Privatise rail yes or no?

Working class heroes

Arthur Daley wrote: »

Oh I see it's like that is it. Well do you want to set out your points/issues and contribute something to the topic in hand? Or maybe you are just not here for that.

And what do you think I’m here for?

Wanderer78

Working class heroes wrote: »

Your patronizing is almost as impressive as your deflecting.
It’s a lot more simple than you are trying to make it. As long as unions exist there will be no improvement in public transport. They are only there to enable inefficient work practices. No private operators will enter the market as long as these goons continue their stranglehold.
And this is why we will never know, public or private, which way to go, eh?

Edit:I’m specifically talking about rail

hmmm, now whos expressing 'opinion'! are you willing to engage in a meaningful and respectful way, or do you want to continue in what only seems like childish behavior?

again, theres sufficient evidence to support that privatising critical public infrastructures and services leads to a slow deterioration of those infrastructures and services, and what can only be described a complex 'wealth extraction process'.

Working class heroes

Wanderer78 wrote: »

hmmm, now whos expressing 'opinion'! are you willing to engage in a meaningful and respectful way, or do you want to continue in what only seems like childish behavior?

again, theres sufficient evidence to support that privatising critical public infrastructures and services leads to a slow deterioration of those infrastructures and services, and what can only be described a complex 'wealth extraction process'.

My “opinion” is based on first had experience. You can take that or leave it, up to you. Why the insults btw? Your efforts at trying to get a rise are laughable but not surprising. Very familiar style around these parts.

GarIT

Nothing should be privatised IMO, we should be making transport more public, we need to remove transdev, veola and go ahead from having any involvement in public transport.

We should go further too and buy out the electricity, telecom and bin companies. Maybe even other things that we haven't have been a public service before like car insurance.

Wanderer78

Working class heroes wrote: »

My “opinion” is based on first had experience. You can take that or leave it, up to you. Why the insults btw? Your efforts at trying to get a rise are laughable but not surprising. Very familiar style around these parts.

some strange logic there, im not interested in gaining 'rises' out of individuals, im more interested in finding out why theres so much destablisation occurring within our economic and political systems. insults? im not sure where you re going with that one?

GarIT wrote: »

Nothing should be privatised IMO, we should be making transport more public, we need to remove transdev, veola and go ahead from having any involvement in public transport.

We should go further too and buy out the electricity, telecom and bin companies. Maybe even other things that we haven't have been a public service before like car insurance.

im not sure thats the ideal situation, and not convinced it would work either, even though i do think theres major benefits in the public ownership of the means of production. we need to be very careful how we proceed here, moving the means of production back towards the public domain could in fact further destabilise our political and economic systems, i.e. the private sector plays a critical role in creating and maintaining a more stable society.

IE 222

Is there a company out there willing to spend €10-15 billion on our rail network??

Government don't invest in our railways now what makes some people think they will if there privatised.

Rail lines are heavily congested where are these extra trains going to fit in and how will they be any faster with current trains in front of them.

Opening the bus market to private companies hasn't exactly done much for intermediate towns that are now bypassed by the growing number of services between the cities. In order to compete BE are now dropping scheduled stops from towns leaving the extra cost of providing new services to these towns to the tax payer.

Spiteful attitudes are costly and usually come back to bite you. Be careful what you wish for.

GarIT

Wanderer78 wrote: »

im not sure thats the ideal situation, and not convinced it would work either, even though i do think theres major benefits in the public ownership of the means of production. we need to be very careful how we proceed here, moving the means of production back towards the public domain could in fact further destabilise our political and economic systems, i.e. the private sector plays a critical role in creating and maintaining a more stable society.

I agree and disagree, maybe we're thinking along the same lines with some different words or ideas, Lots of things should be run by private companies but anything that is a necessary public service should be state run or at least have a state body offering the service even if private companies are also allowed to compete.

Wanderer78

GarIT wrote: »

I agree and disagree, maybe we're thinking along the same lines with some different words or ideas, Lots of things should be run by private companies but anything that is a necessary public service should be state run or at least have a state body offering the service even if private companies are also allowed to compete.

yea i think we re on a similar page, the right balance is required to have a more stable and functioning society, we re currently very imbalanced, and in some cases, extremely imbalanced.

Working class heroes

IE 222 wrote: »

Is there a company out there willing to spend €10-15 billion on our rail network??

Government don't invest in our railways now what makes some people think they will if there privatised.

Rail lines are heavily congested where are these extra trains going to fit in and how will they be any faster with current trains in front of them.

Opening the bus market to private companies hasn't exactly done much for intermediate towns that are now bypassed by the growing number of services between the cities. In order to compete BE are now dropping scheduled stops from towns leaving the extra cost of providing new services to these towns to the tax payer.

Spiteful attitudes are costly and usually come back to bite you. Be careful what you wish for.

Just on opening up the bus market. I think Wexford Bus would contradict your point. Have they not been successful?

IE 222

Working class heroes wrote: »

Just on opening up the bus market. I think Wexford Bus would contradict your point. Have they not been successful?

Of course they would. Their only interested in what works for them. They only stop were they want to stop as well as deciding how many services they want to run. That does shag all to folk outside of them towns were the tax payer is left to pick up the tab providing additional services to serve the areas they don't want to serve.

When the Enniscorthy bypass is complete many of the services will eventually bypass Enniscorthy and Ferns.

Working class heroes

IE 222 wrote: »

Of course they would. Their only interested in what works for them. They only stop were they want to stop as well as deciding how many services they want to run. That does shag all to folk outside of them towns were the tax payer is left to pick up the tab providing additional services to serve the areas they don't want to serve.

When the Enniscorthy bypass is complete many of the services will eventually bypass Enniscorthy and Ferns.

Why would they bypass areas and take away from their current success, that doesn’t make sense. They may provide extra, more direct services. IMO.

end of the road

Working class heroes wrote: »

Your patronizing is almost as impressive as your deflecting.
It’s a lot more simple than you are trying to make it. As long as unions exist there will be no improvement in public transport. They are only there to enable inefficient work practices. No private operators will enter the market as long as these goons continue their stranglehold.
And this is why we will never know, public or private, which way to go, eh?

Edit:I’m specifically talking about rail

the actual private rail companies in the uk such as those owned by virgin, stagecoach and first group, are unionised. i believe the private freight operators are the same. the freight operators work perfectly fine. the passenger side not so much, and that is nothing to do with unions. the reason private operators wouldn't enter the market here is because it's not financially viable, ireland's network is a very small network. so, the unions aren't to blame for anything in relation to this, or the general operations of railways. we know how privatization would work thanks to the uk.

IE 222

Working class heroes wrote: »

Why would they bypass areas and take away from their current success, that doesn’t make sense. They may provide extra, more direct services. IMO.

The demand is for big towns like Wexford, Gorey and Arklow. No point stopping in these small towns when they don't need to. If they don't do it somebody else will.

A small number of buses will obviously still serve the towns but the hourly frequency will be lost and once demand drops off Wexford bus will drop off too and eventually bypass the town as well.

GarIT

Working class heroes wrote: »

Why would they bypass areas and take away from their current success, that doesn’t make sense. They may provide extra, more direct services. IMO.

Most stations are loss making except for those in the Dublin commuter area, Cork, Galway and Limerick. If it's privatised there would be no point in stopping at any of the others.

EDIT: I thought you were talking about rail, the same principle applies.

Working class heroes

IE 222 wrote: »

The demand is for big towns like Wexford, Gorey and Arklow. No point stopping in these small towns when they don't need to. If they don't do it somebody else will.

A small number of buses will obviously still serve the towns but the hourly frequency will be lost and once demand drops off Wexford bus will drop off too and eventually bypass the town as well.

Sorry but all of that is hearsay, just your view on what might happen. You have absolutely nothing to base that view on.

IE 222

Working class heroes wrote: »

My “opinion” is based on first had experience. You can take that or leave it, up to you. Why the insults btw? Your efforts at trying to get a rise are laughable but not surprising. Very familiar style around these parts.

What first hand experience?

Are you of the suggestion that because a union is established nobody will enter a market?

Luas is privatised and has a union.

Are Lingus was unionised when put on the market

Telecom Eireann was unionised

ESB was unionised

There are many examples of unionised public bodies been sold off to the private sector. As bad as the unions are they will not prevent somebody who wants to enter the market from doing so.

The government will provide rail infrastructure not private rail operators. Unions will not effect this from happening.

Working class heroes

GarIT wrote: »

Most stations are loss making except for those in the Dublin commuter area, Cork, Galway and Limerick. If it's privatised there would be no point in stopping at any of the others.

EDIT: I thought you were talking about rail, the same principle applies.

That post was in reference to Wexford Bus.

Working class heroes

IE 222 wrote: »

What first hand experience?

Are you of the suggestion that because a union is established nobody will enter a market?

Luas is privatised and has a union.

Are Lingus was unionised when put on the market

Telecom Eireann was unionised

ESB was unionised

There are many examples of unionised public bodies been sold off to the private sector. As bad as the unions are they will not prevent somebody who wants to enter the market from doing so.

The government will provide rail infrastructure not private rail operators. Unions will not effect this from happening.

So you agree then, IE should be sold off?

Creative83

Is there actually enough rail infrastructure in this country to privatise though??

How many companies could we squeeze in? Like one or two... they would hold an absolute monopoly it looks like

IE 222

GarIT wrote: »

Nothing should be privatised IMO, we should be making transport more public, we need to remove transdev, veola and go ahead from having any involvement in public transport.

We should go further too and buy out the electricity, telecom and bin companies. Maybe even other things that we haven't have been a public service before like car insurance.

True.

The Rural Broadband scheme is going to be a prime example of this. Most of the cost of that project is going to go on access to telegraph poles of all things. Both ESB and EIR pulled out this project due it been to expensive. The government no longer having access to such infrastructure is embarrassing in my opinion.

The money received from selling these utilities is going back to them in the long run.

IE 222

Working class heroes wrote: »

Sorry but all of that is hearsay, just your view on what might happen. You have absolutely nothing to base that view on.

Look at every other operators routes to and from Dublin and compare them to the routes BE use to provide before all these guys came onto the scene.

The intermediate towns lost out.

Pretty sure BE are now pulling out of stopping in towns.along Dublin - Galway route in order to compete. A Local Link is going to have to be provided at an extra cost to the tax payer.

IE 222

Working class heroes wrote: »

So you agree then, IE should be sold off?

No it's pointless and will cost the state more.

What improvements do you expect to see by selling IE.

IE 222

Creative83 wrote: »

Is there actually enough rail infrastructure in this country to privatise though??

How many companies could we squeeze in? Like one or two... they would hold an absolute monopoly it looks like

No.

We will just be back to square one.

But the trains will get a different livery if that's what your after and we'll pay for it to.

dublinman1990

No. I don't agree with privatizing our rail network here either.

Our rail infrastructure is built largely on not being dependent by private entities to extract any realistic prospect of realizable profit for private companies.

Our own rolling stock are defined as company assets to IE because it was bought into the country with their own authority before the NTA came into effect here. It does pose other issues for other rail companies because IE had the authority when they were CIE to buy in rail stock for the network before the NTA were established here a few years ago. The DART & Commuter rolling stock being brought in by IE is one big example of that problem. It was largely purchased over a number of decades to the improve the rail network over that time frame. It will be very difficult for the NTA to decide what time limits will be put in place for purchasing the DART rolling stock from a certain year of purchase if one part of the DART stock was ultimately owned by the NTA & the other part of it is an asset with IE. You cannot realistically take away all parts of the DART brand from IE because it is largely is a service that is run with their own experience in mind. Other rail companies would have not have any realistic experience of running it themselves unless they had proper training to properly run it outright.

Then you have the issue of the Commuter rolling stock being used in areas outside of Dublin on lines in Limerick, Galway, Rosslare & Cork. IE have no choice to operate these services in place because they gave themselves the authority to run services with their push pull stock with their older intercity coach stock until it they branded as Arrow with their DMU fleet from 1994 & subsequently rebrand to Commuter since 2003. IE subsequently bought the 29k's in 2006 to enhance the service up to what it is today. IE are currently planning to reintroduce the 2700 class DMU stock back into the network for service expansion in the future.

The diesel rolling stock for the Dublin - Cork & Dublin - Belfast services & for freight services are all owned by IE as well. All parts of this stock are tasked by IE to run both freight & passenger stock for day to day operations on the network. Some of the diesel stock is equipped with specific specs to run the Mark IV's from Hueston to Cork & the Enterprise service to Belfast. Some of the diesel stock is run on the Enterprise service as it's a split investment cross border rail service from both IE & NIR along with the governments in Dublin & the NI Executive.

The only realistic option here for the rail network to be split up outside of Dublin is to divide up the intercity railcar rolling stock into seperate rail entities here which means it would be an even more difficult task for private companies to attempt & derive a realistic profit from all of them if they were separated into different standard of rail services with not so different fares for the passenger to take in mind. If this was an option without financial backup from the state in place to do it; well that is a monumental headache from the get go because it will become an even more expensive bill for an intending rail passenger to try & use the service to their benefit.

If the NTA decide to bring a private company to takeover part of our network; that private company would have to be obliged with taking some transferred rolling stock from IE to run their rail services with the private companies own improvements in mind while thinking how to refurbish the stock to make it better for rail passengers. The NTA could also say they can forget about selling that stock off altogether to other rail operators because of our unusual track gauge of 5ft 3in set up in Ireland.

A private company with government subvention could be free to ask for permission to the NTA to allow new rolling stock to enhance their company fleet. But with our small rail network in place; there is a severe limit in how that can be managed because of 5ft 3in track guage in place. If a private company wants to operate rolling stock in this country; it has to be run with the NTA own terms very much like the CIE approach in mind which means that if you buy & run it yourself; you will have to run it into the ground until it's gets scrapped or until new stock gets agreed & brought in line with the NTA's own priorities to improve the network.

But this notion of privatizing our rail network will only happen if all of our rolling stock was not owned by one semi state rail operator.

In that respect; our rail network would be preferably largely set up to be a closed entity for one company to take over everything to prevent our rail network becoming overrun with more costs to the taxpayer. If someone came in & tried to obtain our network with private interests while running it into the ground without any proper source of government subvention & investment to back it up; it will become a disaster waiting to happen because it will cost us more money to get our rail network back to a reasonable state. Our government & the NTA also cannot be seen to overspend on our rail infrastructure either because it will be seen as overheating on spending money over other areas of the economy because they are trying to prioritize spending on things like the housing crisis, the BusConnects project, improving our national road infrastructure & the health service.

L1011

IE 222 wrote: »

ESB was unionised

The ESB was sectorised in to generation, transmission, distribution and customer supply but bar possibly a few individual power plants are still state owned

IE 222

L1011 wrote: »

The ESB was sectorised in to generation, transmission, distribution and customer supply but bar possibly a few individual power plants are still state owned

I meant Bord Gais.

L1011

Only a little of it has been sold too!

IE 222

L1011 wrote: »

Only a little of it has been sold too!

Bit more than a little. Technically the whole thing was sold and the infrastructure part was rename gas networks Ireland and became part of Ervia.

Without getting into the facts and figures of BGE the point I was making is that it was a unionised state body that was sold of to the private sector.

L1011

Ervia isn't private sector though. Consumer Supply and the brand name were sold.

Jamie2k9

I think people are focusing on unions to much, yes they have a place and yes they have had a significant impact on how CIE operates. A private operator would show Irish Rail how to run a railway in terms of service and schedules that are good for the customer.

There is way to much focus on profits and the general view of selling off assets etc, reality is unions have overplayed their hand and they have been told enough is enough. I fully expect there will be union issues with a private operator but not over such minor issues which we have had to put up with.

There are many benefits for customers and staff with private operators. Higher fares will be acceptable if the standard of service matches such fares. The problem with Irish Rail is higher fares get you the same or in many cases an even worse service.

Our own rolling stock are defined as company assets to IE because it was bought into the country with their own authority before the NTA came into effect here. It does pose other issues for other rail companies because IE had the authority when they were CIE to buy in rail stock for the network before the NTA were established here a few years ago. The DART & Commuter rolling stock being brought in by IE is one big example of that problem. It was largely purchased over a number of decades to the improve the rail network over that time frame. It will be very difficult for the NTA to decide what time limits will be put in place for purchasing the DART rolling stock from a certain year of purchase if one part of the DART stock was ultimately owned by the NTA & the other part of it is an asset with IE. You cannot realistically take away all parts of the DART brand from IE because it is largely is a service that is run with their own experience in mind. Other rail companies would have not have any realistic experience of running it themselves unless they had proper training to properly run it outright.

Then you have the issue of the Commuter rolling stock being used in areas outside of Dublin on lines in Limerick, Galway, Rosslare & Cork. IE have no choice to operate these services in place because they gave themselves the authority to run services with their push pull stock with their older intercity coach stock until it they branded as Arrow with their DMU fleet from 1994 & subsequently rebrand to Commuter since 2003. IE subsequently bought the 29k's in 2006 to enhance the service up to what it is today. IE are currently planning to reintroduce the 2700 class DMU stock back into the network for service expansion in the future.

The diesel rolling stock for the Dublin - Cork & Dublin - Belfast services & for freight services are all owned by IE as well. All parts of this stock are tasked by IE to run both freight & passenger stock for day to day operations on the network. Some of the diesel stock is equipped with specific specs to run the Mark IV's from Hueston to Cork & the Enterprise service to Belfast. Some of the diesel stock is run on the Enterprise service as it's a split investment cross border rail service from both IE & NIR along with the governments in Dublin & the NI Executive.

While Irish Rail technically own earlier stock, they don't own the 22000 (?) which were ordered before NTA was set up and the fleet is cleared countrywide so wouldn't pose any problems to new entrants.

Whoever owns all the stock, IE cannot just use it how they like as per the contracts and if NTA gave the Cork route to somebody tomorrow the Mark IVs would likely go as well and Irish Rail may get additional trains over time for other services. If IE resisted giving such stock they would likely be even worse off because the NTA would make sure of it.

IE 222

L1011 wrote: »

Ervia isn't private sector though. Consumer Supply and the brand name were sold.

Never said it was.

The fact remains that one half of the unionised company was sold to the private sector while the infrastructure part was kept as a state asset and became part of Ervia.

lion_bar

Joeytheparrot wrote: »

If you google "uk rail privatisation" - you find media story after story about how it is a bad thing that never worked.

You will also find that a lot of the privatised UK franchises are owned by state owned foreign companies. So lots of its still owned by the public, just not the uk public.

IE 222

Jamie2k9 wrote: »

I think people are focusing on unions to much, yes they have a place and yes they have had a significant impact on how CIE operates. A private operator would show Irish Rail how to run a railway in terms of service and schedules that are good for the customer.

There is way to much focus on profits and the general view of selling off assets etc, reality is unions have overplayed their hand and they have been told enough is enough. I fully expect there will be union issues with a private operator but not over such minor issues which we have had to put up with.

There are many benefits for customers and staff with private operators. Higher fares will be acceptable if the standard of service matches such fares. The problem with Irish Rail is higher fares get you the same or in many cases an even worse service.



While Irish Rail technically own earlier stock, they don't own the 22000 (?) which were ordered before NTA was set up and the fleet is cleared countrywide so wouldn't pose any problems to new entrants.

Whoever owns all the stock, IE cannot just use it how they like as per the contracts and if NTA gave the Cork route to somebody tomorrow the Mark IVs would likely go as well and Irish Rail may get additional trains over time for other services. If IE resisted giving such stock they would likely be even worse off because the NTA would make sure of it.

How will a private operator show IE how to run a railway.

The schedules are ultimately decided by the NTA not IE. The same stock will remain in place and unless directed by the NTA or apart of the terms of contract no new operators are going to invest heavily on rail customer service. The vast majority of issues are out of IE hands or unforseen events, it's not as though their cancelling or pulling trains out of service for the joy of it.

Find it hard to believe people will welcome higher rail fares for the same journey. The same stock will remain in place with the same level of congestion on the rail network. No private company is going to invest in stock or rail infrastructure so not sure why you believe they will make improvements.

There is not enough 22000s to cover all rail services in the country. I don't get what makes you think IE use stock as they like. The stock is allocated were required. For maximum utilisation some stock may appear in places not suitable but having some form of train is better than no train.

Until the NTA give the go ahead for new stock the issues will remain and it will take 2- 3 years or so from the time of order till arrival of new stock before improvements will be seen. No private operator will improve things without a large stock order or large scale investment in infrastructure.

Rail will be forgotten about again once planning permission or approval on MN is given. The NTA are getting carried away with their glorified projects over the coming years which if all go ahead will likely wipe out any hope of investment or expansion in our current rail network for the sake of a few extra rerouted new coloured buses and a small increase in our national rail coverage between O'Connell street and Swords.

IE 222

lion_bar wrote: »

You will also find that a lot of the privatised UK franchises are owned by state owned foreign companies. So lots of its still owned by the public, just not the uk public.

What good is that to the UK public. They don't have ownership of these companies. They remain in control of foreign investors. Will the German government start offering free travel passes to the UK public because they own part of the railway.

lion_bar

IE 222 wrote: »

What good is that to the UK public. They don't have ownership of these companies. They remain in control of foreign investors. Will the German government start offering free travel passes to the UK public because they own part of the railway.

No such thing as free travel, in some cases the user doesn't pay, but that doesn't make it free.

Maybe the operator would if it's a condition of their licence.

IE 222

lion_bar wrote: »

No such thing as free travel, in some cases the user doesn't pay, but that doesn't make it free.

Maybe the operator would if it's a condition of their licence.

The taxpayer picks up the tab. The UK tax payer not the German one in this case so the UK railway isn't publicly owned.

Arthur Daley

lion_bar wrote: »

You will also find that a lot of the privatised UK franchises are owned by state owned foreign companies. So lots of its still owned by the public, just not the uk public.

20 years on the fact that so much of it has ended up in the hands of European governments show to many people what a dismal failure UK rail privatisation has been.

If it did not work in the UK with the scale they have, then what evidence is there that it would work in the Irish market?

What experience does the Irish government have in privatisation? Eircom. Right, most of us would say it's best not to go there.

Jamie2k9

The schedules are ultimately decided by the NTA not IE

Partly true, IE have a bigger say that you think.

The vast majority of issues are out of IE hands or unforseen events, it's not as though their cancelling or pulling trains out of service for the joy of it.

Failures happen but come on IE can be better and its not just failures but on this topic DARTS are failing extremely regularly over the last few months.

Find it hard to believe people will welcome higher rail fares for the same journey. The same stock will remain in place with the same level of congestion on the rail network. No private company is going to invest in stock or rail infrastructure so not sure why you believe they will make improvements.

Well adequate capacity, speed, on board service, communication area all areas which could improve and people would be prepared to pay. The fact is today higher fares get nothing in return.

There is not enough 22000s to cover all rail services in the country. I don't get what makes you think IE use stock as they like. The stock is allocated were required. For maximum utilisation some stock may appear in places not suitable but having some form of train is better than no train.

The stock usage was in reference to owning or not owning stock, they are still heavily restricted using it outside of NTA contracts.

Rail will be forgotten about again once planning permission or approval on MN is given.

I do agree.

Infini

Honestly there's little to no chance of privatising rail in this country, besides the fact that privatising core infrastructure is both stupid and self defeating in the long term, the simple truth is that there's little money to be made.

If anything the government needs to stop acting the maggot and treat rail more seriously instead of the poor bastard child of transport, they go on about this carbon tax (money grab again), but yet if they were serious about bringing down traffic numbers they'd both expand the network like finishing the Navan line/Kishogue station for example as well as focus construction of town's along these lines and existing ones to offset the loss making issues.

As for the failures its no suprise really when you think about it, they starved the rail for years after the crash to the point they were having to cannibalise parts from broken units to keep working ones going. Things might be turning around a bit but these units are pushed hard and are breaking down from heavy use.

IE 222

Jamie2k9 wrote: »

Partly true, IE have a bigger say that you think.



Failures happen but come on IE can be better and its not just failures but on this topic DARTS are failing extremely regularly over the last few months.



Well adequate capacity, speed, on board service, communication area all areas which could improve and people would be prepared to pay. The fact is today higher fares get nothing in return.



The stock usage was in reference to owning or not owning stock, they are still heavily restricted using it outside of NTA contracts.



I do agree.

IE come up with the timetable and NTA either approve or ask for amendments. It's not always possible to have desirable departure times on routes as many of the routes have so many different service that need to be cater for using them.

DARTS are heavily worked due to a shortfall in the fleet. Unless new units are brought in the same issues will arise.

Again these are infrastructure issues. No operator is going to purchase more stock and begin line speed improvement works. This falls into state investment. On-board services are rail gourmet which is privatised, if you find privatisation of the on-board catering hasn't worked what hope do we have of the rail network working well. More tweets is the most your going to get here. CIE will still own the stations if they aren't going to invest in new or extra communication equipment or the NTA hasn't provided it I really can't see a private firm investing their cash into it.

Still boils down to not having an adequate amount of each fleet type. Some changes can be made but it's still not going to be perfect. Demand is increasing each year and not a single carriage has been added to the fleet. The 2700s will only ease the crush load on some rush hour services and only allow current services to increase train lengths.

Jamie2k9

IE 222 wrote: »

IE come up with the timetable and NTA either approve or ask for amendments. It's not always possible to have desirable departure times on routes as many of the routes have so many different service that need to be cater for using them.

DARTS are heavily worked due to a shortfall in the fleet. Unless new units are brought in the same issues will arise.

Again these are infrastructure issues. No operator is going to purchase more stock and begin line speed improvement works. This falls into state investment. On-board services are rail gourmet which is privatised, if you find privatisation of the on-board catering hasn't worked what hope do we have of the rail network working well. More tweets is the most your going to get here. CIE will still own the stations if they aren't going to invest in new or extra communication equipment or the NTA hasn't provided it I really can't see a private firm investing their cash into it.

Still boils down to not having an adequate amount of each fleet type. Some changes can be made but it's still not going to be perfect. Demand is increasing each year and not a single carriage has been added to the fleet. The 2700s will only ease the crush load on some rush hour services and only allow current services to increase train lengths.

Yes Irish Rail prepare timetables but could do a much better job for the customer.

There is no shortage of DART trains, there is excess capacity and yet there is a significant amount of failures so far this year.

There is no need to invest in communication equipment.

Honestly there's little to no chance of privatising rail in this country, besides the fact that privatising core infrastructure is both stupid and self defeating in the long term, the simple truth is that there's little money to be made.

Not the infrastructure just the operator. I think its unlikely but never say never....

IE 222

Jamie2k9 wrote: »

Yes Irish Rail prepare timetables but could do a much better job for the customer.

There is no shortage of DART trains, there is excess capacity and yet there is a significant amount of failures so far this year.

There is no need to invest in communication equipment.



Not the infrastructure just the operator. I think its unlikely but never say never....

There's a shortage in terms of how many can be taken out of active service for maintenance at any given time. Sure there is enough to run the service but the DARTs are worked hard as a result.

storker

No. I don't fancy being price-gouged.

Jamie2k9

IE 222 wrote: »

There's a shortage in terms of how many can be taken out of active service for maintenance at any given time. Sure there is enough to run the service but the DARTs are worked hard as a result.

Nope, there DART fleet today has more than ample capacity for in service, maintenance and spares. There is less carriages in service today than a few years ago when they reduced the size from all 8 car ops.

The only fleet heavily worked is the 22000 and 2900.

devnull

There's normally at the very least 16 carriages or so parked up in Fairview each night during the main part of peak and that is just the ones that can be seen publicly. Last year it was not uncommon to see 20 or more.

Factor in a couple of sets getting attention in the depot and you're looking at over 15% of the fleet not being deployed at peak time. I believe the plan of the 10 minute DART service was to decrease the number of spare sets at peak time.

IE 222

Jamie2k9 wrote: »

Nope, there DART fleet today has more than ample capacity for in service, maintenance and spares. There is less carriages in service today than a few years ago when they reduced the size from all 8 car ops.

The only fleet heavily worked is the 22000 and 2900.

Yeah but if more 8 car trains are added it eats into the spare sets.

Jamie2k9

IE 222 wrote: »

Yeah but if more 8 car trains are added it eats into the spare sets.

They had sufficient capacity 3-4 years ago before they reduced set sizes, reliability has dropped and there is no real excuse for it.

IE 222

Jamie2k9 wrote: »

They had sufficient capacity 3-4 years ago before they reduced set sizes, reliability has dropped and there is no real excuse for it.

Some of the 8100s are gone back to 8cars.

I don't think the failures are as bad as your making them out to be in fairness. There has been a lot of incidents lately which are not train faults.

defrule

Japan privatised their rail and are doing pretty well.

They have a strange model though, employers pay for employees commute so they can take bullets in and out of work.

L1011

The urban JR operators make up to 60% of their income from retail rents at their extremely vast and central stations; and the rural ones are losing money and closing lines.

Weirdly the Japanese governments international propaganda station NHK World did a nicely shot HD documentary on the last days of a rural line as if it was something you'd want to promote!