Irish Times - Proposal to bring train journey times between cities below two hours

Cool Mo D

dubhthach wrote: »

The Motorway network was built while we actually had money to invest in capital expenditure. It's no good looking at what was spent during the boom years and then demanding equivalent spending on Rail during recession.

According to CIÉ report for 2010 they spent €4.1billion over the previous 10 years on infrastructure. This is across all three companies.

The actual current budget for road maintenance is €147.5 million a year. Of the Capital budget a further €270 million is for maintenance and improvement of regional and local roads -- which total 90,000 KM of road in this country.

Bus Éireann shouldn't be getting a subsidy either, what subsidy does GoBus, Citylink and numerous other private bus comapanies get from the state?

But we're not demanding equivalent expenditure. We're demanding a tiny expenditure, that will have a real impact on 10 million journeys per year. ANd there clearly is money to spend, or €97 million wouldn't be spent on a Tralee bypass just this year.

Last year €23 million was spent subsidising regional airports for instance. All of that money would be better spent speeding up rail journeys.
And €35 million of the €400 million road maintenance budget would be far better spent on the railways.
To put it in perspective, IE are asking for less money than the government will have to pay in penalties to toll operators next year.

LXFlyer

Bus Eireann's expressway network is not funded by PSO subsidies.

bk

Cool Mo D wrote: »

If road transport is so great why does it require massive subsidies from the exchequer, along with subsidies for nearly all bus routes?

Not intercity routes, even Bus Eireann intercity routes are run unsubsidised.

Cool Mo D wrote: »

If road had to compete on a free market basis, with no new building or maintenance from government, how well would that work?

Because you know perfectly well that even if we didn't have bus coaches, you would still need to build and maintain road networks, for the use of private cars and freight (99% carried via road).

So the question we have to ask is, given that we have already spent the money on motorways, do we maximise the use of them and do we also need an intercity rail network and continue to pour money into it.

Cool Mo D wrote: »

Why are you ok with subsidising roads, and not rail? There are almost as many people using the Cork - Dublin train as traveling intercity on the Cork - Dublin motorway, yet if the same amount was spent on the railway as on the motorway, you could run the trains for decades.

I'm really not sure about the numbers of 10million that were offered for intercity rail earlier. I looked at the recent IR annual reports and they have no break down in passenger figures (however interestingly total passengers dropped from 43 million in 2007 to 38m in 2009, of course some lose due to the recession but I think the motorways have had a bigger effect).

Given how many people use DART and Commuter services, I'd be surprised as many as 10m are intercity.

Cool Mo D wrote: »

And also, you seem to want to hand over all intercity profit to private operators, while leaving the public companies with the loss making routes. So, in the end the taxpayers would have any profitable passengers taken away, and subsidies to Bus Eireann going up. Coupled with the cost of building massive city centre bus stations to handle the old rail traffic, where exactly is the saving to come from?

Nope, so many silly assumptions.

I propose privatising Bus Eireann. All bus routes would then be licensed out to private bus operators. If no private operator is willing to take a particular route as they don't think they can make a profit and the NTA considers it of public importance then they can offer a private operator a subsidy to operate the route.

I'm convinced that most routes, even in rural areas can be operated profitably. Even if subsidies are needed, the subsidy would likely be much less then Irish Rail subsidies.

As for needing massive new bus stations, while it would be nice, you can certainly do without, buses can operate off the street as they currently do.

However I think the NTA should be given control of all Irish Rail and Bus Eireann stations and they could develop those stations in time as multi operator stations. But that would be a long term goal, in the short term just operate them from bus eireann stations or off the street.

Note in Galway the private bus companies built their own bus station that they all pay to use and is run at a profit.

dubhthach

Cool Mo D wrote: »

But we're not demanding equivalent expenditure. We're demanding a tiny expenditure, that will have a real impact on 10 million journeys per year. ANd there clearly is money to spend, or €97 million wouldn't be spent on a Tralee bypass just this year.

Last year €23 million was spent subsidising regional airports for instance. All of that money would be better spent speeding up rail journeys.
And €35 million of the €400 million road maintenance budget would be far better spent on the railways.
To put it in perspective, IE are asking for less money than the government will have to pay in penalties to toll operators next year.

A political decision made by the outgoing governenment so as to secure a certain South Kerry independents vote. tbh in my opinion it shouldn't have gone ahead either. If you were going to spend €97m in that neck of the woods it would have been better spent on the M20, failing that Newlands Cross/N11 gap.

Regarding the airports Leo informed Galway, Waterford and Sligo back in May that they weren't been subsidised anymore so it's a non-issue anymore.

Cool Mo D

bk wrote: »

Not intercity routes, even Bus Eireann intercity routes are run unsubsidised.

Yes they are subsidised - they have their infrastructure built for them!

bk wrote: »

Because you know perfectly well that even if we didn't have bus coaches, you would still need to build and maintain road networks, for the use of private cars and freight (99% carried via road).

So the question we have to ask is, given that we have already spent the money on motorways, do we maximise the use of them and do we also need an intercity rail network and continue to pour money into it.

We need a road network, but why should the government pay for it? Why can't road users pay for the roads they want privately, just like you want rail users to do? Why can't you see that government paying for the building and maintenance of the roads represents a subsidy massively higher than anyone wants for the railway?

We have an intercity rail network and a road network. The money is spent now, and it is not coming back, so there is no point favouring one over the other. Why should maximising the road networks usage be a priority, when it is clear that the cost of road transport is about to skyrocket?
We are not pouring money into the rail network - it is a rounding error in the context of the overall budget.

bk wrote: »

I'm really not sure about the numbers of 10million that were offered for intercity rail earlier. I looked at the recent IR annual reports and they have no break down in passenger figures (however interestingly total passengers dropped from 43 million in 2007 to 38m in 2009, of course some lose due to the recession but I think the motorways have had a bigger effect).

An argument from incredulity. The facts don't fit your bias, so you want to discard them.

And I would like to point out that passenger numbers on Irish Rail actually rose last year: http://www.independent.ie/national-news/rise-in-numbers-using-the-luas-as-buses-losing-ground-2476513.html despite the motorways.

omah

I hope they do manage to bring the journey times down even further - I love travelling by train!!

dowlingm

lxflyer wrote: »

Bus Eireann's expressway network is not funded by PSO subsidies.

It gives them guaranteed income which makes "commercial" expansions less risky in an overall sense. PSO routes don't run from special depots, use special buses or drivers and get filled from separate fuel tanks, all of which therefore benefit from economies of scale.

Frank Black

Cool Mo D wrote: »

We need a road network, but why should the government pay for it? Why can't road users pay for the roads they want privately, just like you want rail users to do?
.

What like car tax, tax on petrol, VRT, tolls - stuff like that?

Don't have the figures to hand but I'm pretty sure that all these add up to more than is invested in roads - the rest goes into general expenditure to pay for stuff like the large salaries of IE workers.

Sponge Bob

Motor Tax and VRT alone pull in the equivalent of the entire roads budget for 2011 PLUS the CIE subvention. That's before we get into VAT/Fuel Excise and 8c a litre Green taxes on top.

VRT during the peak road building period mid noughties ran as high as €200m a month early in the year.

Motor Tax and driver licencing pulls in €1bn a year even now. .

DWCommuter

I may put this here now considering I placed in C & T. The sentiment is still very much the same.

All going well, there's not much of a problem. However, like me, many others find it appalling that so much money was available to the railway over the last 15 years and it failed to account for the threat of a motorway network. I personally flagged the issue here 6 years ago and it went more or less unnoticed despite being obvious. Just look at our neighbours in the UK and examine how British Rail had to compete with a growing motorway network in the 60s. But the reality that now pertains is finally getting through to that inept bunch in Connolly. Unfortunately they took their eye off the ball when they were spending all that money, because an integral part of that investment should have undoubtedly been spent on what they are now proposing. Its very poor management and further evidence that the CIE group think like subsidy dependent planks rather than innovative business people.

DWCommuter

dubhthach wrote: »

This is a crazy situation tbh of their total spending circa €257m is going on payroll! (65.8% of total costs). The average salary in there works out about €53k (€20k higher then industrial average).

http://www.irishrail.ie/about_us/pdf/IE%20Annual%20Report%202010.pdf

Herein lies the problem with our railway being a semi state. Historically, it evolved against a background of poor pay and conditions. Once unionisation got a grip on it, the whole thing got carried away on a race to the bottom. Pay and conditions went higher, along with the subsidy. The concept of the railway being a business that can pay for itself, went out the ****ing window. As society and the railways place in that society evolved, work practices stayed the same and the whole goddamn mess eventually manifested itself into the culture we have today.

Its a culture that is wrong and woefully inappropriate for a railway in 21st century Ireland. As a nation our railways are unique and we need some serious innovation if we are to make them run in any semblance of efficiency.

The alternative is complete closure of anything outside of a commuter service.

Put simply, our rail network can no longer afford to maintain the pay structure and conditions that evolved out of many years of operator abuse and then subsequent negotiations that resulted in a system that is based more on the employee, while the service is operated and trimmed, based on a huge payroll. The last lad to try and really control CIE was the despised, but reasonably sensible Todd Andrews. However all he really succeeded in doing was annihilating the network, trimming some jobs, adding a few train hostesses, but ultimately failing to address the real issue - THE RAIL NETWORK CANNOT BE RUN SUCCESSFULLY ON A PAYROLL THAT EATS TURNOVER. He tried and then gave up. His "managers" only presented line closures as a solution to saving money. Redeployment and Minimal redundancies. Nothing has changed.

corktina

DWCommuter wrote: »

I may put this here now considering I placed in C & T. The sentiment is still very much the same.

the BR analogy vs motorways is a good one. The intercity125 project in the UK was a direct result of motorway competition.35 years later its still holding its own, thats what I call good investment, not mk4s with a freight loco which give a service much the same with a worse ride.

The premise of this project was that you need 125mph running to beat the car on an end to end journey. Never mind sub 2 hour schedules, what would the journey time cork to dublin be with 125 schedules?

antoobrien

Cool Mo D wrote: »

Yes they are subsidised - they have their infrastructure built for them!

Just how blinkered are you? The rail infrastructure is private infrastructure for IE (and Veola in the case of Luas) - they don't have to share space like roadway with private competitors (bus, car & truck). If you believe that the road infrastructure is subsiding bus transport (while conveniently forgetting that it can't exist without it), then you'll agree that rail is a monopoly. Monopolies are bad for consumers because they don't have competition.

The simple fact of the matter is that more people use the intercity trains as commuter services than intercity. While I can't find figures that show how many people buy tickets to where I can tell you of my experiences of a couple of years getting the 6pm (ish, now 5.45) train from Heuston to Galway. It was always packed (with the exception of good Friday strangely), very hard to get a seat unless you were there 30-40 minutes early (or willing to pay the extortionate seat booking fee, which you'd have to argue over to get your seat anyways). By Newbridge there were always a choice of seats as a large number of people had always gotten of at the 2/3 stops to this point.

Cool Mo D wrote: »

You are travelling at the busiest time of the week, and still get a discount for booking in advance. If you wait and travel first thing Saturday morning, you get a bigger one.

In this case I have to be in Galway by 9pm on Friday night, but I still have to work a full day on said Friday. What bloody good is a cheap ticket on Saturday morning to me? Or If I have to be in Galway for 8 am Saturday morning (as will be the case if I decide to travel for the event two weeks earlier)?

Besides your statement was:

If you know you want to travel at a particular time, you will nearly always get a cheap fare three weeks in advance.

This is blatantly untrue - I know I want to travel between 4 pm & 6 pm on Friday in 3 weeks time - €42 is not cheap (I don't care if I've picked the most expensive time, if you wanted to make that exception you should have said so). I checked the other times, the only cheap times are 7.30 & 9.30 am on Friday - which will cost me a day in holidays, so the true cost of this ticket (to my paypacket) is over €100.

There are several reasons I stopped getting the train:
The total journey time is shorter by car - usually 3.5h door to door before the finishing of the M6, it's now 2.25h, the time for getting the train is still over 4.5h if it runs on time (it takes up to 45 minutes to get across Dublin on a Friday from my office, and about 30 minutes to get a local bus out of Galway - throw in some waiting time for dart, luas & bus)

A tank of petrol will get me from Galway to Dublin for less than the price of a train ticket & associated public transport to get to and from the station (even now at 148.9c/l the cost of a door to door trip is €47.9 - 440km @ 13.7km/l recorded fuel consumption for 1 year) - train €42 (at its cheapest, more likely 46) two luas tickets c. €3, two bus/dart tickets €3.50+ - c. €48.5

I don't think €12 in tolls is too big a price to pay for the 4 hours of my weekend I save (also noting that for most of the time i've had a car the fuel price has been closer to 1.30/l than 1.50/l, the train would be more expensive than both the petrol & tolls)

I can eat a proper dinner not having to grab rolls or fast food on the way (it does get tired very quickly), relax for a few minutes before setting off and still be home by 10.30 pm (and a lot earlier if I have to, with the flexibility inherent in the road system).

I can carry large/bulky objects e.g. bike, golf clubs, computer & electronic equipment etc without extra costs

the time it takes to cross Dublin to get the train requires me to leave work early - costing me pay on the day and/or inconvenience earlier in the week (both of which are a pain)

Reasons why I won't be getting a train anytime soon:
the express buses to Galway are faster, cheaper and have wifi.
to get to Galway at a reasonable hour on a Friday I can leave work at my customary finishing time
If I book a ticket on GoBus (I haven't used citylink, so I don't know their policy) I don't have to pay extra to reserve a seat, which I had to do the last time I booked a train ticket

HivemindXX

I guess next time people wonder how we could have been so insanely short sighted as to rip up lots of our rail infrastructure in the past I can point them at this thread.

Frank Black

HivemindXX wrote: »

I guess next time people wonder how we could have been so insanely short sighted as to rip up lots of our rail infrastructure in the past I can point them at this thread.

Like most pro-rail posters on this thread your post is both overly melodramatic and lacking in any argument or fact to back up your opinion.

monument

black francis wrote: »

Like most pre-rail posters on this thread your post is both overly melodramatic and lacking in any argument or fact to back up your opinion.

Says somebody who attacks the poster rather than their points.

Frank Black

monument wrote: »

Says somebody who attacks the poster rather than their points.

Already have provided 2 links to back up points I have made in this thread - neither of which were disputed I note.

The same standard of having to 'prove' your points doesn't seem to apply to people in favour of continuing the madness of investing in an unneeded intercity rail service - perhaps because no such proof is available I'd imagine?

wiseguy

2 hours? Pftt Dublin Airport to Galway city in 1hr15 the other night :P courtesy of new motorway...

Sponge Bob

If they cannot compete with Express Buses I personally think they should look at mothballing the thing instead of ripping it up and abandoning it.

The commuter proposition near Dublin ( and maybe Cork) is a separate matter of course. Admitting you never saw the competitive threat coming is simply not good enough, I am heartily sick of their constant excuses and manana manana tripe.

monument

black francis wrote: »

Already have provided 2 links to back up points I have made in this thread - neither of which were disputed I note.

The same standard of having to 'prove' your points doesn't seem to apply to people in favour of continuing the madness of investing in an unneeded intercity rail service - perhaps because no such proof is available I'd imagine?

I was not replying to any posts where you have links, I was replying to a post where you were attacking a poster rather then their point.

Their point may be hugely valid or not, but you didn't attack their point, you attacked them.

Frank Black

monument wrote: »

I was not replying to any posts where you have links, I was replying to a post where you were attacking a poster rather then their point.

Their point may be hugely valid or not, but you didn't attack their point, you attacked them.

Yeah, and I got a warning?

So what?

Do you actually have a point?

ei.sdraob

Judgement Day wrote: »

One reason - in case you haven't noticed, things are slowing down - Concorde is gone and even the fast ferries are running at reduced speeds to save on their fuel consumption. We are approaching a major crisis in fuel supply in the years ahead as consumption in Third World countries such as China/India and Russia increases (not to mention South America and Africa) - increasing prices, dwindling supplies - it's not rocket science as to where it's going to lead.

Ah more of this peak oil doomsday nonsense, when is this "Judgement day" of yours (ha!) will come exactly?

dubhthach

Folks keep the thread on topic and not slagging matches, otherwise I'll lock.

jc84

This might be a stupid question but why not switch to electric powered rail

Sponge Bob

On commuter routes, in time, they will switch to electric units. Intercity is diesel and always will be as long as I live.

antoobrien

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Intercity is diesel and always will be as long as I live.

I was going to say unless we go nuclear, but you're right that's not going to happen while we're alive either.

spacetweek

Sponge Bob wrote: »

On commuter routes, in time, they will switch to electric units. Intercity is diesel and always will be as long as I live.

For a small country with quite low rail demands, switching to all-electric trains would not save a significant amount of fuel. Not really worth pursuing - pushing electric cars would save far more.

Godge

The money would be better spent on commuter rail in the main cities. Improve the Maynooth line by getting rid of the level-crossings.

If the DART interconnector is not to be built, build an interchange station north of Connolly to allow passengers to transfer from DART to Maynooth/Docklands.

As for the end of oil doom merchants, if the worst comes to the worst and the oil runs out, we have all the lovely motorways to run electric buses on. We could even reserve their own lane while the few remaining cars use the other lanes.

L1011

Sponge Bob wrote: »

On commuter routes, in time, they will switch to electric units. Intercity is diesel and always will be as long as I live.

Victor on C&T said that Irish Rail were sniffing around 25kV AC trains. Seeing as the DART is 1.5kV DC they're not for that!

ei.sdraob

I do not have time to fully develop this point but there have been several media reports in recent times on the adverse impact of Ireland’s improved road network on the demand for inter-city air travel and train travel within Ireland. These reports focus on the negative impact on the suppliers of air and train travel and the requests for increased public funding to upgrade air and train networks to compete. However, the more direct public-interest interpretation is that part of the payoff to the major investment in the road network is that fewer resources need to be absorbed by providing air and train links where the road network now dominates. (If it turns out that environmentally-optimal road pricing would call for more trains and planes, that is a valid argument. But to justify extra investment just on the basis of losing market share to the road network is not a strong argument in itself.)

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