DART+ (DART Expansion)

All of that is purely aspirational - there’s nothing actually planned from any of that.

I’ve heard 2 hour journey times between Dublin and Belfast quoted as a goal since the 1980s and I’m still waiting sadly for it.

They may happen but there is no guarantee they will (and certainly not before DART+ is finished). And that’s what I was getting at. At the moment there is no definite plan for that scale of investment, just aspirations.

As for how DART+ will result in longer journey times, well if you take Dublin-Maynooth then current frequency off-peak to and from Maynooth is every 30 mins allowing the Sligo train to run at line speed for some of that journey. Increasing the DART frequency to every 10 mins (as the NTA wish to do) means that simply won’t be possible as the Sligo services will have to travel at the same speed as the DART (which will stop at all stations) the whole way to Maynooth, which will inevitably mean it will take longer.

There are no locations where the Sligo services can overtake the DART included in DART+ between Connolly and Maynooth so hence they will be restricted to travel at the same speed as the services directly in front of them. The laws of physics dictate that much.

Maynooth is (courtesy of the university) a major traffic generator for points west along the Sligo line so it would make no point to remove it as a stop on Sligo services.

It isn’t aspiration. It’s in the tender documents for Enterprise, did you miss that along with the All Ireland Rail Review?

There are small incremental improvements along with impact of the fleet that could get there without quad tracking.

Again, please articulate how long the delays will be. Why can’t you?

Your arguments don’t stand up here I’m afraid, not least because you didn’t seem to be aware of the All Ireland Rail Review.

I am a rail enthusiast but they should not “run” just because someone prefers them to another mode of Public Transport. The primary goal has to be to get more people using them and that comes from population centres. The 5 to 10 minute switch here is likely not going to stop someone already taking the service. If it has a 50% impact on the few hundred that take it from that far south, that would he more than swallowed up by improved services at Greystones. Thems the facts.

Look with the best will in the world, the AIRR is a very positive document but there’s no guarantee that it will be implemented.

I could come up with countless improvements that I think should happen but they may never see the light of day. You can probably say the same for many of the proposals in that document sadly.

The Enterprise tender specifies trains capable of delivering that journey time. I’m pretty sure that with the necessary line improvements delivered that the De Dietrich’s could do just that as well.

That doesn’t mean that the necessary line improvements will happen. It just means that tenders have been published looking for trains that will be capable of delivering those journey times if the necessary infrastructure investment actually happens.

I may be labouring this but until you actually see funding committed for the infrastructure then it’s just aspirational.

What I know is happening is DART+ and right now because of the sub-standard infrastructure that it will operate along, with virtually no overtaking abilities, that inevitably means that the Intercity services will be impacted by the DART ahead of them.

Well if I am having a discussion about this sort of thing it is nice to know that we are discussing actual improvements that are happening rather than aspirational ones, which the other poster was doing.

Otherwise it's pointless.

Just to make one last point.

There is nothing to stop any additional Rosslare services running to/from Connolly.

Yes they will be as slow as the DART, but with potentially 20 paths each hour between Connolly and Bray as a result of DART+, crossing two ICRs at Greystones and letting them use the DART path between Bray and Greystones means it is perfectly possible to maintain through services.

What the NTA are floating is their view of what the best solution is. It's not the only one possible.

You have your opinion. I have mine. We aren’t going to agree.

Let’s leave it at that.

This proposal was floated in the GDA Transport Strategy as well as the All Island Strategic Rail Review. Looks to be the NTA / DoTs preferred approach to provide the highest capacity into the City Centre along the corridor given the physical constraints and cost to overcome them. The option to double track between Bray and Greystones has been ruled out in both for the foreseeable. They're more concerned about stopping the line falling into the sea then double tracking it right now.

This leaves either a Dart with space for 1,100 people or a DMU service with space for about 400 people taking up the third path between Bray and Greystones. Three darts can run every hour, DMU services can't replicate this frequency without major upgrade works along the Rosslare to Greystones route.

So if the objective is to maximise capacity into the city centre, in the most cost effective way, then interchange is the answer that comes out.

An alternative approach is how could you increase the DMU service to 1,000 people and seemlessly integrate it with the DART+ timetable, to not lead to delays and cancellations across the Dart network, in order to match a DARTs capacity into the city centre.

The line is single track with short platforms. So you need to look at a full line improvement scheme from Wexford to Dublin city centre; passing loops, platform lengthening at every station including the likes of Rathdrum which is a disaster, speed improvements, resignalling, new rolling stock. From a position of less than a thousand a day on the route this appears hard to justify in our appraisal framework, presumably why the AI SRR sought the waterford proposal to offset it.

May as well hire a consultant to assess a Rosslare to Greystones upgrade and at least get a full picture of the issue.

We can also reassess our objectives, is maximising capacity into our city centre the top priority?

I think when Bray becomes a hub in its own right (for example with the Luas extension, and maybe Metrolink conversion in the distant future) then it being a terminus would become that bit more compelling I think. My fear is that IÉ want to let the line south of Greystones die in the absence of that, since I can't see more commuters coming from there.

Terminating a DMU service at Bray does seem rather odd as it basically nearly negates the purpose of freeing up capacity in Bray head.

One things for certain, there isn't enough funding to deliver all the transport infrastructure needed. A full line improvement south of Greystones isn't a priority in the short or medium term whether one likes it or not.

But that wasn’t the point.

The point was people going off on Irish Rail and the NTA when that was in this aspirational document.

You weren’t aware of that, so let’s stop the nonsense.

You still refuse to answer the journey times- because you can’t.

Relax. You're railing against a wall at the moment. It's clear that IÉ are making the best of the funding available to them. However it's also true that this isn't really being done to enhance passenger capacity for south of Gorey/Wicklow. The purpose to protect the integrity of the commuter core north of Greystones. This has been reiterated over and over again here. This is fine, so long as we're being honest that that is it's purpose.

This is an image of the footbridge with lifts on either side. Its meant to be going for planning permission according to the Wicklow website.