Bray Air Show - DART Doors forced open following delays and discomfort.

It seems that Irish Rail have the wrong sort of public. How inconvenient.

Even in the winter months they can't get the basics right, they put the heat up full despite the fact that everyone arriving at the station to board the train arrives ready for the weather of the day so jackets, multiple layers etc. You don't sit in your car with heat up full wearing a jacket.

i was on one of the trains that got delayed with kids.the heat was unreal.

that was only half the problem as Dublin bus was caught off guard and couldn’t manage the situation either.

That’s the end of the que for buses

You’re right but it’s irrelevant. People don’t make rational decisions when they’re faced with a solution like that.

100%

However, crowd management and the risk associated with it are well understood at this stage and ultimately Irish Rail completely failed to manage the situation safely. It should not have been a surprise to them that there would be high demand yesterday and yet there appears to have been no additional capacity, no extra staff at stations, no preemptive checks that air conditioning was working, etc. When you let a situation get out of control, it’s too late to point the finger at crowds and say that they acted stupidly because you know without any doubt that they will act stupidly and irrationally.

Go to a capacity match in Old Trafford and watch how thousands of people get to and from the stadium safely by public transport. It’s not hard.

Since when can passengers use the intercom?

Instead of stopping for 5 minutes just outside the station pissing of the public, ask the other train in the station to move up and both trains can be at the station at the same time. Obviously drive into the station slowly for safety reasons.

That way all passengers can get out at the station and both trains can wait for whatever they are waiting for.

They keep saying it was 5 minutes, but those trains have been known to wait for a lot longer than that for similar incidents.

And this carry on about waiting just before Grand Canal Dock for sometimes 10 minutes northbound when there is obviously no train at the Grand Canal Dock station.

DRIVE INTO THE STATION FIRST AND LET THE GRAND CANAL DOCK PEOPLE OUT, THEN WAIT FOR 10 MINUTES.

Yeah but what realistically can or could you do for punishing this tresspass? Take 100 mothers, grannies and small children to court and get convictions? Irish rail want this to go a way and blow over asap. Taking legal proceedings is one sure fire way of inflaming an already disastrous PR situation.

And in the wider sense of punishing tresspass on the line. It is scarecely even possible. Unless someone is apprehended by Gardai in the act of tresspass , there is nothing that can be done.

And the legal cost and time and effort involved simply isn't worth the hassle.

I have tresspassed on a quiet cross country branch line regularly. I just wave at the driver and he usually waves back.

Shall I expect a day in court now for this admission?

Can you not find anywhere else to walk? There's sound reasons why you should not be there. You may think you know it all, but there may be trains not on the public timetable, possibly machinery as well. Drivers may not appreciate you being there, how are they to know you're not going to jump out in front of them?

By your reasoning it's fine if I walked on the verge of a motorway or a took a stroll on a building site or a toddle around someone else's property but I know a stubborn person like yourself will of course know better.

Well it will only go wrong once....

To address the jaywalker, regularly people commit suicide on dart line at specific and random points. The drivers may hit the brakes just based on a person near the line and in the Bray case all train traffic was stopped. They may contact gardai to try arrest the person and they may be drunk, on drugs, children etc. I know train drivers even reported people in distress on the other side of fences but in view of train line.

To address the Bray incident , firstly I would not trust or believe Irish rail. We do have one person here who was on the train. Without a proper investigation how can we be sure the same does not happen next year?

It's typically a crazy day and the dart is the craziest part. Irish rail should have ensured no trains were packed, they can close entry to stations and platforms to ensure no overcrowding.

At Bray when a train arrives the road gates are closed, which causes pedestrian, bus and passenger issues. Pedestrians need to cross over dart line to get to air show, but barriers are down to prevent them. Thus the station becomes log jammed, and it makes sense to not allow other trains to arrive or a crush inside the station is likely.

It sounds like the second train kept going until very close to Bray at which point they had a red light and stopped. Most passengers on the train would be aware they were basically at bray. I can imagine groups of rowdy city centre based teenagers getting excited and not wanting to wait. Passengers cannot know how long in reality they will be waiting. I am not sure they "forced" the doors open, rather pulled the emergency cord and or manually released the doors. Walking on tracks mean trains MUST stop in both directions for safety.

It would have been reasonable for Irish rail to have a lot of staff on the trains, and at the busiest stations but it sounds like this was not happening. It sounds like they were not prepared for worst case passenger numbers.

Once passengers on the line lots of trains get stuck, ideally they wait at stations, but the signalling and planning might not have allowed that. More trains may have been between stations, than there were stations to stop at. Even at an earlier station it may be hard for people to exit the train and it may be hard to reload train and get going, especially if no Irish rail staff on hand.

In terms of air conditioning, even if it worked in all carriages with that many people crushing in, even in winter people may be very uncomfortable. Having been in crushes before it takes very little to go from busy to scary, particularly in an enclosed space. I assume those on following trains were delayed/ trapped for much longer.

Regarding car traffic the air show has always been crazy, no parking available, cars everywhere, motorway blocked, cars just passing Bray being delayed by 2+ hours. Many cars spend all afternoon queuing and miss the show.

I wonder is the future of the air show a ticketed event with rail tickets pre-booked and busses laid on from say heuston and red cow with all roads into bray closed? Maybe darts stop at shankhill and wait until Bray is clear, one dart every 30 minutes with pre-booked train tickets only? Run busses from shankhill for every second dart?

In peak times at other events they close Lansdowne station completely as it becomes impossible to use.

We are lucky no one died, and people have died in similar incidents. Once a crowd panic it's very hard to stop a crush. If for example someone set off a smoke bomb or a firework, or someone starts pushing hard, it's easy to see how someone could be trampled or squashed.

It is very strange behaviour and definitely not to be encouraged, more like what you'd see in India or some developing country, can't be helped though, the poster has already made up his mind that he's right. Stay lucky, champ.

The level crossing being put open for pedestrians is a big slow down for the approaching trains.

Like at Lansdowne Road, the gates should be left down for the whole duration of the event. Pedestrians should then be marshalled around to one of the other access roads such as Seapoint Road and Galtrim Road to access the Seafront. This would allow trains to freely access the platforms. This would then spread the crowd away from an extremely congested area.

Walking people is a well used method when there is such a crowd in a confined area. You don't allow it.

They also needed to keep a clear way out of the station at platform 2. While they had staff people were getting blocked in that area, which meant it was slow to exit the station.

There's a footbridge over the line right beside the level crossing in Bray I see no reason why the level crossing couldn't have remained closed for the day. Also Bray seafront is not used by any bus routes only reason why buses go down there I'd to get in and out of the small bus garage on Albert Avenue.

Lansdowne Road is not closed on matchdays Grand Canal Dock closes as the platforms are too narrow. Bray is a bigger station than Shankill so should be better able to deal with large crowds. I'd imagine Irish Rail are having staffing issues similar to other transport operators too.

Incompetence in Irish Rail management - what's new?

But at least there is public transport in Dublin for people to moan about.

I'd hardly call it strange behavior but I think it needs to be looked at in context. I, walking a scarcely used cross country single track branch line in a rural location of a sunday afternoon is a very different kettle of fish to walking along a busy double tracked DART line in the Dublin suburbs. The former is benign and the I would admit is idiotic and pretty dangerous.

It is reasonable to fear that someone on the tracks in Dublin is a strung out suicidal junkie about to top themselves or fall under the train wheels as a result of a drug and drink induced stupor. It is not reasonable to assume that someone walking a branch line on its last legs in a rural location with a dog on a lead is going to voluntarily inject themselves into the train's undercarriage.

Anyhow, regardless of opinions contrary to mine, the threat of Gardai, and the fine print of the IE rule book, I have been walking that line on occasion for the last 25 years or so and I will continue to do so for the next 25, nomatter what anyone thinks.

The regular weekday timetable has trains between Bray and Dublin every 10 minutes. If all trains in the couple of hours prior to the air show were 8-carriage this would have given a capacity of at least 5,000 per hour. If fact I think that the maximum capacity of an 8-car DART is over 1,000. What was the interval between trains last Sunday? Was the problem due to the length of time it took to disembark a full train and clear the platform of people for the next arrival?

Why didn't they close bray dart station

Then run buses to the next station either direction

4 buses, 1 being loaded while the other is being unloaded and repeat

No tickets were checked/tapped getting on the trains as in a rush to get people moving.

So if they ran buses then people had to tap/check tickets they wouldn't have lost that money (and could use some to cover driver's etc for say two hours)