My maiden DART voyage

devnull

Poor again this morning, again no announcements at stations between 6.25 and 6.55 even though it was obvious something had broken, when information did come it was contradicting and inaccurate.

When it did come it was firstly blamed on a signal failure at Howth Junction, then a tree on the line suspending services until further notice. Imagine my surprise that straight away after it was said that services were suspended, a train ran through the so called blocked line to pick people up, just when people were all heading for the exit doors to get the bus, they ran all the way back.

It's not their fault about the weather, but again communication was lacking.

ThunbergsAreGo

I am back getting the trains afte 2 or so years on the bus, in the last eight weeks i dont think the train I get has EVER arrived on time! and at least once a week there is an issue with the line.

Moving out further next year and will be relying on trains even more so then. Is this normal?

may06

naughtb4 wrote: »

I am back getting the trains afte 2 or so years on the bus, in the last eight weeks i dont think the train I get has EVER arrived on time! and at least once a week there is an issue with the line.

Moving out further next year and will be relying on trains even more so then. Is this normal?

Always delays at this time of year with leaves on the line.
However, the usual signal fault excuse will also be thrown in for good measure regularly!

devnull

naughtb4 wrote: »

I am back getting the trains afte 2 or so years on the bus, in the last eight weeks i dont think the train I get has EVER arrived on time! and at least once a week there is an issue with the line.

Moving out further next year and will be relying on trains even more so then. Is this normal?

It's been a particularly bad last 3-4 weeks where the service has been more unreliable than I can remember, not helped by utterly shambolic levels of passenger information when things go wrong.

I'm hoping they are just having a bad run and it's a not a sign of things to come.

L1011

Twitter: delays caused by a mechanical fault on a train ahead.

Driver: "signal failure"

Is this now the official "I don't know and can't be bothered to check" excuse?

devnull

The amount of times I've heard signal failure used as a blanket excuse for any failure the last 6 weeks or so is incredible, since the vast majority of the time it's been something completely different according to IR own twitter feed.

TheBandicoot

I was in London at the weekend and really the main thing I noticed was the quality and quantity of information is extremely high in comparison to what you get in Ireland. Train from Gatwick was late, but there were constant announcements and the staff knew what was going on and were answering questions. I knew why the train was late and what platform it would arrive on within a minute of arriving at the station. On the Tube, clear signs everywhere saying exactly where to go. Very personable announcements by the driver on the Met line asking people to move down the train and so on. On the train back to Gatwick, announcements at every station by both the conductor and an automated system about how the train would divide and which carriage you should be in. When we were stopped at signals for an overall delays of 15 minutes or so, clear announcements from the conductor about some engineering work at Gatwick that was causing some platforms not to be available.