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CUSTOMERS HAVE BEEN taking to Twitter in recent days to ask why delays to services were becoming more frequent in recent days.
The answer is a perennial one: leaves on the train tracks.
It’s something that happens every year, and every year causes delays. This year is no different.
Paul Page / Twitter
Paul Page / Twitter / Twitter
As much as “leaves on tracks” sound like a trivial occurrence that trains should be able to deal with easily, it’s actually a scientific phenomenon that railways the world over have to tackle.
A large number of wet leaves on railways can seriously affect train performance and punctuality in a number of ways – and as we’re in the thick of autumn at the moment, you can be certain to expect delays in the coming weeks.
Here’s why it’s so dangerous
“When leaves fall onto the line,” a statement from Irish Rail explains, “particularly in damp or wet weather, the rolling action of passing wheels compresses them, causing a greasy ‘mulch’ to cover the rail.
This mulch is to rails what ice is to roads. It reduces the adhesion between wheel and rail – hence the phrase ‘low rail adhesion’. The leaf mulch can also affect the operation of track circuits.
So trains must make the same journey at slower speeds, and brake much sooner before approaching a train station so that they can stop in time (much like a car on wet roads).
“If you’re a regular customer, you can probably sense the wheel ‘slipping’ on a train if you’re travelling through an area that’s affected.
This is why minor delays are more prevalent at this time of year, particularly in the early morning and early evening.
For the latest service information and news from Iarnród Éireann, keep an eye on their Twitter account.
How someone hasn`t invented a combination of a road sweeper brush and teethed cogs to spin and brush just in front of the wheels on the track, spaced at intervals of, say, 1 set per carriage on the front wheels.
@Pixie McMullen: Off you go, so. Make your billions before someone else does… quick!
@Pixie McMullen: There is a Dutch company that has been working on it for a few years. I don’t think the brush thing matches the speed so they are using lasers to blast it clean. They have been testing them for a few years with Dutch trains and now they are starting to use them in the US.
@Pixie McMullen: I actually had that very same idea (patent pending) but Irish Rail will fight anything to do with efficiency
@Hellenize Dublin: In fairness, Pixie’s suggestion isn’t very efficient. If the first set of these brushes did its job correctly, then there’s no need for more sets on each following carriages.
@Pixie McMullen: There is a Dutch company working on it for the last few years. They were recently looking for engineers to make the unit more compact. Basically a laser that blasts the track clean to match the speed. Its been tested in Netherlands for a while and now in the states.
@Pixie McMullen: Because Engineers don’t want to put parts that might fall off, right in front of wheels?
@Pixie McMullen: Maybe in a few years we could have autonomous drones sweeping up and down the tracks between trains. I believe there are units that can be sent down the tracks to do this but clearly we don’t send them out often enough or at the right times. I guess that’s a manpower thing.
Well, I say ‘we’ could have these things, but doubtless in this country such an initiative would be shot down by either the need to invest or by the unions. So so much could be automated away in the coming years, and the savings used for new capital investment, but I bet we will lag behind on this front because of the unions and because it seems successive governments don’t see the need for significant infrastructure investment.
Since the new timetable trains are arriving into Dublin late anyway. Commuter trains in the morning have become a joke.
For all the experts currently commenting on here, imagine driving a car and applying the brakes and nothing happens. Now morph that into a train with six or eight carriages of 55 tonnes each. Bit terrifying really. Other countries do have the same problem. I work on the U.K. railways and experience it every year. Sand trains patrol the lines at night and spread sand. One gust of wind, one shower of rain and it’s back to square one. Brakes have to be applied much earlier to ensure we stop in the station platform. Accelerate slower to stop wheel slip. And if the wheels do slip we get “flats”. Basically the metal wears away and the train has to come out of service to have them repaired at £10k a pop plus the disruption of a missing train….
@Tom Ireland: I appreciate the technical problems of leaves, but Irish Rail’s operational procedures outside of that problem exacerbate what you might say are unavoidable problems. My train yesterday was 15 minutes late arriving at my station due to ‘leaves on the line’, but was closer to 30 minutes late by the time it reached its destination. Why? Leaves might have been one factor adding to the delay, but the driver was not helping by stopping and starting at stations to take on late passengers (on an already late and jam-packed train). Meanwhile on another operational front – communication and information relay – there was simply none.
There are things Irish rail could do to not worsen problems when they happen.
Article paid for by Irishrail clearly. 10 minutes late plus the standard 10 minutes late. Actually sitting on a train in Connolly that was supposed to leave over 5 minutes ago, no sign of moving
With the introduction of that p*xy new timetable tacking on time to the services anyway I can’t imagine a train arriving on time for a while, up earlier it is.
@Dónal O’Leary: weekend train journeys from Dublin west to pearse have doubled in length because of these changes. NTA talks about people getting off to change trains for a speedier overall service, but then doesn’t bother to sync up timetables with DART services so you can actually switch in a timely fashion. Bus users be warned…
Excuses excuses. If it’s a major problem year after year then why isn’t there a solution being offered? If it’s a problem here in Ireland then it is certainly a problem in other less logistically challenged countries. How do they deal with it there? I can tell you they definitely don’t just put up with it, throw their hands up in the air and say “oh well’ and pass the inconvenience on to commuters
@Eon Cocker: That documentary looks like it was filmed in the UK.
Guess the whole UK put up with the excuses also….
@Eon Cocker: The article states it’s a ‘scientific phenomenon that railways the world over have to tackle’…. You really should try reading it before you comment.
I think the real problem with trains here is not that there might be a 10 minute delay because of leaves but that it takes more than double the time it should to get from one place to another in the first place. 2 hours 40 from Wexford to Connolly. Something on tracks should not take way longer than a car. Unfortunately to remedy this would take massive investment in new tracks and trains so I can’t see that happening. Imagine the reduced traffic on the roads to Dublin if you could get there on a train in half an hour from 100km+ away.
How come it doesn’t affect the bullet trains in Japan? I was there last year and everything ran on time as usual.
@Peter White: Privatisation.
@Ajax Penumbra: So mother nature doesn’t effect private entities, only state and semi-state ones…. I never thought privatisation was so good. (Until I got a train in the UK, paid through the nose and arrived at my destination 45mins late because there was a signalling problem on the line. Seems private and public owned companies encounter the same problems.)
@Paul Linehan: Privatisation (in the case of Japan) meant more investment in rail maintenance. Privatisation— when done right— can vastly improve efficiency and quality of product. Also in the case of Japan, it’s a cultural thing. Here in Ireland (and most of the western world) we just don’t have the same level of pride in efficiency and a job well done as the Japanese do.
@Ajax Penumbra: The key word there is INVESTMENT.. Most countries who invest in the rail infrastructure required, instead of concentrating on roads, have a better and more reliable transport service. It’s not just the Japanese pride or culture that makes them different to us. Look at our near neighbours Germany, Switzerland and Austria, who encounter all the elements mother nature can throw at them and they provide a very high standard of rail services all year round. If the Irish government invest wisely, we will get the benefit of a fast reliable electrified rail service that through profits, will pay for itself in no time. Privatisation is not all it’s cracked up to be. Look across the water and you’ll see a lot of discontent with the private companies there.
Funny isn’t it, that the 1960s trains which had brake blocks rather than disc brakes suffered less from “leaves on line”
The brake blocks had a cleaning effect on the wheels!
Progress!
@Rodney Williams: having visited Japan they would be laughing at us.
@Rodney Williams: it’s not the wheels that’s the problem it’s the leaves on the tracks.
But, leaf’s fall every Autumn
@RJ: Good stuff
@RJ: you might want to look at the title there RJ, the word is in the article about 10 times too,
Lol do they stop services when it rains aswell?
God help us if there was snow on the tracks here in Ireland , look up YouTube for “dashing through the snow” train 406, you can’t even see the train as it ploughs through very deep snow
https://youtu.be/Yja2VmZOfdA
Why does this seem like a puff piece for Irish rail? If they’ve been trying to improve, they’re failing – year on year, winters are getting worse. There’s also been a litany of operational problems on trains in recent months that have nothing to do with leaves – it’s bad maintenance due to lack of funding. That’s before we even start talking about how bad Irish Rail’s communication is when there are delays or incidents. Their real-time info falls apart as soon as the points system fails – I.e. exactly the time when you need that info – and station staff are as clueless as the customers.
So hey TheJournal – don’t just regurgitate Irish rail PR, and perhaps start investigating the problems increasingly plaguing the service. I feel like if the Luas had half it’s problems it would be headline news constantly.
Same thing happened with the chunnel link between London and Paris.
French fix on their
side was to cut the trees down.
Ah yea! remember this being blasted out on trains all over London. At least there are signs of commuter rail problems here. It means there is a rail system or two operating. Maybe someday we’ll have more, when somebody with a bit of vision comes along.
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