.

Judgement Day

invinciblePRSTV wrote: »

As much predicted in the WRC thread of old, IR have been mandated to cut costs and open an extra line in time of ever declining public finances.



Unimaginative?!?




Your 400 word rehash of coulds and shoulds along with your own personal transport peeves is all well and good, but i'm wondering is there anything more practical could be done with the line without hypothesising that a sudden massive expansion in tourists, freight, alternative Dub - Waterford trains and students into a port seemingly in long term decline will save the line and its 4 passengers from the chop in a few months time?.

And if this doesn't happen then do we just let it remain open anyway for sentimental reasons?

And where exactly do IR cut costs? as elaborated upon up above they are working with a reduced subvention and a new line to operate, what gets cut instead chief? and how much do your big idea's cost?.

I can think of all sorts of way CIE/IE could save the state money and while some of them could be carried out by the company, others need Government intervention.

1. Cancel the Interconnector.
2. Cancel any existing orders for new rolling stock/stop all disposals of existing locomotives and stock.
3. Have a massive clearout of top management.
4. Sell a large percentage of Inchicore Works for redevelopment.
5. Reintroduce Fastrack parcels on all inter-city trains.
6. Sack/redeploy a large number of station staff in places like Cork/Dublin and Limerick.
7. Massively cut back many duplicating Bus Eireann services and tailor some of them to act as feeder services to the railway instead of wasteful competition.
8. Instruct all state and semi-state agencies to use CIE/IE for all freight and passenger traffic where this is possible (this would include ESB/Bord na Mona/An Post etc.etc.
9. Start an incentive scheme for staff and pay commission for new business drummed up, innovative ideas etc.
10. Get rid of Rail Gourmet and bring back catering into IE control.
11. Head hunt people from the UK preserved railway scene who understand about running successful railways. I'm 100% serious about this as the present deadbeats are clueless.
12. All the existing board members of CIE/IE to be removed from office.

Of course none of the above will ever happen. As for the Waterford/Rosslare line they could try running trains at a time when they are useful and put in some connections. Operating the line as if it were a self-contained railway like the Waterford & Tramore is beyond farcical - it is a criminal waste of taxpayers money. Someone should have to face the music - preferably the big Dick , John Lynch and his political master - Noel Dempsey.

I could go on but what's the point - put pressure on the Greens to prevent this closure - please!!!

:mad:

Judgement Day

corktina wrote: »

Of course Im serious....theres noone on the trains that do run apparently, so who is likely to be on an improved service? The service wasnt always this poor, Im sure they didnt take off well-patronised trains.

Friend you clearly have no idea what you're talking about. I came into the railway scene in 1977 (fresh from school) and the closure of the Limerick Jn/Rosslare was being proposed then. However, at that time the even less frequent services at least connected with some other trains. There has been an appalling level of service on the route for decades - yes decades - and you talk about well patronised trains. Why don't you check your facts before posting. I still have newscuttings from all the previous closure attempts and will post them if you want.

dowlingm

How much freight comes in through Rosslare that would go on the rail any way you slice it? If there was a freight flow on the DSE it could go out through North Wall, and from west of the Barrow through Belview. Rosslare is a roll-on-roll-off port, not a container port.

As for the "Nenagh" branch, the ending of the shale train probably flipped a beancounter's spreadsheet into the red, and the Irish Railway News-demanded service from Nenagh (62 minutes - the bus takes 45) now means the early train out of Limerick is a joined train - does anyone know if the crew to take the rear unit south is Nenagh based or just spent 1h10m riding north from Limerick and then waiting for a go signal to head back? Aside from the relaying of the track, there were signal changes made in Nenagh to permit the split - the least IE should be held to is storage of a train in Nenagh to operate the commuter to a faster schedule given the relay and use of a based crew rather than one from Limerick.

I note FG are attacking the Greens on the basis that rail services reduce emissions. The sad reality is that as currently operated, a 2-car railcar carrying 20 people is probably creating a lot more emissions than bus replacement. Unless FG is prepared to come out with a strategy that involves capital and operating plans to make existing lines effective BEFORE running rail from Athenry to their leader's catchment in Mayo, they should STFU for now.

corktina

Judgement Day wrote: »

Friend you clearly have no idea what you're talking about. I came into the railway scene in 1977 (fresh from school) and the closure of the Limerick Jn/Rosslare was being proposed then. However, at that time the even less frequent services at least connected with some other trains. There has been an appalling level of service on the route for decades - yes decades - and you talk about well patronised trains. Why don't you check your facts before posting. I still have newscuttings from all the previous closure attempts and will post them if you want.

no need to be so confrontational.
You are saying, correct me if im wrong (as Im sure you will) that there is a better frequency now than there was but the service at least then connected with other trains. So these trains they took off, (the ones that connected) were they well patronised? I can't get my head round your point.Either well-patronised trains were taken off OR they werent well patronised at all (and thats why they were taken off I guess).

Judgement Day

corktina wrote: »

no need to be so confrontational.
You are saying, correct me if im wrong (as Im sure you will) that there is a better frequency now than there was but the service at least then connected with other trains. So these trains they took off, (the ones that connected) were they well patronised? I can't get my head round your point.Either well-patronised trains were taken off OR they werent well patronised at all (and thats why they were taken off I guess).

No need to be so uninformed..
During the 1970s and 1980s there was a pretty useless, skeletal service between Limerick Junction and Rosslare Harbour, but what little service there was did provide some connections subject to the time of year! In more recent times the frequency between Limerick Junction and Waterford has increased while that between Waterford and Rosslare has decreased. The badly publicised connections that did exist have almost completely disappeared and there have not been well patronised trains for many years which is hardly surprising. No Sunday service at all for decades which is not great for people travelling home for the weekend. The only part of the service which has a hardcore of support is the Rosslare/Waterford section which serves for workers/school kids/shoppers etc and a suitable bus alternative is not a practical possibility! What alternative arrangements do CIE/IE intend to make - rehouse all of them in Waterford?

As an aside, and a point I mentioned elsewhere - how does closing Rosslare/Waterford fit into the Clara bootboy's great initiative to offer FREE rail travel to overseas pensioners to boost tourism? Not a peep out of Failte Ireland of course!!

patrickbrophy18

Some people on this thread seem to think that the only sign of demand for a service is seeing a train packed to the nines with people. This is really not the case at all. The poor timing of trains from Waterford back to Rosslare coupled with the lack of co-ordination between buses and trains is exactly what is impairing the viability. Also, the mere fact that there is only one train each way each day can be seen by many as uninviting or off-putting for want of a better word. Dowlingm, you mention that a two car DMU set carries 20 people. That isn't exactly a case of it running on empty for a train that is only two carriages in length. Furthermore, it is absolutely pathetic that Bús Éireann tries to compete with Irish Rail. Not that having a cheaper alternative to the train is bad. The pathetic part is that they are both part of CIE. Hypothetical example, it would be madness if Brown Thomas and BT2 were competing with each other or if the grocery section of Dunnes Stores was competing with it's drapery section.

Co-ordination, coupled with a semi-decent frequency and more importantly connectivity is everything that is wrong with the railway route in question. Having seen the timetable, it appears as though two or sometimes three changes are made between Rosslare and Ennis despite the fact that the track is continuous. Additionally, on a lot of the Intercity routes there is no standard journey. In many cases, there are railway journeys whereby a train service would skip two or three stations. One example of such a station is Kilcoole. While I understand that it's population is the smallest along the route, it does lie outside the scope of the DART line and should therefore be serviced by every scheduled passenger train which goes south of Greystones. I am aware that it is serviced by Dublin Bus but I have heard that the route serving it takes much longer than the train to reach town.

Back to the main topic though, I am finding it increasingly frustrating that state owned companies are allowed to pull moves like the one being discussed in this thread. Like The Patton Flyer case, I think that this decision should be brought to the European Parliament for EU intervention. In fact, the EU should reverse a lot of the decisions made by the government over the last 3 years. Such decisions include the Intoxicating Liquor Bill 2008 (pubs should be allowed to open for as long as they want nationwide), the blasphemy law, the cutbacks in Dublin Bus, *the high pricing of cigarettes, clockface DART's and most recently the decision to close the Rosslare-Waterford line. I am aware that the point marked with a * is already in discussion. However, I would strongly recommend that the local politicians along the route bring this matter to the EU courts before even more damage is done to the transport network of this country. It is at times like this that I feel embarrassed to be Irish as decisions like the closure of this line and clockface DART's make us the laughing stock of Europe.

dowlingm

patrickbrophy18 wrote: »

Dowlingm, you mention that a two car DMU set carries 20 people. That isn't exactly a case of it running on empty for a train that is only two carriages in length.

Patrick - that's a 117 seat train. A 20 passenger load is 5 seats in 6 empty in a set that weighs 84 tonnes. On a bus, that's 40% load factor in a vehicle that weighs maybe a fifth of that? (I'm not up on buses - what's the tare weight of a typical BE-Expressway?)

Exactly how empty are you okay with IE vehicles being?

FlameoftheWest

patrickbrophy18 wrote: »

In fact, the EU should reverse a lot of the decisions made by the government over the last 3 years.

No chance. The major parties in this country got the EU the Lisbon Yes Vote. The EU will take care of what the Dail wants. Most of our laws now including the longer pub opening hours and the Blesphmey Law came from the EU if you look deep enough.

At some point you seem to have become confused and seem to think the EU has something to do with Democracy and will of the people? Interesting.

As for you lot who Voted YES to Lisbon because of poster which said "Yes for Jobs" and "Yes for More Democracy" - So tell me. How is that all working out for you since...

SeanW

Are you serious :eek:

Judgement Day wrote: »

1. Cancel the Interconnector.

WTF? Those of us who care about railways and want a system that can move lots of people efficiently, have long worked hard to bring this project into a possibility of realisation. Why the hell should it be scrapped when we know in advance that a lot of people would use it? And where would you spend the cash ... on the Western Rail Corridor?

2. Cancel any existing orders for new rolling stock

Well, if we cancel the Interconnector, there'll be no need for a bunch of new DARTs (even if 1000s of people would have used them every day) ... too bad for the 1m-odd people in Dublin and its immediate hinterland, I guess they can go hang?

11. Head hunt people from the UK preserved railway scene who understand about running successful railways. I'm 100% serious about this as the present deadbeats are clueless.

:eek: From the U.K. preservation scene

You gotta help me out here: if we conclude that all CIE/IE executives must be replaced (and this might not be a bad idea), why not head hunt commercial railway professionals from the Deutsche Bahn or the Swiss railways?

I could go on but what's the point - put pressure on the Greens to prevent this closure - please!!!

:mad:

The Greens voted for NAMA to save their ministerial jobs ... so don't waste your time.

From the style of your post I suggest your views might find more agreement at IRN.

dowlingm

even on IRN some heresy comes out once in a while

corktina

Judgement Day wrote: »

No need to be so uninformed..
During the 1970s and 1980s there was a pretty useless, skeletal service between Limerick Junction and Rosslare Harbour, but what little service there was did provide some connections subject to the time of year! In more recent times the frequency between Limerick Junction and Waterford has increased while that between Waterford and Rosslare has decreased. The badly publicised connections that did exist have almost completely disappeared and there have not been well patronised trains for many years which is hardly surprising. No Sunday service at all for decades which is not great for people travelling home for the weekend. The only part of the service which has a hardcore of support is the Rosslare/Waterford section which serves for workers/school kids/shoppers etc and a suitable bus alternative is not a practical possibility! What alternative arrangements do CIE/IE intend to make - rehouse all of them in Waterford?

As an aside, and a point I mentioned elsewhere - how does closing Rosslare/Waterford fit into the Clara bootboy's great initiative to offer FREE rail travel to overseas pensioners to boost tourism? Not a peep out of Failte Ireland of course!!

i dont know if you noticed but what I said originally was "they didnt take off well patronised services" ie I was trying say they took off services that werent well patronised, worse patronised than the remaining ones.. I did NOT say that these or any other services were well patronised.
Now the remaining poorly patronised services are likely to be lost in favour of poorly patronised services on the WRC. Why? because the guys in the Wesht were organised and vocal and it seems the guys in Wexford have had decades to be the same and havent bothered.
I'll withdraw "use it or lose it" in favour of " tell everyone how valuable it is and promise you will use it"

Judgement Day

SeanW wrote: »

Are you serious :eek:
WTF? Those of us who care about railways and want a system that can move lots of people efficiently, have long worked hard to bring this project into a possibility of realisation. Why the hell should it be scrapped when we know in advance that a lot of people would use it? And where would you spend the cash ... on the Western Rail Corridor?
Well, if we cancel the Interconnector, there'll be no need for a bunch of new DARTs (even if 1000s of people would have used them every day) ... too bad for the 1m-odd people in Dublin and its immediate hinterland, I guess they can go hang?

:eek: From the U.K. preservation scene

You gotta help me out here: if we conclude that all CIE/IE executives must be replaced (and this might not be a bad idea), why not head hunt commercial railway professionals from the Deutsche Bahn or the Swiss railways?

The Greens voted for NAMA to save their ministerial jobs ... so don't waste your time.

From the style of your post I suggest your views might find more agreement at IRN.

The Interconnector is a CIE plan therefore suspect - the potential for a massive cost overrun is mind boggling. What exactly have YOU done to help bring it to fruition I'm intrigued?

I have worked long and hard to see the existing rail system retained and developed and all I see is the beckoning of the abyss. I have a track record, how about you? CIE/IE is rotten to the core and needs to be taken out once and for all.

Why recruit senior management from the UK preservation scene - well for a start they would be enormously cheaper than some suits from Germany/Switzerland plus they know how to sweat the assets as if they don't their railways are gone. Some SwissGerman management guru, if he fails, will just move on and the railway concerned will continue merrily on its way. I wasn't thinking of some mickey mouse UK outfit either - the North York Moors, Keighley & Worth Valley, Great Central, Severn Valley, Brecon Mountain or Ffestiniog railways have masses of experience and a far greater degree of success than the incompetent fools who run CIE. That said I doubt that any of them would be stupid enough to touch CIE/IE with a ten foot barge pole.

The South Wexford line should be looked at from its potential rather than its present state as a run-down poorly marketed bad joke.

Still nobody on here will address the issue I raised re Biffo's amazing plan to give overseas visitors FREE travel on Irish Rail - I would have thought that by their very nature many penioners are going to opt for Ferry travel and it surely makes little sense to cut off one of the key access points from the rest of the rail network.

Cookie_Monster

Judgement Day wrote: »

Still nobody on here will address the issue I raised re Biffo's amazing plan to give overseas visitors FREE travel on Irish Rail - I would have thought that by their very nature many penioners are going to opt for Ferry travel and it surely makes little sense to cut off one of the key access points from the rest of the rail network.

Just on this point I think Biffo and co knew what would happen with IE and specifically the Rosslare line. The announcement was a cheap way to get in the good books for something despite it turning out to be more and more meaningless as the day goes by. It was fully intentioned IMO that this scheme would not be advertised or mentioned outside the initial announcement and it use made as difficult and roundabout as possible. You don't see any of the Bord Failte ads mentioning any of it do you, or IE, or Tourism Ireland or any other agency.

Judgement Day

Guess that's the limit of the Greens response - certainly sorts me out for future elections as I told Ciaran Cuffe that I won't ever vote for them again if this closure goes ahead.
Re: Waterford - Rosslare Railway

Monday, 15 March, 2010 10:36



From:
"ciaran.cuffe@oireachtas.ie" <ciaran.cuffe@oireachtas.ie>
Add sender to Contacts



To:

Thanks for your email David,

I've requested the Oireachtas Transport committee (of which I am a member) invite Irish Rail before the committee to discuss the issue of under utilised passenger rail lines.

I'll keep you updated with any developments.

Sincerely,

Ciarán

Ciarán Cuffe, Green Party TD for Dún Laoghaire
Green Party Spokesperson for:
Justice, Equality & Law Reform;
Foreign Affairs; Transport; & the Marine
Dáil Éireann, Kildare Street, Dublin 2, W: 618 3082

Constituency Office, (Above the Pet Shop)
96 Patrick Street, Dún Laoghaire W: 284 6060
http://www.CiaranCuffe.ie

foggy_lad

the green party are not going to be any use with this as they seem only interested in retaining their positions rather than upsetting the ir partners in government.

the decision to close the waterford-limerick line has most likely already been made somewhere within CIE but is being kept well hidden until the time is right.

Judgement Day

Of course the decision to close the line has been made within CIE but that doesn't mean it can't be changed and the Greens are the weak link. Hand wringing will certainly not help. Who have you contacted?

Hungerford

The NTA also would have to be consulted. I think that people should really apply pressure on Cuffe though given what he told the Tribune.

Judgement Day

Labour Councillor Joe Ryan is behind an online petition to Noel Dempsey via Facebook see here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=wall&ref=nf&gid=367387502018

You might as well sign up for all the use it's likely to be.

Judgement Day

Keeping the pressure on in my own OTT inimitable way.

Re: Waterford - Rosslare Railway

Monday, 15 March, 2010 11:48

From:
Add sender to Contacts



To:
ciaran.cuffe@oireachtas.ie



Dear Ciaran,

Many thanks for your reply but I'm not impressed by the content. CIE will have this line closed long before anything is done. I am a long time Green supporter, although not a member, and have always voted Green since the option presented itself but I assure you if you let this closure go ahead I will activley campaign against the party on every forum possible.

Best wishes,


David

Judgement Day

More useful discussion on IRN here including a proposed timetable which, as the poster states, only took him 90 minutes to put together using some positive thinking.

http://irnirishrailwaynews.yuku.com/topic/1800/t/Here-we-go-again.html?page=2

Cookie_Monster

Judgement Day wrote: »

More useful discussion on IRN here including a proposed timetable which, as the poster states, only took him 90 minutes to put together using some positive thinking.

http://irnirishrailwaynews.yuku.com/topic/1800/t/Here-we-go-again.html?page=2

ah but did that take into account the totally inflexible staff and their demands? :pac:

conolan

If the service is covering 2% of its costs, then you need 25 fold increase just for it to cover half its costs. No amount of rescheduling or marketing is going to even double the current traffic. Unfortunatly it doesn't serve New Ross or Wexford, where there would be some extra passengers.
But 2% is 2%, which is 98% from taxpayers (which means borrowing).

invinciblePRSTV

conolan wrote: »

If the service is covering 2% of its costs, then you need 25 fold increase just for it to cover half its costs. No amount of rescheduling or marketing is going to even double the current traffic. Unfortunatly it doesn't serve New Ross or Wexford, where there would be some extra passengers.
But 2% is 2%, which is 98% from taxpayers (which means borrowing).

Indeed, a damming case if ever there was one. Even some of the ardent spotters on IRN acknowledge the futility in keeping this line open without the kind of serious allocation of resources required which can be A) better used elsewhere in IR or its financial equivalent better utilised elsewhere in the murky world of the public finances.

As evil as the big bad bogeyman that is IR and its parent company are, has anyone yet suggested practical suggestions where IR should cut costs in order to save the line? (and by that i don't mean pie in the sky cancel the interconnector suggestions).