R139 Bus lane?

LXFlyer

L1011 wrote: »

And your additional Northern Line services, which will impact for a much longer distance/time too.

It is perfectly possible to operate off-peak:
- An hourly enterprise
- A half-hourly northern line service
- A 15 minute DART from Dublin Airport-Bray
- Howth Branch shuttle every 15 minutes

The paths are already in place for that and an increased northern line peak service.

Technically there is no reason why that service pattern could not operate. The capacity exists. The bi-directional signalling between Skerries and Balbriggan facilitates additional capacity to allow the Enterprise overtake northern line services.

LXFlyer

Captain Chaos wrote: »

This exactly, when I worked in the airport as part of a construction project I had to get the first morning DART to town, 8km in the wrong direction to wait 30mins for a bus to travel the 8km back on myself and a further 3 km to the airport. It took me about 90mins to get from Donaghmede to the airport using public transport as apposed to a 10min drive at that hour of the morning.

Madness that there is no proper airport transport link for the majority of D13 and D5 area.

A 29B bus route would be good, follow the same route as the 29A except turn onto the R139 towards Clarehall to the airport at Donaghmede as apposed to towards Baldoyle. Let the A do the Baldoyle/ Coast spur and the B does Clarehall/ Airport.

What is needed is a proper local network of PSO bus routes linking communities across north Dublin city with the Airport, and which facilitate workers' shift patterns.

Local bus services to Heathrow are scheduled to start arriving there from 04:00 and run until after midnight.

Something similar is needed in Dublin - of course the fact that the DAA charges public transport companies for using the bus stop facilities does not help.

Captain Chaos

lxflyer wrote: »

It is perfectly possible to operate off-peak:
- An hourly enterprise
- A half-hourly northern line service
- A 15 minute DART


The paths are already in place for that and an increased northern line peak service.

Suggesting otherwise is twaddle.

Can't work as Connolly can't handle it. Just look at the state of the Connolly loop line bottle neck now with DASH 2 complete and the Phoneix Park Tunnel services. That's without 10 min DART frequency and it's a write off of a mess right now.

Paths are viable only if quad tracking in place and Connolly being bypassed on Eastwall Junction to Pearse underground by northern DARTs. It's unrealistic otherwise.

LXFlyer

Captain Chaos wrote: »

Can't work as Connolly can't handle it. Just look at the state of the Connolly loop line bottle neck now with DASH 2 complete and the Phoneix Park Tunnel services. That's without 10 min DART frequency and it's a write off of a mess right now.

Paths are viable only if quad tracking in place and Connolly being bypassed on Eastwall Junction to Pearse underground by northern DARTs. It's unrealistic otherwise.

Connolly already has off-peak a 15 minute DART, a bi-hourly Enterprise and used to have bi-hourly Northern Line services before the service cuts.

I am not proposing additional DART traffic through Connolly, just an extra Northern line off-peak service each hour and an hourly Enterprise.

Have you actually sat down and tried to path out such a service pattern? If you think that isn't possible now, along with an hourly Enterprise path I'd like to know why.

The second northern line can start/finish at Connolly without causing a major impact on other services.

The problem in recent months at peak times has been down to the poor performance of DART - nothing else. The PPT services have just highlighted it more clearly. There have been a number of operational changes put in place recently to try and address that, but a DART schedule recast with moderately increased running times is probably the only realistic solution.

L1011

lxflyer wrote: »

It is perfectly possible to operate off-peak:
- An hourly enterprise
- A half-hourly northern line service
- A 15 minute DART from Dublin Airport-Bray
- Howth Branch shuttle every 15 minutes

The paths are already in place for that and an increased northern line peak service.

Technically there is no reason why that service pattern could not operate. The capacity exists. The bi-directional signalling between Skerries and Balbriggan facilitates additional capacity to allow the Enterprise overtake northern line services.

Even if you juggle all these in, and accept the slowdown to Enterprise, where are you going to fit PPT, Maynooth (in dire need of extra capacity), Longford/Sligo and Southern services in to Connolly around these?

LXFlyer

L1011 wrote: »

Even if you juggle all these in, and accept the slowdown to Enterprise, where are you going to fit PPT, Maynooth (in dire need of extra capacity), Longford/Sligo and Southern services in to Connolly around these?

With respect the current lines north of Connolly can fit off-peak:

- An hourly enterprise
- A bi-hourly northern line service (one may terminate at Connolly)
- A 15 minute DART

The paths exist for that. The only difference to what was done in the past is an extra Enterprise every two hours - but that path would continue to exist and it is not slowed down. I'd like to know the basis for your statements? Have you actually sat down and pathed out the services?

At peak times the service pattern would obviously be rejigged to fit in additional services as at present, and journey times similar to current levels at those times.

But it is technically possible using the current infrastructure.

Extra off-peak services can also be added on the Maynooth line. The second half-hourly service could be reinstated.

Peak time - the fundamental issue is a lack of rolling stock. But additional trains could be added from Docklands along the Maynooth line.

A more robust DART schedule than the current one would increase reliability over the loop line bridge.

L1011

lxflyer wrote: »

I'd like to know the basis for your statements? Have you actually sat down and pathed out the services?

I've seen Irish Rail be completely unable to support the service they currently try to.

Notional capacity is useless when you have to deal with the operator that exists. They can't operate the number of trains through Connolly and along the Northern line as it stands.

LXFlyer

L1011 wrote: »

I've seen Irish Rail be completely unable to support the service they currently try to.

Notional capacity is useless when you have to deal with the operator that exists. They can't operate the number of trains through Connolly and along the Northern line as it stands.

Well again - I made clear - they need to address the DART punctuality problem by adjusting running times to what they ought to be.

But that's a completely different argument to it can't be done without billions of Euros of investment on the existing line.

L1011

lxflyer wrote: »

Well again - I made clear - they need to address the DART punctuality problem by adjusting running times to what they ought to be.

But that's a completely different argument to it can't be done without billions of Euros of investment on the existing line.

Adjusting running times won't fix the multitude of issues they have.

LXFlyer

L1011 wrote: »

Adjusting running times won't fix the multitude of issues they have.

Well it would sort an awful lot of them out. It is principally the knock on effect of poor DART punctuality that has created issues for services on other lines.

What other issues are you referring to that cannot be solved without massive infrastructural work?

Bear in mind again that all I'm stating is that off-peak trains that used to operate can run again, along with an extra hourly enterprise.

I'm struggling to see how you think that is not possible.

L1011

lxflyer wrote: »

Well it would sort an awful lot of them out. It is principally the knock on effect of poor DART punctuality that has created issues for services on other lines.

What other issues are you referring to that cannot be solved without massive infrastructural work?

Bear in mind again that all I'm stating is that off-peak trains that used to operate can run again, along with an extra hourly enterprise.

I'm struggling to see how you think that is not possible.

Because they have shown that even a minor addition to the schedules causes utter hell for months on end. One extra train, that needs to be treated as a priority, is going to cause nightmares.

You seem to have faith in Irish Rail above and beyond anyone else in the entire country.

All this faffing, changing patterns, requiring transfers, removing electric service from Portmarnock/Malahide etc would do nothing other than allow a non-competitive airport service anyway. For it to be of any use you're straight back at the infrastructure costs.

LXFlyer

L1011 wrote: »

Because they have shown that even a minor addition to the schedules causes utter hell for months on end. One extra train, that needs to be treated as a priority, is going to cause nightmares.

You seem to have faith in Irish Rail above and beyond anyone else in the entire country.

All this faffing, changing patterns, requiring transfers, removing electric service from Portmarnock/Malahide etc would do nothing other than allow a non-competitive airport service anyway. For it to be of any use you're straight back at the infrastructure costs.

Hang on - I'm criticising IE for their poor performance but I'm also looking at the underlying reason rather than blaming something new and saying that something isn't possible without massive investment in the existing infrastructure.

Again, at the risk of repeating myself, the fundamental problem is the poor DART performance - look at the DART punctuality statistics.

What the addition of the PPT trains has done has highlighted a problem that has been hidden. Fix that problem through more accurate scheduling, realistic running times, more despatch staff on platforms at busy stations, better staff training.

That's what's needed initially to get a more robust and reliable service - not spending billions on infrastructure that can deal with the service levels.

I'm arguing that there are operational issues that are causing the current problems - not infrastructural ones.

Blindly saying that you'd need billions to address this is not correct.

And most of these issues are at peak not off-peak - which is when I'm suggesting the hourly clockface services would be.

The existing peak service level would rather mirror what would be there presently in terms of services through Connolly.

My point is that from an infrastructural perspective the Airport DART could happen. Now whether it should or not is a different question altogether.

trellheim

topic lads - did we not do this to death on another thread very recently [ and concluded that ya needed huge cash to fix it properly if you wanted to bring in spur services to DUB ?]

H3llR4iser

Captain Chaos wrote: »

Can't work as Connolly can't handle it. Just look at the state of the Connolly loop line bottle neck now with DASH 2 complete and the Phoneix Park Tunnel services. That's without 10 min DART frequency and it's a write off of a mess right now.

Paths are viable only if quad tracking in place and Connolly being bypassed on Eastwall Junction to Pearse underground by northern DARTs. It's unrealistic otherwise.

No need for fancy stuff really, it can be implemented without changing capacity nor schedule on the main line / Connolly:

- Build track extension to the airport right after Clongriffin and joining the main line back right before Portmarnock;
- Keep 15 minutes DART schedule unchanged;
- Make ALL DART trains go to Malahide and change the Howth Jctn. - Howth branch to a 15 minutes shuttle service; Stagger it about 2-3 minutes with the main (Malahide) so that Howth passengers can change with little hassle/wait;

Clongriffin has three tracks, it can (And is) used for overtakes; There's a third track near Malahide as well, it'd only need to be connected to the main line the right way. Plus, with all DARTs "detouring" to the airport they'd spend a good 8-10 minutes off the main line, allowing for faster trains to pass.

The only real downside would be passengers from Malahide and Portmarnock looking at journey times increased by 8-10 minutes if done efficiently.

trellheim

No need for fancy stuff really, it can be implemented without changing capacity nor schedule on the main line / Connolly:

- Build track extension to the airport right after Clongriffin and joining the main line back right before Portmarnock;
- Keep 15 minutes DART schedule unchanged;
- Make ALL DART trains go to Malahide and change the Howth Jctn. - Howth branch to a 15 minutes shuttle service; Stagger it about 2-3 minutes with the main (Malahide) so that Howth passengers can change with little hassle/wait;

Clongriffin has three tracks, it can (And is) used for overtakes; There's a third track near Malahide as well, it'd only need to be connected to the main line the right way. Plus, with all DARTs "detouring" to the airport they'd spend a good 8-10 minutes off the main line, allowing for faster trains to pass.

The only real downside would be passengers from Malahide and Portmarnock looking at journey times increased by 8-10 minutes if done efficiently.

This is only looking at it in isolation.

To make such a service better than the bus

1) LUAS frequency - i.e. every 5-8 mins , is required, and at odd hours of the day for peak ( 0400 onwards northbound from ... where would it need to turn round .. let's say Dun Laoghaire, and needing to run southbound till 0100 at minimum )

That then needs to mix in with 10 minute dart , Maynooth, PPT, Sligo, Enterprise, Northern Commuter. I just dont' see it without manchester picc/paddington size fast and relief lines out to Clongriffin

PS : I see people's point ref pathing though but i think its not feasible at all. Anyway : a C&T topic !