RAIL LIFTS FLOORED.. 800 TIMES
Person trapped for 90 minutes
VANDALISM meant lifts at Irish Rail stations were left out of service more than 800 times over just 18 months.
The facilities were also beset by homeless people sleeping in them, doors getting kicked while passengers were inside, and technical issues.
Other mechanical faults caused one person to end up trapped inside an elevator for around 90 minutes, according to a log of incidents provided by the rail operator.
Lifts were sometimes out of action for well over a week posing major difficulties for people with mobility issues who need to access train services.
However, for many of the breakdowns, they were back in service within a day or two, and sometimes on the same day.
In the worst case of “entrapment” a person got caught for over an hour and a half at Portarlington, Co Laois before an engineer was able to set them free.
STUCK
On another occasion, “a lady and her two children” ended up stuck in an elevator at Howth Junction in Dublin.
Another time, a “gentleman” was recorded as having entered a lift at 10.26am in Thurles Station and only managed to escape at 11.05am.
Some elevators had clearly been deliberately damaged as well, with chewing gum found jammed into the door track of one piece of machinery.
In another case, the buttons of a lift had been covered in a “sticky substance”, which meant it wouldn’t move when they were pressed.
One elevator was knocked out of service in Blackrock, Dublin after “six individuals entered lift car and began jumping up and down”.
In one frightening incident, passengers ended up stuck in an elevator for 15 minutes after a gang of youths began “kicking the doors as the lift was travelling”.
Another group got a taste of their medicine when they began jumping up and down inside an elevator, which caused a fault and left them trapped inside for nearly half an hour.
A lift fault was reported at Sandycove Station in Dublin but when checks were made, it was discovered
that a homeless person had been sleeping inside it and had pulled a shutter down.
The database showed a total of 814 outages in 2022 and the first six months of 2023. Of that total, 276 of them were in the first half of this year.
Access for All Ireland, which campaigns on behalf of people with disabilito ties, said access lifts was
an ongoing challenge and could be a major disincentive towards use of public transport.
Bernard Mulvany of the group said: “Some people with disabilities just won’t use rail services.
“There is huge anxiety around whether lifts will be working and people are fearful of getting stranded.”
A spokesman for Irish Rail said: “Our lift investment and upgrade programme has seen a two-thirds reduction in disruptive lift faults since 2019.
“We know the impact that lift faults have on mobility-impaired customers in particular, and apologise for any disruption.”
People are fearful of getting stranded in lifts