Voyage of the Damned

The train pulled out of Ceannt Station dead on time one morning last week, crossed the Lough Atalia bridge and then cut out. We had made it about 300 yards. Apparently, the driver had driven through a red signal and the train automatically cut out. Since safety procedures require another driver to accompany the first one after breaking through a signal, we all to wait until they got one out of bed. While it’s good that Irish Rail’s emergency procedures were working, it seemed a bit strange that they very first signal was set to red at the time that the train was supposed to leave the station.[thats the story i heard from two sources – the only announcement at the time referred to, you guessed it, signalling problems]

On the stations along the Galway to Athlone line, the hoardings proclaiming the new Irish Rail trains to be among the greenest in Europe have disappeared. It’s easy get good fuel consumption out of trains when they are parked in a siding – we still haven’t seen any of them on my route.

Meanwhile, an Irish broadband company offered to provide wi-fi access on all the trains. Let’s hope that the equipment isn’t temperature-sensitive. On my route, the trains’ temperature controls have been out since Christmas – for the first few months, alternate carriages were either freezing or roasting – now, they are all sweltering. they might be a bit cooler if all the doors would open when the train stops in the stations – but that’s not a sure thing either.

Irish Rail are actually running the new trains on a midday route down to Galway – leading to fun at Woodlawn (where no more than a handful of people get on/disembark – on a busy day). You see, the trains are longer than the platform, and unlike the old trains, all of the doors open irrespective of whether the next step is merely a big one or a near fatal one.

It just gets better and better.

[update July 02 2008] It’s 7.00 pm and my train is sitting on the tracks near Woodlawn station. A forty minute delay has just been announced. More signalling problems – apparently,’engineers’ are ‘on-route’ from Galway to fix the problem. The horror, the horror…

[update July 03 2008] another 15minute delay sojourn near Woodlawn this evening – they didn’t bother offer an excuse.

[update July 04 2008]Homeward bound train (which should arrive in Galway for 5pm) sits for 50 minutes in Tullamore – station staff in Athlone cunningly announce it as two separate shorter delays in an effort to take the sting out of it. Doesn’t work…

[update July 09 2008] The train is delayed for 30 minutes outside Woodlawn. At least I think that’s where we are – it’s hard to see with the torrential rain hammering against the window…

Photography Note:

The image above demonstrates the difference between lens shake and slow shutter blur. I used a lens with Image Stabilization which allowed me to take this picture at 1/8th of a second. Normally, using such a slow shutter speed would cause the whole image to be blurred – but the IS counteracted the shake of my hand. However, a fast moving object will still be blurred [since it is moving while the shutter is open] as can be seen in the image above – which is the effect I wanted. I heard the train coming but didn’t have time to get my tripod.

Camera = Canon EOS 5D, lens = 24-105mm@24mm, speed =1/8 sec, aperture=7.1, ISO=640.