Irish Rail New Proposed Timetable - August 2024

Didn't IE do a massive city centre resignaling project a few years back to improve the throughput of the loop line bridge? Why is Connolly struggling to cope. The problem shouldn't be facilitating the train movements at this stage, rather it should be how can we get trains to transit the city centre faster given that all services crawl between GCD and Clontarf

Reading all of your comments the main feeling that I'm getting is that IE schedulers aren't paying enough attention to potential routing conflicts at stations…

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PPT services started in 2016. Resignalling was 2020. Resignalling just allows them to stack more trains closer together, coming into Connolly.

8.24 Malahide to Greystones was 12 minutes late into Clontarf Road this morning. Train rammed, and passengers left behind on the platform. Prıck had a bike on the train too.
Gets into Connolly, and while a good few got off, the platform was packed with people waiting to get on.

Every single Maynooth service I've taken has been late at the city end (and some at the far end too) since the change. Today was particularly bad.

I struggle to get off the train at Connolly sometimes because people are the platform literally won't step back. Once or twice I've had to push through and actually nearly fell off the platform.

The train was advanced by 8 mins in the recent timetable change.

Also bus journey running times (in general) have been lengthened since the schools returned.

Looks that way. Does show systemic problems if they have degraded to needing such flabby timetables.

They admitted from early on that things aren’t working as well as they planned - I would prefer that they were honest about that and let people know that they would try to address the problems.

I think that I would prefer that approach, rather than taking the approach that the NTA have taken each time when it came to the bus running time issues with each BusConnects phase, which was to say nothing at all and leave people in the dark for weeks on end.

Obviously we would all prefer that they had got it right in the first place, but better to be honest about it than taking a vow of silence.

Thanks, that probably explains it. A bit of a pity. I could grab the 40e and be in Spencer Dock in 30 mins. Will use the Luas instead now.

Well if you’re faced with the reality that trains just aren’t able to make the running times that the new timetable has, then really the only option is to adjust them back to something achievable.

The Maynooth running times were cut in the new timetable and clearly it looks like they were cut by too much, and that has caused major problems.

People want a reliable service.

In that situation you need to come up with running times that are achievable.

There are any number of reasons why journey times need to be extended - more dwell time at stations due to increased loadings, increased frequency of services, more stations.

Sometimes you have to just bite that bullet.

Timetables that just don’t work in practice aren’t worth the paper that they are written on, and hence it’s not massaging figures, but rather delivering a timetable that is robust and achievable.

As for the non stop services between Maynooth and Connolly, yes they were faster in the 1990s, but they didn’t have to share the same pair of tracks with anything like the number of trains that there are now on the route. There is nowhere to overtake stopping services.

That’s why the strategic rail review advocates a new line from Maynooth to Hazelhatch to allow them a swift run into Heuston rather than having to share the same tracks as stopping DART services.

Coming up with schedules that suit everyone is impossible. Delay those trains, and the people getting on earlier in Connolly or Heuston may not be happy.

They also have to fit in with the Intercity services west of Hazelhatch on a two track railway - that’s akin to threading a needle.

It’s not just increased journey time. Services are also departing earlier to try avoid conflicts, as well as having increased run time. Increasing run time theoretically allows for better turnaround times.

It isn’t likely to get any better until they implement the changes next week and even then they will have to keep the schedule under review.

Is it normal for stations like the newly opened Kishoge not to have live train information? I don’t use trains much but could use this for commuting only the lack of live travel information makes this more difficult than it could be.

"all Dublin Connolly to Maynooth services have 3 minutes added to journey times, returning services to pre-timetable change journey times.

Most Maynooth to Dublin Connolly services have 3 to 7 minutes added to journey times."

I guess that fixes the current timetable, where everything is 10-15 minutes late. I do wish services could be improved rather than timetabled to run slower.

When they opened Drumcondra Station way back, that saved my sanity, as you could get off and walk instead of the inevitable crawl and wait outside Connolly. The non stop Sligo intercity was a treat to come home on once, but now they crawl to Maynooth. Still, better than the horror of commuting by car.

Kishoge has real time information in the Irish Rail app and has done since opening day

Would have thought that would be covered in the costs of opening the station, following closure.

They also don't display the backend data very well anymore, have noticed   appearing on them a lot!

How was today on the rails around Connolly? Any improvement on the services with the revised times?

Whats on the displays looks like something from 'The Matrix'. "Only you can choose your destination. Take the Red (screen) pill, or the Blue (screen) pill". Careful now, or you could end up in #$##__%$ or even ▪︎}[□▪︎~|<¤