Passengers were “really distressed” and close to panicking in “sweltering” DART carriages before they opened the doors and began walking along the tracks yesterday.
Iarnród Éireann has promised to investigate the chaos enroute to the Bray Air Display – which saw passengers pulling the emergency handles to escape the heat on two packed trains.
The train service has claimed the passengers’ actions turned a five-minute delay into two hours – with no trains able to run while people were on the tracks.
On Lunchtime Live however, passengers had a different view of what happened.
Stefan Teehan said he had waited for a train for over an hour at Glenageary, with every one that went by “absolutely packed”.
“Eventually, when we did get on to one, it was a very, very busy train which we thought would be bearable for a 15-minute journey from Glenageary to Bray,2 he said.
“What should have been a 15-minute journey turned out … well we got at 2:30pm and we didn’t actually get off the train until 4pm.
“It was sweltering is the only way to describe it. We were told there was a delay with a passenger on a train in front of us and there would be a five-minute delay.
“Five minutes became half an hour and became an hour and people were really starting to get distressed.”
He said the heat quickly became a real problem.
“The train was wedged,” he said. “Absolutely wedged.”
“The temperature inside the train was so hot that parents were stripping their kids down, getting them out of their clothes.
“We were trying to get the kids to the windows so they could get some air. If there was air conditioning there, it wasn’t working sufficiently.
“It got to the point where people were really getting to the point where a panic could break out. It was fairly scary.”
He said the carriage was “exceptionally hot.”
“We were soaked in sweat,” he said. “Our skin was soaked.
“We had drinks in our bags and we ended up passing them out to people around us because people were really, really uncomfortable.”
He said eventually, a passenger pulled the emergency handle to open the doors, “because it was turning into a situation which could have gotten much, much worse.”
“No parent wants to walk along a railway line with their child but the situation on that carriage was getting dangerous and people had to get off,” he said.
“It was awful. Not a comfortable experience at all.”
Also on the show, caller Pip said she was in the other train, outside Bray station.
She rejected Iarnród Éireann’s five-minute delay claim – insisting the train was sitting idle for at least 20 minutes before anyone opened a door.
“It escalated then when a woman down the back of the carriage started to feint and another woman then had a panic attack,” she said.
“Of course, once one person starts freaking out, everyone else starts to freak out and children started to get upset and elderly people couldn’t breathe, so it was just horrible.
“Somebody opened the door to let air in and the people started to get off. They shouldn’t have but they did. A few people not everybody.”
She said people were covered in sweat and the atmosphere was really tense.
“People were taking the clothes off their children because the children were overheating and crying and screaming,” she said. “It was very distressing.”
#dart #irishrail #newstalk
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Didn’t know Amy Schumer was on newstalk
Still think urban heat island effect is not serious?..with no corporate manslaughter legislation or green roofs to offset this effect in the country ,,government will enjoy their long holidays at your expense.
Irish Rail is notorious for leaving passengers stranded on train carriages in between stations for extended periods of time! It's something many of us have experienced and it needs to stop happening… it's just disgraceful and they don't care about dealing with complaints!
A subway should have been built years ago. There is over 2 million people in the greater dublin area and whenever there is something on you could have an additional 100000 to 200000 people piling into one small section of it for a protracted period of time. Its an accident waiting to happen. The luas and dart are insufficient to deal with the sudden surge of people. A fast underground rail radiating out from the city centre like the spokes of a bike allowing access to and from the outlining areas to the city centre in ten mins. There should also be an outer line going along the circumveance of the city and at the mid point
I'm sure 'lessons will be learned'
Sack the Boss, manager and driver
2 weeks to flattin the curve
Investigation conclusion: 'Ah sure it'll be grand'
Ireland is way way behind this is a discrace thank god people got off otherwise disaster
The driver after no communication kept repeating that there was a Major incident and to not to disembark. He sounded very stressed and then we could here what sounded like people breaking in to him. I couldn't even get my arm down to my phone to call for help. We were close enough to catch scabies nevermind covid. We didn't know if it was a terror attack or what a major incident could be. 🤔 the train was quiet enough because it was full of parents letting on everything was fine to the children. Well it wasn't fine and we are lucky it's not an inquest they are having. We were body to body. It was only relieved by people disembarking . I stayed on the train I was going to go home out of caution but the workers told us they wanted us to get off for safety at that time. There was a shoulder height drop on to rocky stuff so workers took us off with a ladder. We didn't know if we were walking into danger. There was no communication. The workers were let down by their employers too. I'm not easily ruffled. We were in imminent danger. There was no AC and no openable windows. The people who opened the doors saved us.
Another one just like the DAA it's very much time to change the people in the top level jobs, CEO'S AND BOARD MEMBERS need to be given notice to hit the road.
And once again just like that the minister for transport will just utter a few empty words into the air 🙄 and a small slap on the hand of the CEO'S of the Irish railway's, don't do it again, by the way your bonus 3 million €'s was approved for this year.
The fire brigade stood back and done nothing to help these people
30 years using abysmal Irish rail. Stopping outside stations for random chunks of time (then lying about how long it was) is one of their hallmarks. Get cars folks, unless you like stress and cancer
Hopefully this experience causes the waves of rude Dublin sun hogs who stampede into Wicklow and clog up the towns, trash the beaches, damage property and drunkenly threaten locals every sunny day to think twice about imposing themselves on Wicklow and selfishly souring the local's sunny days.
I read that Irish rail said the stoppage was only for 5 minutes. No evidence to the contrary, but knowing people's patience, such a claim beggars believe. Suspect it was much longer than that. It takes about 30 minutes before restlessness becomes an issue, and considering the heat, I can understand why panic set in.