Ghost DARTs

sporty56

Noticed of late that "Ghost trains" are regularly turning up at Sydney Parade, Sandymount and Lansdowne road level crossings. For example, Northbound train goes through Lansdowne crossing but barrier stays down for another 8/9 secs as if invisible carriages were being towed. It's the same regardless of train length.
From 1984 up to very recently these barriers lifted immediately train passed. Anybody know why these "Ghost Trains" are now being catered for ?

highlydebased

Possibly changed health and safety rules that barriers must remain closed for so long after a train passes through

Stonewolf

What's much much more frustrating is IEs massively overcautious policies on barriers closing ahead of trains.

Captain Chaos

sporty56 wrote: »

Noticed of late that "Ghost trains" are regularly turning up at Sydney Parade, Sandymount and Lansdowne road level crossings. For example, Northbound train goes through Lansdowne crossing but barrier stays down for another 8/9 secs as if invisible carriages were being towed. It's the same regardless of train length.
From 1984 up to very recently these barriers lifted immediately train passed. Anybody know why these "Ghost Trains" are now being catered for ?

Think it's to do with the DASH 1 or 2 signaling upgrades. The front of the train has to clear a certain point before the barriers reset. They may have moved these pickup boxes further from the crossings.

sporty56

Should have mentioned that at Lansdowne example the Southbound process has not changed - barriers up immediately

Cookie_Monster

Stonewolf wrote: »

What's much much more frustrating is IEs massively overcautious policies on barriers closing ahead of trains.

yep, particularly when they close before the train stops at the platform and stay closed the whole time.

flazio

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

yep, particularly when they close before the train stops at the platform and stay closed the whole time.

If the platform is right beside the road that is to protect traffic in case of brake failure on the train.

Stonewolf

flazio wrote: »

If the platform is right beside the road that is to protect traffic in case of brake failure on the train.

Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't the brakes failsafe? In other words, the natural state of the system is maximum brake pressure.


Even leaving aside the matter of trains stopped at stations, I use Coolmine occasionally (a couple of times a month) and my experience there is that the barriers close about two and a half minutes before the train arrives. This is completely ridiculous. There's also a fair few manually controlled crossings on that line that should have been replaced with automatic ones ages ago, I suspect that the LAs would be interested in helping foot the cost if there was a real benefit to traffic of doing so and not just the same gate schedule but without a man.

TheBandicoot

Stonewolf wrote: »

Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't the brakes failsafe? In other words, the natural state of the system is maximum brake pressure.

Sure, but not all failres are cases of the brakes not applying. The driver might miscalculate his braking and not stop in time, or he might forget to brake entirely or be distracted. Or he might brake properly and have the train slide for a few miles past the station(the investigation found the driver acted entirely correcly, but the train's sand was empty). Safety is king on the railway, it's better that road users get delaed a couple of minutes than get killed.

postitnote

http://www.translink.co.uk/Latest-News/waiting-times-at-william-street-level-crossing-reduced/

"We have been able to achieve this reduction by introducing a new signalling equipment and Crossing procedures, so that the level crossing barriers are not dropped until trains travelling from Belfast are ready to depart from Lurgan Station."

I would assume there would have been similar regs up here to down there? So are translink being unsafe? Or is their system 'failsafe'?

In fact it was something I couldn't figure out myself. I did wonder what would be in place if a train was too fast. Barriers dropping in an emergency if a train is too fast through a speed trap?

Losty Dublin

postitnote wrote: »

http://www.translink.co.uk/Latest-News/waiting-times-at-william-street-level-crossing-reduced/

"We have been able to achieve this reduction by introducing a new signalling equipment and Crossing procedures, so that the level crossing barriers are not dropped until trains travelling from Belfast are ready to depart from Lurgan Station."

I would assume there would have been similar regs up here to down there? So are translink being unsafe? Or is their system 'failsafe'?

In fact it was something I couldn't figure out myself. I did wonder what would be in place if a train was too fast. Barriers dropping in an emergency if a train is too fast through a speed trap?

Virtually all level crossings here are protected with signals. The protecting signals are located far away enough to allow for braking if required. A proceed aspect will only be given for a train to proceed through when the crossing is safely closed. I 'd guess that the crossing is now controled by a repositioned signal. I do notice that they refer to the crossing being controlled by local staff (I presume they are controlling it from Portadown signal box and not Belfast); this and a few other tweaks have probablymade some time savings.

NIR and Irish Rail operate with a common rule book and the safety cases are largely similar for both companies.

sporty56

That's interesting that NIR and IR operate same procedures. For obvious reasons railway regulation on the island of Ireland followed British practice. However nowdays barrier closure times in UK for commuter lines are considerably shorter than on DART line. UK is not that different from mainland Europe countries like France, Germany, Italy, Spain etc. with typical closure times 80 to 120 secs max.

Makes you wonder what criteria DART use to come up with barrier closure times so much longer(120 to 300 secs) than busier rail lines through more densely populated areas in UK and Continent ? It can't be a rolling stock issue as all IR trains would have similar mandatory safety and braking features as UK and Continent.

Irish Steve

120 to 300 secs? Yeah right, as long as it's not peak period and the schedule has gone pearshaped.

Been caught at Ashtown on more than a few occasions for close on 15 minutes, 2 trains in each direction with line spacing between them, and no chance to get over the crossing between them. evening peak is the worst, I make sure to avoid that road or the Ratoath road crossings and go over Broombridge if coming North, but there's not the same option going south. Given the extra trains on that route now compared to a while back, I find it incredible that IE are still using manually operated gates in the urban area, but clearly they don't see upgrading them as a high priority.

OK, realistically speaking, the Ratoath Road should be modified to have a bridge over the canal and rail, the combination of the canal and rail line makes for a difficult bit of road, it's supposed to be restricted that HGV's don't use it, but we all know about how well that law is enforced!

The old print works has been closed for years, and there's a piece of open ground the other side that would facilitate building the approaches to the bridge, there is a lot of traffic on that road, upgrading it would make life a lot easier all round.

LXFlyer

Planning permission has been approved for a new bridge at Reilly's crossing (Ratoath Road).