The reliability of Irish Rail trains fell significantly in the first nine months of 2024, with delays across the network increasing almost three-fold.
Reliability was affected by breakdown and maintenance issues as well as software problems and the introduction of 41 new railcars that turned out to have problems with “hybrid-ready power packs”.
The power packs are built by Rolls-Royce in Germany and are designed to allow intercity trains to run on electricity in cities and regenerate power from braking. They are expected to create significant diesel-fuel savings.
Overall, some 2,413 minutes were lost across the network during Period One of Irish Rail’s accounting timeline – which corresponds to the first four weeks of last year.
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However, by Period 10, the four weeks to October 1st, the numbers of lost minutes in four weeks had increased to 10,039 – almost tripling the amount of time lost to delays.
The amount of time lost relates to fleet issues only, and is separate to figures for delays caused by changes to the Irish Rail timetable that were introduced in August and later reversed.
By Period 11 – or the first four weeks of October, the numbers of minutes being lost was down to 9,212. Figures for the remainder of the year have not been released.
The figures were released by Irish Rail chief mechanical engineer Peter Smyth at an internal staff awards scheme for maintenance staff known as the Golden Spanner Awards, towards the end of November.
Mr Smyth is reported in the January 2025 edition of the UK publication Modern Railways as having told staff “the company needs to see a real focus on fleet reliability improvement programmes for all of its train fleets”.
The Irish Times sent Irish Rail a copy of the Modern Railways article for verification and comment.
In a subsequent statement Irish Rail spokesman Barry Kenny acknowledged the reliability issues, saying: “there have been more delays relating to train faults. We have a series of actions in place to resolve these, covering software resolution for 41 Intercity railcars.”
He said “the software resolutions for the 41 Inter City Railcars are in the process of being deployed, and [this] is expected to be complete during January”.
Mr Kenny continued: “We also are addressing a traction motor issue on our 201-class locomotives, which will be resolved in the coming weeks.”
Asked for comment, a spokesman for Rail Users Ireland said the figures were “extremely concerning”. Mark Gleeson said “passengers need reassurance the fleet will be restored to historical levels of reliability”.
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