Irish Rail Live Info, Late Trains Vanish!

foggy_lad

The live train info on the Irish rail website used to highlight late trains as they happened but now they simply vanish off the radar! I am on the Westport to Heuston train and it vanished off the athlone info about 30km from athlone, the reason, because it was subsequently 13minutes late rolling into athlone.

When the ETA time reaches the current time the trains just vanish even if they have not reached the station, they used to show up in red with a +xx minutes to show how late they are.

The train is also suffering some electrical fault which nearly scuppered it's progress earlier on the outward journey in Ballyhaunis. The engine lights and air-con are cutting out intermittently.

Jehuty42

foggy_lad wrote: »

which nearly scuppered it's progress earlier on the outward journey in Ballyhaunis.

Did you get a train from Heuston to Westport then turn around and immediately got the same unit back to Dublin?

foggy_lad

Jehuty42 wrote: »

Did you get a train from Heuston to Westport then turn around and immediately got the same unit back to Dublin?

No, not Westport, Ballina but yes it was the same train on the return trip.

Victor

The information you had was likely largely based on the timetable, adjusted for the last known certain data. Real Time is based on the signalling system, which wasn't designed to support real time information. The intention is to change it over to a GPS-based system.

http://www.irishrail.ie/station_updates.jsp

This information is an estimate of train times based on:

The current location of train services from Iarnród Éireann's central signalling system.
The scheduled journey times from areas under local signalling control.
Trains indicated as being late can make up time and arrive on time. Ensure you give yourself plenty of time to catch your train.

Our central signalling system is subject to ongoing work to support this real-time facility. However real-time information has weaker coverage in certain areas, these include:

Hazelhatch - Heuston Line
Athlone - Westport/Ballina Line
Cork Station
Cork - Cobh/Midleton Line
Mallow - Tralee Line
Ballybrophy - Limerick Line
Limerick - Ennis Line
Athy - Waterford Line
Limerick Junction - Waterford Line
Greystones - Rosslare Line
Drogheda - Belfast Line
Drumcondra - Sligo Line

In these cases your query will return the scheduled time only.

Hazelhatch - Heuston has improved. Limerick Junction and the Maynooth line are being improved at the moment. I'm unsure what the position is on Ennis-Athenry and Clonsilla-M3 Parkway.

So teh only places you are relatively certain on the information is Laytown-Greystones, the Howth branch, Dublin city centre, Hazelhatch-Rathpeacon (excluding Limerick Junction) and Portarlington-Galway.

foggy_lad

Victor wrote: »

The information you had was likely largely based on the timetable, adjusted for the last known certain data. Real Time is based on the signalling system, which wasn't designed to support real time information. The intention is to change it over to a GPS-based system.

http://www.irishrail.ie/station_updates.jspHazelhatch - Heuston has improved. Limerick Junction and the Maynooth line are being improved at the moment. I'm unsure what the position is on Ennis-Athenry and Clonsilla-M3 Parkway.

So teh only places you are relatively certain on the information is Laytown-Greystones, the Howth branch, Dublin city centre, Hazelhatch-Rathpeacon (excluding Limerick Junction) and Portarlington-Galway.

Yes I am aware of the limitations of the real-time information but usually when a train was delayed reaching say Athlone before it showed the scheduled time then the ETA which was usually the same as the scheduled time give or take a couple of minutes, sometimes the eta was even faster if a train was able to make up a lot of time and this shows as a -x minutes.

When passing through areas without the ability to update the info the ETA just stayed unchanged until the train arrived in each station when it was updated.

When a train was delayed before the ETA time turned red to show the delay and it showed the time delay in minutes also in red, but it no longer shows this. When a train passes the scheduled arrival time for a station instead of turning red and showing as a late train it just vanishes even if like tonight it is 30km from the station.

schemingbohemia

So you're using the example of 1 train to extrapolate a huge conspiracy theory.....again!

foggy_lad

schemingbohemia wrote: »

So you're using the example of 1 train to extrapolate a huge conspiracy theory.....again!

Are you saying it was just a glitch in the system yesterday and that late trains are still shown on the real time information?

schemingbohemia

foggy_lad wrote: »

Are you saying it was just a glitch in the system yesterday and that late trains are still shown on the real time information?

No I'm not saying that at all, I have no proof that that is the case, nor have I any proof that it is not. Neither do you but you're using it to argue in your thread title that it is definitive.

I use the DART and I think last week or the week before the trains were showing up in red as late.