DART+ (DART Expansion)

AngryLips

So am I correct in thinking that Docklands services could also serve Drumcondra station if the station was to be relocated to Spencer Dock?

MJohnston

LXFlyer wrote: »

Container trains ran under the bridge right up to where the lines into the proposed station is located - I seriously doubt excavation would be needed. Surely the bridge would be raised instead if necessary?

No need to guess—the bridge is marked as having a 4.6m clearance for the buses. That seems on the low-side for DART contact height?

L1011

lucernarian wrote: »

The station plans for Glasnevin showed a drawing for just such realignment of the junction to allow this connection to happen. All quite doable.

No, they have a realignment to do the exact opposite of what was being suggested

They're going to allow PPT to go to Docklands (which can't currently be done)

The suggestion I was replying to was to allow Maynooth to go to PPT!

bk

AngryLips wrote: »

So am I correct in thinking that Docklands services could also serve Drumcondra station if the station was to be relocated to Spencer Dock?

Yes

MJohnston wrote: »

No need to guess—the bridge is marked as having a 4.6m clearance for the buses. That seems on the low-side for DART contact height?

Yes, according to the report, the bridge would need to be heightened and the trackbed sunk for DART.

MJohnston

bk wrote: »

Picture probably worth a thousand words. It shows better the difference between Docklands versus Spencerdock. In particular the interconnection between the lines before the stations.

NOTE: Spencerdock station may end up looking different to below, maybe three platforms versus 2 and straight.

Docklands:

Spencerdock:

Honestly I was more convinced before you posted those two diagrams :pac:

Point taken about the waiting space for trains though!

LXFlyer

MJohnston wrote: »

No need to guess—the bridge is marked as having a 4.6m clearance for the buses. That seems on the low-side for DART contact height?

Again though as I said, surely you’d raise the bridge if needs be rather than deep excavating? That would be the easier option if required.

loyatemu

where are those drawings from? So they're considering moving Docklands slightly to the east (1st picture), or moving it to Spencer Dock (2nd picture)? Both options have access to all lines.

bk

loyatemu wrote: »

where are those drawings from? So they're considering moving Docklands slightly to the east (1st picture), or moving it to Spencer Dock (2nd picture)? Both options have access to all lines.

The drawings are from the Dockland Stations Option Report that I linked to in a previous post. Lots of extra reports are on the DART+ site under Annex 5.

No, with the first picture, they woldn't move Dockalnds station as such, instead they build a new part East of the existing station and keep the existing station too.

- The existing one in grey/black to the West, which would still remain there and it's single platform island is the only one that serves the existing Docklands line.

- A new part of the station (in red) to the East of the existing station is then built that has 2.5 platform islands.

Or to put it another way:

- Existing Docklands Station, platform 1 & 2, serves only Docklands line.

- New part of Docklands Station, platforms 3, 4, 5 serves only Drumcondra Line.

- New part of Docklands Station, platforms 6 & 7 serves only Northern line.

In terms of passengers, people could directly cross between platforms 3 to 7 underground, but to get to platforms 1 & 2, they'd have to walk further out to the main station concourse.

There is no interchange between any of these lines, so no ability for a train to cross back over to a different line or platform. Follow the lines North of the two stations in Docklands and you can see they lack diamond interchanges.

Only the Spencerdock station has the Diamond interchanges to allow transfer of trains between lines/platforms.

NOTE: Again I think Spencerdock will end up a bit different from this. Straighter and bigger, but I'd say the train interchange will be the same.

Pete_Cavan

LXFlyer wrote: »

Again though as I said, surely you’d raise the bridge if needs be rather than deep excavating? That would be the easier option if required.

Lowering the trackbed by a metre or two is likely easier than removing and rebuilding the bridge. I assume part of the need to rebuild the bridge is to allow space for the tracks and platforms underneath. The existing arches may allow for the tracks, while also restricting alignment, but wouldn't fit the platforms. I'd say the new bridge will have to clear-span over the tracks/platforms or any supports will have to be strategically placed minimize impact on the platforms.

lucernarian

L1011 wrote: »

No, they have a realignment to do the exact opposite of what was being suggested

They're going to allow PPT to go to Docklands (which can't currently be done)

The suggestion I was replying to was to allow Maynooth to go to PPT!

Yeah I see now. That would be... Difficult to say the least, given the Luas in the way

Rulmeq

1huge1 wrote: »

Do you mean Barberstown Level crossing or am I missing something?


https://goo.gl/maps/wT1fzmiLWzqvZpbQ9

No, it's the one across the road from intel (after Louisa bridge)

L1011

In the options document, they rejected a foot/cycle bridge at Blakestown on cost and environmental grounds but being open to reinstate if the public requested it. Which I will be in my submission.

Definitely no car traffic going through there afterwards anyway.

Rulmeq

L1011 wrote: »

In the options document, they rejected a foot/cycle bridge at Blakestown on cost and environmental grounds but being open to reinstate if the public requested it. Which I will be in my submission.

Definitely no car traffic going through there afterwards anyway.

They added an entrance (to access the canal) maybe 400m east of that junction, maybe a foot bridge could be added there. It's not a massive loss to be honest, you can cycle across the main bridge (and obviously drive across there as well). So it's just for pedestrians, and I haven't seen many use that road (too dangerous)

Kevtherev1

spacetweek wrote: »

Made a list of upcoming new train stations in the Dublin area in the next 10 or so years:

Pelletstown: 2021
Kishogue: 2021 (probably)
Woodbrook: New housing granted PP in March 2020; station to be provided in conjunction 2023
Glasnevin: When Metrolink is finished in 2028
Carnlough Rd: Suggested, not committed
Inchicore: When Lucan Luas is built by 2030
Porterstown: When Metro West is built after 2030

Are the following Dart Stations not in play for the future
Cabra -at Faussagh avenue to service housing developments beside st finbarrs GAA club.

Houston West -to service PPT route. Has Houston West been dropped now instead of future station inchicore at kylemore road. Or will Houston West and Inchicore be built in the future.

L1011

Kevtherev1 wrote: »

Are the following Dart Stations not in play for the future
Cabra -at Faussagh avenue to service housing developments beside st finbarrs GAA club.

That's the Carnlough Road one in that list

Kevtherev1 wrote: »

Houston West -to service PPT route. Has Houston West been dropped now instead of future station inchicore at kylemore road. Or will Houston West and Inchicore be built in the future.

Its not on the cards currently but its quite likely to happen eventually.

bk

Wow, the reports in the ANNEX are a goldmine of their thinking about how all this will fit together, the cost and performance difference between Dart+ versus full Dart Underground and it also gives us the cheaper DART Underground options they were considering!!

DART+ versus DU

So first off, the report shows that this DART+ plan carries almost the same number of passengers (just 0.10% less) as full DART Underground, while being about 2 billion cheaper! So obviously this DART+ plan comes out with a significantly better cost to benefit ratio (not that DU's was bad either).

Other benefits include that it can be rolled out much faster then DU, thus gaining those benefits quicker and supporting the development of West Dublin faster. And the fact that it can be phased, making it overall less risky.

Of course it also doesn't preclude DU happening in future and most of the cost of this DART+ would be needed for DU anyway.

It all strikes me as quiet a no brainer to proceed in this manner.

Alternative Dart Underground plans

They also looked at 3 other "cheaper" DU plans.

- Follow the original DU alignment, but with an underground turnback station under Hueston Station. Basically this means people would have to transfer between DARTs at Hueston station coming from the west of the city.

- Follow the original DU alignment, but with an underground turnback station under Pearse station, underground line does not cross the Liffey. This would mean people coming in from the West and wanting to go North of the Liffy would need to transfer at Pearse Station.

- A tunnel just between East Wall and Pearse Station. Again would require folks to transfer.

These 3 options all saved about 400 million (and more for the third one, I forget how much) out of the roughly 4 billion full DU cost. However 400 million isn't that much in the greater scheme of things and they all ended up carrying less passengers and thus had worse benefit to cost ratios compared to both the full DU and the Dart+ plans and thus they were all rejected.

Modified full DU plan

They also looked at a slight modification of the full DU plan, which takes into account Metrolink. It saves about 200 million of the full DU plan and looks like so.

It follows much the same route as original DU, with the same stations, except:

- Stephens Green DU Station moved closer to the Metrolink station at Stephens Green, an obvious change.

- The Western DU portal moved closer to Hueston Station and instead an above ground station at Kylemore road. It would require more quad tracking closer into Hueston.

All seem like sensible changes for a future DU IMO.

Other tibits

- They are looking to lengthen station platforms to take 10 carriage DARTs

- That would be too much capacity off peak, so they are looking to operate 4 carriage DARTs at 2/3'rds frequency off peak.

- They are thinking of building another turn back at Dun Laoghaire to handle more DARTs coming across the Loop line Bridge.

- The three lines, Kildare/PPT, Maynooth and Northern will all be able to terminate at either Connolly, Spencer Dock or across the loop line bridge, however the division looks something like this per hour at peak time:

-- Kildare/PPT line, 16 total, 4 into Hueston, 12 into the PPT and on into Spencer Dock.
-- Maynooth, 16 total, 6 Connoly, 3 Spencer Dock, 7 Loop line bridge
-- Northern Line, 19 total, 5 Connoly, 3 Spencer Dock, 11 loop line bridge

The report is here (warning big PDF):
https://www.irishrail.ie/Admin/getmedia/d34065cd-6540-4be1-9cb3-bcea61273fdd/Annex-3-3-DART-Expansion-Programme-Options-Assessment.pdf

All very interesting. Of course some of the above details may have changed since this report (2018) and could change yet as it goes through planning process. But a veery interesting insight into what has been going on.

L1011

Another, I believe more recent service frequency document has Maynooth services going 8 Bray 8 Connolly 0 Spencer Dock; and also 0 from Northern to Spencer Dock. Kildare remains the same as your post.

Zebra3

But that's Maynooth + M3?

bk

L1011 wrote: »

Another, I believe more recent service frequency document has Maynooth services going 8 Bray 8 Connolly 0 Spencer Dock; and also 0 from Northern to Spencer Dock. Kildare remains the same as your post.

Absolutely, worth stressing again, this report is 2 years old. Very interesting report that shows the overall thinking, but I'm certain some of the details have and will change.

BTW Another point about the report, they also looked into the quad tracking the Northern line, but they rejected it quickly based on the high cost versus relatively modest gains in passenger numbers.

L1011

Zebra3 wrote: »

But that's Maynooth + M3?

Yes; its both. So based on the current proposed pattern M3 services will be going to and/or through Connolly and not Docklands; so you'll need to change at Glasnevin with a ~5min max wait.

That is something I can easily see being changed after consultation; a few directs would relieve pressure on Connolly.

ted1

bk wrote: »

Wow, the reports in the ANNEX are a goldmine of their thinking about how all this will fit together, the cost and performance difference between Dart+ versus full Dart Underground and it also gives us the cheaper DART Underground options they were considering!!

DART+ versus DU

So first off, the report shows that this DART+ plan carries almost the same number of passengers (just 0.10% less) as full DART Underground, while being about 2 billion cheaper! So obviously this DART+ plan comes out with a significantly better cost to benefit ratio (not that DU's was bad either).

Other benefits include that it can be rolled out much faster then DU, thus gaining those benefits quicker and supporting the development of West Dublin faster. And the fact that it can be phased, making it overall less risky.

Of course it also doesn't preclude DU happening in future and most of the cost of this DART+ would be needed for DU anyway.

It all strikes me as quiet a no brainer to proceed in this manner.

Alternative Dart Underground plans

They also looked at 3 other "cheaper" DU plans.

- Follow the original DU alignment, but with an underground turnback station under Hueston Station. Basically this means people would have to transfer between DARTs at Hueston station coming from the west of the city.

- Follow the original DU alignment, but with an underground turnback station under Pearse station, underground line does not cross the Liffey. This would mean people coming in from the West and wanting to go North of the Liffy would need to transfer at Pearse Station.

- A tunnel just between East Wall and Pearse Station. Again would require folks to transfer.

These 3 options all saved about 400 million (and more for the third one, I forget how much) out of the roughly 4 billion full DU cost. However 400 million isn't that much in the greater scheme of things and they all ended up carrying less passengers and thus had worse benefit to cost ratios compared to both the full DU and the Dart+ plans and thus they were all rejected.

Modified full DU plan

They also looked at a slight modification of the full DU plan, which takes into account Metrolink. It saves about 200 million of the full DU plan and looks like so.

It follows much the same route as original DU, with the same stations, except:

- Stephens Green DU Station moved closer to the Metrolink station at Stephens Green, an obvious change.

- The Western DU portal moved closer to Hueston Station and instead an above ground station at Kylemore road. It would require more quad tracking closer into Hueston.

All seem like sensible changes for a future DU IMO.

Other tibits

- They are looking to lengthen station platforms to take 10 carriage DARTs

- That would be too much capacity off peak, so they are looking to operate 4 carriage DARTs at 2/3'rds frequency off peak.

- They are thinking of building another turn back at Dun Laoghaire to handle more DARTs coming across the Loop line Bridge.

- The three lines, Kildare/PPT, Maynooth and Northern will all be able to terminate at either Connolly, Spencer Dock or across the loop line bridge, however the division looks something like this per hour at peak time:

-- Kildare/PPT line, 16 total, 4 into Hueston, 12 into the PPT and on into Spencer Dock.
-- Maynooth, 16 total, 6 Connoly, 3 Spencer Dock, 7 Loop line bridge
-- Northern Line, 19 total, 5 Connoly, 3 Spencer Dock, 11 loop line bridge

The report is here (warning big PDF):
https://www.irishrail.ie/Admin/getmedia/d34065cd-6540-4be1-9cb3-bcea61273fdd/Annex-3-3-DART-Expansion-Programme-Options-Assessment.pdf

All very interesting. Of course some of the above details may have changed since this report (2018) and could change yet as it goes through planning process. But a veery interesting insight into what has been going on.

No comparison of journey times between D+ and DU. That’s a key factor

liamog

The additional Boardings, are however, facilitated mostly by reductions
in other modes (Bus down 4,900, Luas down 1,600 and Metro down by 2,000 compared to Bundle 6).

Scheme Bundle 2 does, however have the highest level of Transport User Benefits at around €6.5billion which
is €1.6billion higher than Scheme Bundle 6. This indicates that Scheme Bundle 2 carries similar levels of public
transport passengers than Bundle 6, but facilitates passengers to access their final destination more
efficiently with a shorter journey time.

Basically says that the full tunnel is much more efficient at getting passengers to their destination, but does so by reducing the load on buses, Luas and Metro.
Why is increasing the capacity on other modes seen as a negative?

spacetweek

1. What is this costing?
2. Are there implications in the siting of the relocated Spencer Dock station for the tunnelling that DU would require?
3. I was under the impression that the diversion proposed for Coolmine had already been considered and rejected?
4. At Ashtown wouldn't an overbridge from the new developments north of the line connecting with Martin Savage Park to the south be easier?

spacetweek

bk wrote: »

-- Kildare/PPT line, 16 total, 4 into Hueston, 12 into the PPT and on into Spencer Dock.

Isn't it astonishing that the PPT will have gone from something IR/Gov didn't want to open to a train every 5 mins in under a decade or so?

liamog

spacetweek wrote: »

1. Are there implications in the siting of the relocated Spencer Dock station for the tunnelling that DU would require?
2. I was under the impression that the diversion proposed for Coolmine had already been considered and rejected?

There are two rather daft local objectives to prohibit a bridge in the specified location, and two maintain a vehicular right of way across the current Coolmine level crossing. Absolute madness they were allowed to stick that in.

lucernarian

bk wrote: »

Absolutely, worth stressing again, this report is 2 years old. Very interesting report that shows the overall thinking, but I'm certain some of the details have and will change.

BTW Another point about the report, they also looked into the quad tracking the Northern line, but they rejected it quickly based on the high cost versus relatively modest gains in passenger numbers.

That's quite a pity, I don't understand why they talk about quad track for Heuston and not for Connolly.... Also a previous report showed 3 tracks was a small fraction of the cost. I explained before that for catering for peak movements, only 3 is actually needed (two for the peak direction, bidirectional operation) and I can't see how that escaped them.

bk

ted1 wrote: »

No comparison of journey times between D+ and DU. That’s a key factor

Not if it looks to make little difference in the numbers of people using the service.

Afterall it isn't like people sitting in Malahide and who want to go to Stephens Green are going to say, nah, I won't use this service because it is 5 minutes slower versus some theoretical service that hasn't been built.

They'll still take it because it is still much faster then the alternatives.

And 2 billion extra is a ton of extra money to have in your pocket. With that extra money you could do the more expensive Green Line Metro upgrade and say a second South-West Metro branch line.

I mean that would get you far more extra people into the city, then just taking a few minutes off a DART journey.

liamog wrote: »

Basically says that the full tunnel is much more efficient at getting passengers to their destination, but does so by reducing the load on buses, Luas and Metro.
Why is increasing the capacity on other modes seen as a negative?

Because they are looking at the bigger picture. The goal isn't to get more people on heavy rail, the goal is to get more people using public transport in all it's forms. To increase public transports share of all transport into the city.

There is no point in spending billions extra, just to cannibalise people off bus/tram/metro, if it then leaves those other services half empty.

Specially as I mentioned above, those billions extra can be put to better use increasing public transport elsewhere, where the demand actually exists.

bk

spacetweek wrote: »

1. What is this costing?

There seems to be slightly different numbers in different reports over time and I guess it will depend on what they decide to do exactly in the end, contracts, etc.

But it looks to be about 1.8 Billion. Probably be 2bn when all said and done. That includes 500 to 600million for the new rolling stock and the new stations, removal of crossings, etc.

spacetweek wrote: »

2. Are there implications in the siting of the relocated Spencer Dock station for the tunnelling that DU would require?

The 2 year old report says that the new Spencer dock station would need to be closed again for the construction of the underground station. Alternatively they mention that maybe a station box could be built under the station first.

They also mention that the old Docklands station could be kept and reused, while Spencer Dock was closed for the underground station to be built.

I was also thinking, maybe they could slightly shift the underground DU station to where the Docklands station currently is and perhaps connect it to the new Spencer Dock station underground.

Though now I am wondering, if only Kildare line DARTs are using Spencer Dock and only 12 per hour at that, is it worth even moving it and could they not just continue to use the existing Docklands station.

I think we will need to wait and see more about that part of the plan.

spacetweek wrote: »

Isn't it astonishing that the PPT will have gone from something IR/Gov didn't want to open to a train every 5 mins in under a decade or so?

I know, right, I was only thinking the same myself today. Fair dues to the folks on Railusers for campaigning for it. Talk about big impact.

lucernarian wrote: »

That's quite a pity, I don't understand why they talk about quad track for Heuston and not for Connolly.... Also a previous report showed 3 tracks was a small fraction of the cost. I explained before that for catering for peak movements, only 3 is actually needed (two for the peak direction, bidirectional operation) and I can't see how that escaped them.

Hueston is relatively easy and cheap, they own all the land. Connolly will require lots of CPO'ing and angry home owners.

Having said that, I should point out that the 4 tracking was based on the "Do Minimum" scenario, where nothing was done north of Connolly and it remained a bottleneck for the Northern line. Basically under this scenario they found even with quad tracking, you could only fit two extra DARTs per hour because of the issues at Connolly.

2 extra DARTs not worth it for the large cost involved in CPOing, etc.

Having said that, with the D+ plans, new Spencerdock station, etc. is done, then quad or triple tracking might then make a lot more sense.

liamog

bk wrote: »

Because they are looking at the bigger picture. The goal isn't to get more people on heavy rail, the goal is to get more people using public transport in all it's forms. To increase public transports share of all transport into the city.

There is no point in spending billions extra, just to cannibalise people off bus/tram/metro, if it then leaves those other services half empty.

Specially as I mentioned above, those billions extra can be put to better use increasing public transport elsewhere, where the demand actually exists.

By all means, I agree that spending money in the most efficient manner is the correct approach, but I don't think person using option A over option B is a positive if it results in longer journeys. To be clear the report is indicating a 5% reduction for the Metro and 14% for Luas. If they think those systems become untenable with such a small reduction in AM load then we have bigger problems on our hands.

bk

liamog wrote: »

By all means, I agree that spending money in the most efficient manner is the correct approach, but I don't think person using option A over option B is a positive if it results in longer journeys. To be clear the report is indicating a 5% reduction for the Metro and 14% for Luas. If they think those systems become untenable with such a small reduction in AM load then we have bigger problems on our hands.

To be clear, you are talking about spending 2 Billion extra just to reduce a journey time by a few minutes!