IRISH RAIL SAID they needed to draw up a new policy that put the emphasis on “customer response” rather than worrying about train rescues after two engine failures caused major delays on an inter-city service.
Stranded passengers ended up being moved onto a packed service, which sparked a wave of complaints on social media, before finally arriving at their destination in Dublin around five hours late.
An internal report said lessons needed to be learned about the prioritisation of customers instead of putting the emphasis on the rescue of broken-down trains.
Irish Rail said they had received more than 200 complaints about the service but that at no point had any train involved been crowded beyond its maximum capacity.
The internal report said managers left to manage the fallout from major delays were left with an impossible task, trying to resolve issues with the train, organise taxis, arrange hotel rooms, and other tasks.
The report also said something needed to be done about the absence of food and drink from train services due to public health restrictions.
It suggested: “Bring Railgourmet [on-board catering] back, even in a limited capacity [or] seek some formal response from catering providers/supermarkets that can be called upon to provide water and food to a location.”
The problems began when the 12.25pm service left Cork Kent Station on its way to Dublin Heuston with around 160 passengers on board in late December.
About a mile south of Portlaoise, it suffered what was described as a “catastrophic event” with a large amount of smoke in its engine room.
The driver could not get the train to restart and a plan to ‘coast’ into the platform of Portlaoise was derailed because a local service was already boarding there.
The internal report said updates from the site were “poor” which meant information was not being relayed back to the stranded passengers.
As it became clear the train would be running at least three hours late, a warning was also issued about locking off toilets on board because of a risk of them overflowing.
There was no stock of food or water on board for customers and there wasn’t enough staff available to bring items from a local supermarket.
The report said: “On arrival at Heuston there was bottled water made available, and several customers availed of it.
“Those customers staying overnight in the Ashling Hotel [near Heuston in Dublin] were supplied with food and bottled water/minerals after check in.”
Irish Rail’s bad luck continued when a locomotive sent to rescue the stranded train also “declared a failure” according to the internal report.
It said this put the failure into “crisis mode” where the only option now available was to transfer passengers from the broken-down train onto a later Cork to Dublin service, which followed.
In a section of the report called “lessons learned”, Irish Rail said they needed a better system for keeping passengers updated during severe delays.
The railway operator said there ended up being 301 customers on board the combined service that finally arrived in Dublin.
They said this did not exceed the capacity of the Mark IV type train in use and that Irish Rail were operating at 100% capacity in line with public health restrictions on 28 December
Irish Rail said that by 12 January, they had received a total of 207 complaints surrounding the disruption caused that day.
The significant delay meant taxis and hotels needed to be arranged for the many passengers that had missed flights and onward connections.
A spokesman added: “We accept that the response to the incident was far short of what our customers had a right to expect, which is why we immediately carried out a detailed review into all aspects of the incident.
“While we understand it will be of no comfort to those customers who were hugely delayed … such delays are extremely rare.”
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