Jugular Train - Ballina Locomotive Discovers the World Beyond Manulla

An Spailpín Fánach has written before of the boundless courage and impossible spirit of daring that is the birthright of the Ballinaman. The events of the train journey from Ballina to Dublin last Saturday simply added further lustre to that fundamental truth.

As far as Irish Rail are concerned, Ballina is like Lerner and Loewe’s Brigadoon – it exists somewhere off in the mists, and can damned well stay there, as far as our masters are concerned. The train to Mayo runs from Dublin to Castlebar and Westport – fine towns both – while Ballina is served by a spur connection that runs from Ballina town to a block of concrete in a field in the townland on Manulla, about three miles north-west of the great town of Balla. The commuters descend from the Ballina train onto this block of concrete, and then board the Westport train all the way to Dublin. And vice versa on the way back.

Because it’s a spur line, the rolling stock on this route isn’t of the first water. It usually consists of a clapped out old locomotive and two carriages – if it were a car, it would be a Ford Cortina Mark IV, and two fluffy dice would hang from the mirror.

Last Saturday, that dauntless old locomotive and her two carriages chugged out of Ballina on her way east to the city. As the train approached Manulla, the commuters heard dread news on the PA. The train from Westport had been suspended due to “operational difficulties.” Hearts sank in the carriages, as the normally procedure in these not-at-all-uncommon circumstances is to put everyone in the train on a bus at Claremorris and send them off that way.

Imagine, then, the thrill that ran though the people when the driver continued his announcement: because the Westport train was suspended, that clapped out old Ballina train wasn’t going to stop at Manulla this time and slink back home again. She was going all the way to Dublin.

The train drove through Manulla without even slowing down as women wept and strong men clenched their teeth. The light brigade at Balaclava can have felt no more electric a thrill as they began their charge for the Russian guns. At Claremorris, the driver announced that there would be no “dining car” on this trip, none of that fancy-smancy “food” or “beverages.” The commuters were given five minutes at Claremorris to stock up on minerals and Mars bars, something they attended to with alacrity, and then off again on their gallant trip east.

Leaving the heather county at Ballyhaunis and cutting a swathe through Roscommon, the steadfast heart of Ireland, the scale of the undertaking became clear. The Westport train is normally blessed with eight to ten carriages. The Ballina train had but two, and carriages of a vintage that if one were to find Charters and Caldicott inside one of them discussing the cricket a person couldn’t be a bit surprised. But the two carriages were only meant to carry the Ballina contingent; now they had to carry the commuting population from all towns between the western Atlantic shores and the city of Dublin along that particular rail line.

Things quickly became crowded on the train. On leaving Mayo, the people were, quite frankly, crushed in a heap together. In Roscommon, a situation similar to the infamous black hole of Calcutta had arisen on the train. And after she crossed the broad majestic Shannon, the commuters waiting on the platforms recoiled in horror, staring at the windows of the train which now seemed to offer a glimpse into a nightmare vision from Hieronymous Bosch or Picasso’s Guernica, human forms crushed almost beyond recognition, heads the far side of shoulders, legs where arms should be, and even some people with the eyes moved to the one side of their heads from the squeeze of humanity.

And that’s what that Ballina commuter train looked like when she finally rolled into Heuston on Saturday – like a Mark IV Cortina driving up O’Connell Street, great clouds of smoke and steam coming from under the bonnet, and every single member of the Croke Park Residents’ Association jammed into the back. And there’s a lot of them.

An Spailpín Fánach doesn’t know what happened that train after her epic journey east. I do know that the passengers untangled and disembarked, and then went about their business in the city, including the one who drank the sweet porter with your correspondent in Mulligan’s of Poolbeg Street on Saturday night and told the grand tale. It’s possible that the old locomotive chugged her last, and then just fell down in a heap in Heuston, and could be there yet. But chances are she just took a fill of green diesel and headed back home again, to rest peacefully by the banks of the Moy until she hears the bugle once more.





Technorati Tags: Ireland, Ballina, Mayo, commuting, Irish Rail

Irish Rail Redefine Laws Governing Space, Time and the Physical Universe

It's no wonder that Irish rail are having trouble getting that Bolshevik down in Cork to drink his pint of salt and respond to the driver's lash. It seems they have considerably bigger fish to fry.

Your faithful narrator of contemporary Irish life was on the DART last week, and spotted a remarkable poster on the wall of the carriage. Irish railways were never noted for their ability for arriving on time, of course. You may remember Percy French’s thoughts on the matter, or perhaps the discussion of the steam-men at the start of The Quiet Man. But this new poster takes the biscuit, plate and all. It does nothing less than subvert the very laws of physics themselves, challenging all we understand about the fundamental nature of the universe.

The poster features a picture of a conductor conducting an orchestra. Below that, there is a green field with black lettering. The lettering reads:

DART SERVICES
Reliability 99.8%
Punctuality 93.3%

At this point, the eyebrow should be rising in proportion to the dropping of the jaw. It’s the decimal points in the percentages, you see – so reminiscent of the elections in the halcyon days in Iraq, when Saddam would win by 99.8% of the vote, the .2% showing that Iraq was indeed a free society. At the bottom of the poster, the small print says that the statistics are independently verified. It does not say by whom. Could there be something in this?

There is no need, however, to petition the Government under the Freedom of Information Act to find out just who has been doing Irish Rail’s 'rithmetic. The problem is much worse than that. Because, just above that small print, Irish Rail defines what it means by punctuality.

Punctuality, as defined by Irish Rail, means arriving at the destination not later than ten minutes after the scheduled time.

Not on time. Within ten minutes of being on time is what Irish Rail defines as punctual.

How astonishing. The problem is even worse than is immediately obvious, as a glance at the schedule will immediately make apparent. A train leaves Dublin Connolly every morning at 8:27, arriving at Lansdowne Road at 8:36. This is a nine minute journey, one minute less the ten minutes bounded by Irish Rail’s definition of “punctual.” And that means that, as far as Irish Rail are concerned, when the train is still at Dublin Connolly, it is also and at the same time at Dublin Tara Street, Dublin Pearse, Grand Canal Dock and Lansdowne Road. Simultaneously.

Has anybody alerted the Massachusetts Institute of Technology about this extra-ordinary local phenomenon in Dublin, Ireland, where finite matter (a train) exists in multiple space (five different train stations, about a mile and a half apart) at the same point in time? Somebody ought to - a great jagged hole in the space-time continuum like that is exactly the sort of stuff they’re interested in at MIT. Dr Einstein famously posited a scenario where time was like a stream, and a traveller traveling at almost light speed could in theory leave his boat, walk back along the bank of the stream and meet himself on the way down. But one senses even that great man would have to throw his hat at what's going on in Irish Rail's particularly peculiar physics laboratory.

This view of material reality would suggest that Ireland is sitting at the edge of a vortex into another parallel dimension, that will completely revolutionise the way we understand the physical world, the universe and humanity’s place in it. It's no wonder that Irish Rail cannot deal with simple industrial relations when they're so busy trying to take on the very laws of physics themselves, the ancient bonds which hold material reality together, the very stuff of the universe itself. Who'd be bothered putting smacht on some Red when you've all that quantum physics in the inbox?






Technorati Tags: Ireland, Dublin, commuting, DART, Irish Rail

Mystery Trains

Two cities, both alike in dignity, on either side of the Atlantic where we set our scene. But it seems the public transport authorities of Chicago and Ireland have differing views of how to handle breakdowns.

On Wednesday of this week, both the Chicago Transport Authority and Irish Rail suffered a mishap. In Chicago, a train coming in from the airport got stuck in a tunnel downtown. In Dublin, the Sligo train got stuck at Clonsilla, a north-western suburb, blocking the Maynooth commuter route.

In Chicago, the mishap happened at ten past eight, and normal service was restored by noon. In Dublin, the mishap happened at noon, and normal service was cancelled for the entire day.

The Chicago Transit Authority says their fault was mechanical, while Irish Rail says theirs was a signalling error. An Spailpín Fánach has no reason to doubt either. But the reaction to the outage on either side of the Atlantic is instructive.

In Chicago, not only did the CTA make the Blue Line trains free for the evening, to make it up to their customers, it didn’t even make a big deal of the gesture – it’s the final sentence in the press release on their site.

In Dublin, what did Irish Rail do? A big fat nothing, as far as I can see. Like they always do. Public transport authorities in this country like to say, when confronted by the latest commuting horror in the city, that this is the price of progress. No, it’s not. This is the price of being lazy and complacent. They have a recorded announcement at the stations where “Iarnród Éireann would like to apologize to all their passengers for any inconvenience caused.” The Chicago Transit Authority was sorry enough to reimburse commuters. That level of remorse has yet to manifest at Irish Rail.





Technorati Tags: politics, commuting, Irish Rail, Chicago Transit Authority, Dublin, Chicago