DART+ (DART Expansion)

CatInABox

L1011 wrote: »

There's zero capacity at peak on the trains that run through the site of Pelletstown Station currently. So you're going to have to hire some Japanese crowd pushers if you want to get on.

Aren't they moving to a half hour schedule for the commuter trains on that line?

That'll sort capacity problems for a while, but the eventual aim must be getting a ten minute dart service running there as well.

L1011

CatInABox wrote: »

Aren't they moving to a half hour schedule for the commuter trains on that line?

That'll sort capacity problems for a while, but the eventual aim must be getting a ten minute dart service running there as well.

There will be no increase in peak time services so it'll have no affect. They are only adding off-peak services

MayoSalmon

L1011 wrote: »

There's zero capacity at peak on the trains that run through the site of Pelletstown Station currently. So you're going to have to hire some Japanese crowd pushers if you want to get on.

While yes its very crammed at peak I have never not seen somebody get on...a mere reconfiguration of the carriages would help mind.

Ireland trains

Get rid of the toilets on most of the 29000 class.
More space

L1011

MayoSalmon wrote: »

While yes its very crammed at peak I have never not seen somebody get on...a mere reconfiguration of the carriages would help mind.

Happens frequently enough at drumcondra.

The 29000s are are high density as you'll get.

Removing the toilets would destroy fleet flexibility.

CatInABox

More frequent trains is probably the only answer. It's probably more likely that they'll hold off bringing in more commuter trains, and wait for the Dart Expansion to order in more.

Pete_Cavan

Is there anything to be gained from having certain services serve different stops? So maybe Maynooth trains don't stop at Navan Road Parkway, Ashtown and Pelletstown. Dunboyne trains only stop at these but they don't stop at Clonsilla, Coolmine and Castleknock. Both still stop at BB for Luas interchange or switch to the other train. I realise that there are lots of issues like lack of Dunboyne services, Docklands terminals, etc. but if pathing improved you might squeeze in a couple of extra trains. You also improve journey times by reducing stops and hopefully spread passengers more evenly between trains.

There should be space for an extra city bound track at Navan Road Parkway to allow trains to overtake if that helps.

MayoSalmon

L1011 wrote:

Happens frequently enough at drumcondra.

One stop from town like. A Dublin Bike would probably get you to pearse quicker anyway

TheChrisD

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

So maybe Maynooth trains don't stop at Navan Road Parkway, Ashtown and Pelletstown. Dunboyne trains only stop at these but they don't stop at Clonsilla, Coolmine and Castleknock.

Sounds like a nightmare for those from Pace/Dunboyne looking to commute to Maynooth by train.

Pete_Cavan

TheChrisD wrote: »

Sounds like a nightmare for those from Pace/Dunboyne looking to commute to Maynooth by train.

It's a journey that would be well down in the list of priorities. The NTA Journey Planner says the journey from Dunboyne Station to Maynooth Station currently takes close to an hour, plus any drive/walk time on either side. You could drive directly to your destination in 15 minutes. I doubt anyone uses the train for that journey.

roadmaster

CatInABox wrote: »

More frequent trains is probably the only answer. It's probably more likely that they'll hold off bringing in more commuter trains, and wait for the Dart Expansion to order in more.

To help with Frequency at the weekend could they not run the Dunboyne train all the way in to the city instead of only to clonsilla. It must be the shortest rail trip in the country

Ireland trains

I was reading an artical on the independat a few months ago that said they were planning on having a dart line from heuston to docklands via ppt.
Could they add an undergrould stop at dublin zoo and make a stop at near the matter hospital and croke park on the south line near croke park

bk

Ireland trains wrote: »

I was reading an artical on the independat a few months ago that said they were planning on having a dart line from heuston to docklands via ppt.
Could they add an undergrould stop at dublin zoo and make a stop at near the matter hospital and croke park on the south line near croke park

They seem to be planning a new station at Whitworth Road, to integrate with Metrolink.

Dublin Zoo would be out as it would require a very expensive underground station. A good starting point for Phoenix park would be to simply run a decent Dublin Bus service through the park.

Matter Hospital would be served by Metrolink, which you could change onto at Whitworth Road.

Croke Park is a good idea, but the issue is the land I believe is owned by the GAA, so it would need to be negotiated with them. Dromcondra Station and even Connolly aren't really far anyway and there is an argument that two slightly further away stations is better from a health and safety aspect that one closer station (see Landsdown Road after every match).

L1011

MayoSalmon wrote: »

One stop from town like. A Dublin Bike would probably get you to pearse quicker anyway

This is outbound!

Drumcondra loads more passengers outbound than get off; Broombridge at certain times of day also.

cgcsb

New stations at Cabra and Heuston West are planned afaik.
I'd also say post electrification it'd be worth considering stations at Croke Park and Blackhorse Avenue.

The Maynooth Line Service needs to be every 15 minutes all day at least. If necessary Sligo trains can terminate at a dedicated platform at Whitworth road where passangers can access 2 frequent DART lines, Metro and E and F bus services. I'd argue this is a better terminus for Sligo passengers than Connolly, they could even have more frequent trains.

Run all Maynooth/Dunboyne DARTs to Docklands and all Sallins Darts to Grand Canal Dock. Terminate trains from Wexford in Pearse. All very manageable if people just change trains, and rely on the high frequency for short change times.

Pete_Cavan

A Phoenix Park station could be built beside the NCR after the tunnel and could be cheap. This would be great for the O'Devaney Gardens redevelopment and general redevelopment of the area.

I think a Croke Park station should have been planned as part of the Croke Villas and new stadium entrance they are going to build between Ballybough Road and the Cusack Stand. Another area with huge redevelopment potential.

Sam Russell

cgcsb wrote: »

New stations at Cabra and Heuston West are planned afaik.
I'd also say post electrification it'd be worth considering stations at Croke Park and Blackhorse Avenue.

The Maynooth Line Service needs to be every 15 minutes all day at least. If necessary Sligo trains can terminate at a dedicated platform at Whitworth road where passangers can access 2 frequent DART lines, Metro and E and F bus services. I'd argue this is a better terminus for Sligo passengers than Connolly, they could even have more frequent trains.

Run all Maynooth/Dunboyne DARTs to Docklands and all Sallins Darts to Grand Canal Dock. Terminate trains from Wexford in Pearse. All very manageable if people just change trains, and rely on the high frequency for short change times.

I'd think terminating Wexford trains at Bray - or at least some of them - would make a lot of sense. This would allow earlier services towards Wexford, and passengers would simply cross the platform to a waiting Dart and continue their journey - there is an island platform conveniently placed for such a transfer. How many passengers currently get off at Bray and transfer to the Dart?

Currently, the first train south into Wexford arrives after midday - not a lot of use for business passengers.

LXFlyer

cgcsb wrote: »

New stations at Cabra and Heuston West are planned afaik.
I'd also say post electrification it'd be worth considering stations at Croke Park and Blackhorse Avenue.

The Maynooth Line Service needs to be every 15 minutes all day at least. If necessary Sligo trains can terminate at a dedicated platform at Whitworth road where passangers can access 2 frequent DART lines, Metro and E and F bus services. I'd argue this is a better terminus for Sligo passengers than Connolly, they could even have more frequent trains.

Run all Maynooth/Dunboyne DARTs to Docklands and all Sallins Darts to Grand Canal Dock. Terminate trains from Wexford in Pearse. All very manageable if people just change trains, and rely on the high frequency for short change times.

Leaving aside the fact that Rosslare trains and Sligo trains all need to be serviced, with a 10 minute DART you will not be terminating those trains anywhere except Connolly which has the facilities to hold trains. Pearse has no ability to turn back from the south and the train would just block the running lines, and I doubt very much that there will be space for anything more than platforms on the four running lines at Whitworth Rd.

The plan as I understand it is for extra platform space at Connolly which makes far more sense.

bk

Sam Russell wrote: »

I'd think terminating Wexford trains at Bray - or at least some of them - would make a lot of sense. This would allow earlier services towards Wexford, and passengers would simply cross the platform to a waiting Dart and continue their journey - there is an island platform conveniently placed for such a transfer. How many passengers currently get off at Bray and transfer to the Dart?

Currently, the first train south into Wexford arrives after midday - not a lot of use for business passengers.

Don't let the some of the lads from the C&T forum hear you suggest that, they will burn you alive :P

Pages and pages have been written on this subject. It is a very obvious thing to do and could increase frequency to Wexford by training the train around faster, but it seems making a quick 30 seconds transfer is the end of the world :rolleyes:

BTW south of Greystones, the Wexford line carries less then 600 passengers a day!

cgcsb

LXFlyer wrote: »

Leaving aside the fact that Rosslare trains and Sligo trains all need to be serviced, with a 10 minute DART you will not be terminating those trains anywhere except Connolly which has the facilities to hold trains. Pearse has no ability to turn back from the south and the train would just block the running lines, and I doubt very much that there will be space for anything more than platforms on the four running lines at Whitworth Rd.

The plan as I understand it is for extra platform space at Connolly which makes far more sense.

Glasnevin Station isn't even designed yet, provision can be made at design stage to turn trains around. Pearse can also have a retrofit and put in better facilities considering the scale of the DART expansion project that shouldn't be hard.

I would say keeping trains off the loopline and away from Connolly where they are not necessary should be the order of the day if we're to have high frequency service without building DART underground.

LXFlyer

cgcsb wrote: »

Glasnevin Station isn't even designed yet, provision can be made at design stage to turn trains around. Pearse can also have a retrofit and put in better facilities considering the scale of the DART expansion project that shouldn't be hard.

I would say keeping trains off the loopline and away from Connolly where they are not necessary should be the order of the day if we're to have high frequency service without building DART underground.

I stilll think it is very unlikely that your ideas as above will happen.

The trains still need to be serviced in Drogheda. That happens during the day for some of the trains that overnight in Sligo. Trains need to be fuelled watered and discharged during the day too. All of that happens in Connolly. There isn’t going to be space for all of that in Phibsboro.

Sets swap during the day too - they don’t stick rigidly to one route. That has to be taken into account.

Running the limited Rosslare services across the loop won’t have that great an impact to be honest, and as I said above Connolly is far better suited to deal with turnarounds. Pearse has already been rather expensively remodelled and resignalled. Talking about changing it again is fantasy land stuff.

People need to start thinking about the operational practicalities of this sort of thing.

CatInABox

bk wrote: »

Don't let the some of the lads from the C&T forum hear you suggest that, they will burn you alive :P

Pages and pages have been written on this subject. It is a very obvious thing to do and could increase frequency to Wexford by training the train around faster, but it seems making a quick 30 seconds transfer is the end of the world :rolleyes:

BTW south of Greystones, the Wexford line carries less then 600 passengers a day!

Jaysus, I was at pains trying to reason with them! I fought the good fight, but eventually had to give up, turns out that absolutely no one from Wexford wants a a more frequent service, and only wants a direct service into the Dublin.

I couldn't get them to shake the belief that the Dart would be "packed" at gerystones :rolleyes:

bk

LXFlyer wrote: »

People need to start thinking about the operational practicalities of this sort of thing.

Fair enough, but you should also keep in mind that operational practicalities can and will very likely change and with 2 billion being spent on this, that possibly service locations could well change too.

blanch152

LXFlyer wrote: »

I stilll think it is very unlikely that your ideas as above will happen.

The trains still need to be serviced in Drogheda. That happens during the day for some of the trains that overnight in Sligo. Trains need to be fuelled watered and discharged during the day too. All of that happens in Connolly. There isn’t going to be space for all of that in Phibsboro.

Sets swap during the day too - they don’t stick rigidly to one route. That has to be taken into account.

Running the limited Rosslare services across the loop won’t have that great an impact to be honest, and as I said above Connolly is far better suited to deal with turnarounds. Pearse has already been rather expensively remodelled and resignalled. Talking about changing it again is fantasy land stuff.

People need to start thinking about the operational practicalities of this sort of thing.

If the number of trains increases, a second service option can be built.

Terminating Sligo in the Docklands is an option to keep Connolly more free.

LXFlyer

bk wrote: »

Fair enough, but you should also keep in mind that operational practicalities can and will very likely change and with 2 billion being spent on this, that possibly service locations could well change too.

Of course they can but IE have spent a lot of money upgrading service facilities at Drogheda to service the entire Connolly side diesel fleet in one single location. The notion that you’re going to duplicate that somewhere else again isn’t realistic.

Phibsboro will be an excellent interchange station but I don’t expect it or Pearse to be used as Intercity service termini.

LXFlyer

blanch152 wrote: »

If the number of trains increases, a second service option can be built.

Terminating Sligo in the Docklands is an option to keep Connolly more free.

There will be another EMU depot for sure but that’s a different skill set to DMU maintenance.

It’s far more sensible to centralise the maintenance of different train types at single locations - that’s current best practice.

bk

Given the planned upcoming order for hundreds of new hybrid trains, which I'm sure will include a substantial increase in fleet size, then you can assume there will also be a need for new depots and increasing existing depots.

roadmaster

I know it would cost a few quid but if they want to keep Sligo trains going to Connolly while keeping space for the darts in Connolly could they not CPO the car park at Seville Place (Probably owned by CIE) and built a new embankment for a new track and platform dedicated for Sligo trains. You get them off the main line allowing the dart to go through. A pedestrian passage could be built to the main station and a new entrance on to Amiens Street.

Pete_Cavan

Why is terminating Sligo trains in Connolly such an issue? I know there is issues with congestion on approach on the northern side but surely the limited Sligo trains are the least of concerns here. Aren't most of the problems related to the through platforms and the Loop Line? Connolly has four non-through platforms, surely ideal for terminating trains? Apart from Belfast trains, nothing else is likely to terminate at Connolly. Better use of Docklands seems like a better/cheaper solution than finding somewhere else to terminate Sligo trains.

roadmaster

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

Why is terminating Sligo trains in Connolly such an issue? I know there is issues with congestion on approach on the northern side but surely the limited Sligo trains are the least of concerns here. Aren't most of the problems related to the through platforms and the Loop Line? Connolly has four non-through platforms, surely ideal for terminating trains? Apart from Belfast trains, nothing else is likely to terminate at Connolly. Better use of Docklands seems like a better/cheaper solution than finding somewhere else to terminate Sligo trains.

I think when the sligo bound train is waiting to cross the northern line is the problem as it is frustrating for the commuters but more importantly when the dart arrives on the maynooth line what happens there will it have to wait behind the sligo train? Then there goes your timetable. I think if CIE/IR do move docklands station like they are saying. They should send all Sligo/Longford/Mullingar Trains there. As the luas will be on there doorstep with easy access to the city. But several people i believe on here have voiced issues about Sligo/Mullingar trains going to docklands