Irish Rail sends 37 senior officials to Berlin trade fair as it faces anger over delays caused by new timetables

https://www.irishtimes.com/transport/2024/10/03/irish-rail-chiefs-at-berlin-trade-fair-amid-domestic-ire-over-timetable-disruption/

Posted by badger-biscuits

14 Comments

  1. Ah yes, Germany! A great place Irish Rail should go for fucking trains. If you think rail is bad in Ireland Germany is on a whole other level of shite

  2. 37 is rather a lot but that being said it’s a not very far away European rail fair. You’d expect Irish rail to be there. It’s also nothing to do with DB and its current issues.

  3. sarcasticmidlander on

    Sounds like a big jolly up. The cost related to this assuming 37 people at €150 return flights each plus we’ll say €150 hotel per night for 3 nights (probably more as senior staff might gets fancier accom) and then you have subsistence pay, meal allowance etc. is well over €25k at the lower bound. Such a waste of money when they could’ve sent 5 people. Public bodies are just burning money at this stage

  4. Busy_Moment_7380 on

    They will come back with nothing except those free gift bags with pens and umbrellas, I guarantee it.

  5. sureyouknowurself on

    In fairness you do need 37 people to find the best deal for all those train sheds we need to build.

  6. Did Irish Rail want the timetable changes?

    Nope.

    NTA wanted it and forced it through, despite objections.

    Ireland!

  7. Another of the “build the outrage” articles in the media

    I expect this trip was planned months in advance. If anything Ireland needs idea from Europe on trains and how to run them.

    Sending 37 peopel away and the timetables have nothing to do with each other.

    The people that are constantly outraged will be outraged.

  8. Absolutely nothing wrong with sending people to this, it has nothing to do with current issues. Typical Irish media relentlessly looking to stoke outrage. Tge 37 number might be a bit high (but we don’t know details of what they’re doing at the event, maybe it’s justified).

  9. OrdinaryJoe_IRL on

    Why can’t we have transport system like I saw on my holidays_______

    Irish Rail go see this transport system and everybody whines, send 37 more Irish Rail and bring us back some nice stuff.

  10. To be fair those trade fairs are generally very important to benchmark offerings for new products. Like I’m in development and you would think code is code but you learn so much just chatting with vendors and competitors

  11. earth-calling-karma on

    German railways are in the shit by all accounts so it’s apt. Cancellations, late, breakdowns, 6 hours to do a 2 hour trip etc.

  12. Oh look another Irish Times article clutching at straws to stir up outrage over a public service.

    Either they’re gagging for clicks and desperately hoping to get the scoop on another RTÉ-level scandal, or they’re manufacturing consent for privatization at the behest of the government. Probably both.