DART capacity reconfiguration

bikeman1 · 13-09-2013 11:19am

Like a case of read it on boards, IE sort it. The 16:30 Greystones - Malahide was an 8 car yesterday.

I was traveling on a 2 car late yesterday evening and it felt a lot safer than the vast 6/8 cars off peak. Driver was stopping at the correct locations etc.

What I did notice was it struggled pulling away from some stations with a mild amount of wheel slip. Having only one set makes a difference as it can't be "helped" along with other traction motors. That should be interesting as we get into the leaf fall season.

The only issue I can see is that they are putting out the 2 cars just a little too early. Need to leave all departures up to 1930 from town as 4 +. As mentioned a lot of people dont finish until 1830 - 1900.

Cunning Alias · 13-09-2013 11:38am

17:30 south from Pearse yesterday was a 6 carriage like it used to be. Don't know what to think now.

PRAF · 13-09-2013 11:47am

bikeman1 wrote: »

Like a case of read it on boards, IE sort it. The 16:30 Greystones - Malahide was an 8 car yesterday.

I was traveling on a 2 car late yesterday evening and it felt a lot safer than the vast 6/8 cars off peak. Driver was stopping at the correct locations etc.

What I did notice was it struggled pulling away from some stations with a mild amount of wheel slip. Having only one set makes a difference as it can't be "helped" along with other traction motors. That should be interesting as we get into the leaf fall season.

The only issue I can see is that they are putting out the 2 cars just a little too early. Need to leave all departures up to 1930 from town as 4 +. As mentioned a lot of people dont finish until 1830 - 1900.

I suspect they've been getting a lot of negative feedback from customers (and probably some of their drivers as well). Hopefully they have the cop on to make a few adjustments.

LXFlyer · 13-09-2013 11:50am

dublinman1990 wrote: »

Anyone who had any thought of this idea within IE should rightly be sacked on the spot while providing a sub-standard service.

I was on another 2 carriage DART at Tara Street at 7:20pm yesterday evening while it was going towards Bray.

I had to run with all the other passengers on the platform to get to the 2nd carriage. The train got full to the gills again when it arrived at Pearse Station after I boarded the train after one stop.

It was absolutely unbearable as it got quite hot & stuffy when inside the train.

When I am thinking about it; the platform dwell times with a 2 carriage DART are getting between 30 seconds to 1 minute longer per station. I had seen that there was an northbound DART stopping at Sydney Parade that also had two carriages on it possibly starting before 7pm.

A somewhat extreme response I would suggest. With any change like this there are going to be capacity issues arising - it is somewhat an inexact science. The key is that the company needs to be seen to respond to overcrowding issues as they arise and reconfigure the sets as needed.

From the posts below the one quoted above, it would appear that there have been some changes already.

EB_2013 · 13-09-2013 11:54am

dregin wrote: »

It is, yep.

Great, should knock a few minutes off the walk along the long platform which exists now.

Frank Lee Midere · 13-09-2013 12:12pm

lxflyer wrote: »

A somewhat extreme response I would suggest. With any change like this there are going to be capacity issues arising - it is somewhat an inexact science. The key is that the company needs to be seen to respond to overcrowding issues as they arise and reconfigure the sets as needed.

From the posts below the one quoted above, it would appear that there have been some changes already.

If they have responded them fair play.

lord lucan · 13-09-2013 3:05pm

dregin wrote: »

Asked lads clearing it and they confirmed that IE are re-opening the old entrance to Connolly Station that leads into the underpassage to platforms 6/7.

Gonna cut a good 5 minutes for our commuters who have to walk for 10 minutes to get to the platform that's 10 metres away from our office >_<

Slightly off topic but I've been curious for years as to what the old station Hall was like after it closed. Must be my bizarre interest in ghost stations and the fact I used to use it catching maynooth line trains. I can still picture it, a small retail unit on the left inside the door and then the ticket desks further along on the left. The turnstiles were directly in front of the desks followed by some steep steps that brought you to the subway to platforms 6&7.

I'd imagine it'll have to be made PRM friendly as I don't recall any ramps or lifts and I'd be surprised If they made anyone with a disability go the long way around.

TheBandicoot · 13-09-2013 3:32pm

It would have been a good idea as well to have an entrance on Seville Row(connected up to the platform 6/7 island, say), to easily expand the station's catchment and cut back on people double-backing on themselves. Too late for that now.

dowlingm · 15-09-2013 6:42pm

Is it necessary to make all entrances to a building accessible? All entrances not grandfathered/kept in continuous use?

sdanseo · 15-09-2013 8:30pm

Hardly surprising that all this happens when the network is subvented each year to the tune of hundreds of millions of euro because it is inherently loss-making.

Fuel costs for 4-car instead of 2-car services are the smallest possible saving in comparison to some areas where they could save huge cash.

Either way, the whole thing should be privatised. Try working to targets and fire those that consistently fail to hit them. Simple.

dowlingm · 16-09-2013 3:57am

Simply saying privatize isn't an answer. This isn't like LUAS where a blank sheet was possible.

PRAF · 16-09-2013 4:54pm

Yeah, I'm not sure privatisation is the answer here. The reality is that Irish Rail are a bit of a bellwether for the rest of the economy. One big part of the reason for the deficit in all of CIE (including Irish Rail) is that there are hundreds of thousands less people working now than there were in 2008. That's a hell of a lot of lost revenue and IMO you cannot fairly attribute any blame to CIE for that.

Another big part of the problem is that the govt has steadily cut the amount of subvention they've given them (they are one of the least subsidised public transport operators in Europe IIRC - at least that's what they claim). Take away the cut in subvention and they would probably be profit making. Furthermore, they have been encouraged to 'invest' in staff rationalisation schemes that require a big upfront investment which again adds to their deficits in the short term.

Before anyone argues that CIE should not be subsidised in anyway, please note that there are significant obligations imposed on CIE in terms of running loss making routes all over the place. People are all for private sector style efficiencies until they find out that the No.XX bus no longer stops directly outside their grannies house.

That said, I'm 100% sure that CIE (including Irish Rail) is also riddled with inefficiencies, poor practices, dreadful management, etc which also contributes hugely to high costs. However, in this case I don't think privatisation is the answer.

PRAF · 16-09-2013 5:06pm

dowlingm wrote: »

Simply saying privatize isn't an answer. This isn't like LUAS where a blank sheet was possible.

You're right, it's always better to design a system from scratch rather than starting with an imperfect system and trying to change it.

By and large Transdev seems to do a good job of running it and they offer a pretty decent service (high frequency, good reliability, etc.). Certainly, it would be great to see the same high frequency on the DART line (if they can ever overcome the bottlenecks on the line itself). I wouldn't object if Irish Rail was forced to compete with Transdev in a tender to run the DART from say 2020 onwards.

That said, I'd imagine the DART service is at least as profitable as the LUAS. The real losses for Irish Rail are surely in running services such as Limerick to Waterford, Cork to Middleton, Limerick to Athenry, etc. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any real analysis of the profitability of their routes in their annual reports. They are doing themselves a great disservice in this because its hard for the general public to see what the loss making routes are.

Another big cost imposed on CIE seems to be the free travel scheme for older people and various categories of social welfare recipients. Socially it is a good thing (depending on your perspective) but I'd imagine it is also costly to run

end of the road · 16-09-2013 5:38pm

sdeire wrote: »

Hardly surprising that all this happens when the network is subvented each year to the tune of hundreds of millions of euro because it is inherently loss-making.

it would have to be subsidized anyway, do you expect it to run on thin air? would have to be funded by government even with privatisation and such funding would have to increase

sdeire wrote: »

Fuel costs for 4-car instead of 2-car services are the smallest possible saving in comparison to some areas where they could save huge cash.

what areas are these? close more routes/services even though that has been proven not to work?

sdeire wrote: »

the whole thing should be privatised.

yeah, because that would make people be able to afford the cost to use the service and offer faster and more frequent services with more carriges right? wrong, prices would go up, services would be cut, the number of carriges on trains would go down, the subsidy would have to increase, one is delusianel if they think privatisation is going to sort out CIE, investment and more of it can deliver more for your buck with CIE then without

sdeire wrote: »

Try working to targets and fire those that consistently fail to hit them.

what targets? the ones that the pro privatise everything/sell it off to the highist bidder/their little friends make up in their heads? you see privatising everything and then getting people to work to "targets" may work in a shop or factory but it won't work on the railways unless investment in removing bottlenecks and upgrading track (which has happened) gets to the rest of the network, and even with that CIE could still deliver the same if not more so no need to sell off our railways to the highist bidder

sdeire wrote: »

Simple.

wrong, not simple at all, privatisation won't stop trains from being delayed, signalling systems or trains breaking down, solve bottlenecks or any of the so called "targets" you want everything to be privatised to supposibly meet, if private operators want to use the railways along with CIE thats a different story but a private monopoly is not the way to go either

PRAF · 16-09-2013 5:49pm

Funny enough, I think one of the biggest things CIE could do to safeguard their subvention is to highlight the importance and the volume of the loss making services they operate.

Also, the services they operate are massively important to the overall economy. Again, they could do a better job of highlighting this so that they aren't seen as such an easy target for a govt intent on cost cutting.

That said, they should also try to help themselves by proactively making cuts that don't decimate customer services. Moreover, they should be implementing projects to bring in more revenue. There are various ideas out there in terms of extending the line, creating new lines, creating spurs off existing lines, etc. However, CIE keep scaring people off because they are looking for billions to do these projects

MurdyWurdy · 17-09-2013 5:53pm

I got the dart into town from Dalkey today. Left Dalkey at 12.22 and it was not a 2 carriage dart. Got on the dart again in Pearse just before 4pm and again it was at least a 4 carriage dart. I would have presumed those times were off peak and should be 2 carriages.

My husband just texted from Pearse station saying he can't get on the dart. They're 4 carriage and delayed and it's chaos. What on earth are they playing at?

smackyB · 17-09-2013 8:54pm

Caught DART at 18.30 from Pearse to Greystones that was only 4 carriages today. Completely packed and left people standing at platforms from Pearse to Sandymount. This is incredibly damaging to the DART's reputation and I can imagine a lot of people will abandon it for their cars if Irish Rail keep this up. Shambolic.

shamrock2004 · 17-09-2013 10:06pm

smackyB wrote: »

Caught DART at 18.30 from Pearse to Greystones that was only 4 carriages today. Completely packed and left people standing at platforms from Pearse to Sandymount. This is incredibly damaging to the DART's reputation and I can imagine a lot of people will abandon it for their cars if Irish Rail keep this up. Shambolic.

I got the 7.15 train northbound from lansdowne which was only 2 carriages. It was disgraceful. There were what sounded like 4 pikeys in the same carriage running up and down it hurling abuse at a junkie for 'smoking heroin on the dart'. 19.15 in my opinion is still on peak - maybe irish rail have forgotten that those of us in the private sector have a working day that doesn't end at 6pm. At least when the trains were longer you could move away from these scrotes. Not anymore! Ill be send irish rail a complaint tomorrow about what they have done to shorten the number of carriages. Ive taken the dart nearly every working day since 1997 and i would have no problem ditching my ticket and going back to the car. And whats more, my comany pays for the ticket and i'd still rather drive if this keeps up.

Oh and to top it all, there will be a fare increase in the new year. It just gets better!

dowlingm · 18-09-2013 4:17am

PRAF wrote: »

You're right, it's always better to design a system from scratch rather than starting with an imperfect system and trying to change it.

i'm not saying it is impossible to privatize either, just that throwing "sell em off" into the discussion isn't helpful unless issues like TUPE, letters of comfort, where the demarcations would be between CIE and the private entity are addressed rather than wished away as some do.

davidlacey · 19-09-2013 6:38pm

On the 18.25 bray to howth service which was being split into a four car set at bray station as it always does and when they were uncoupling we were told to leave the train and go over the bridge to platform two as the dart had encountered a technical fault, and the dart which was swiftly provided was a 2 car set which as always stopped at the very top of the platform which made the walk that little longer. When we departed the driver announced that he apologised for the two carriage set it was all they had available. Needless to say the train is packed!

TheBandicoot · 19-09-2013 6:41pm

There are signs up in Pearse know that set out the exact times the 2-car trains are meant to be in service(and thus how IE defines peak and off peak). Off peak is 0950->1540 and 1840->last service.

Personally I think 1840 is much too early to start using 2 car sets.

davidlacey · 19-09-2013 6:43pm

TheBandicoot wrote: »

There are signs up in Pearse know that set out the exact times the 2-car trains are meant to be in service(and thus how IE defines peak and off peak). Off peak is 0900->1540 and 1840->last service.

Personally I think 1840 is much too early to start using 2 car sets.

Those signs are located at most dart stations i have been to and i agree 18.40 is too early as not everyone gets out of work between 4-6

Frank Lee Midere · 19-09-2013 7:44pm

davidlacey wrote: »

Those signs are located at most dart stations i have been to and i agree 18.40 is too early as not everyone gets out of work between 4-6

It's ludicrous. Pearse is a zoo around 6:40. They should keep 4 carriages until 7:30 or later.

josip · 19-09-2013 11:06pm

The last Dart is also usually quite busy and could probably remain as a 4 carriage.

cython · 20-09-2013 8:41am

TheBandicoot wrote: »

There are signs up in Pearse know that set out the exact times the 2-car trains are meant to be in service(and thus how IE defines peak and off peak). Off peak is 0950->1540 and 1840->last service.

Personally I think 1840 is much too early to start using 2 car sets.

Definitely too early, especially since they define via other means (e.g. twitter) that peak time is 5-7pm in the evenings, which 18.40 is obviously within! On the flip side of that the same statements say that morning peak is up to 9am. Now the fact that they extend this to 09:50 may be because sets that start their run at 9:00 may still be in service or something, but there's no excuse for the swing at the other end of the day.

TheBandicoot · 20-09-2013 1:50pm

I've seen nothing but 4 and 6 car sets today in the last hour or so, what's going on?

PRAF · 20-09-2013 5:02pm

TheBandicoot wrote: »

I've seen nothing but 4 and 6 car sets today in the last hour or so, what's going on?

Is it not obvious? This 'energy saving' initiative is really just about causing maximum disruption to customers in the hope that the general public will demand that CIE be better funded

It's a ballsy move by CIE but one that I think is doomed to failure. They'll end up losing more customers if they continue this stupid course of action

Ultimately, this is about ridiculously bad management

Jonathan · 20-09-2013 5:53pm

PRAF wrote: »

Is it not obvious? This 'energy saving' initiative is really just about causing maximum disruption to customers in the hope that the general public will demand that CIE be better funded

Meanwhile 201 class locomotives are left idling at Connolly on a daily basis..

LEIN · 20-09-2013 5:56pm

I heard a staff member in Greystones say that there is something in the RDS all week so they are running longer DARTs all day all this week.

Captain Chaos · 20-09-2013 6:22pm

Jonathan wrote: »

Meanwhile 201 class locomotives are left idling at Connolly on a daily basis..

They are actually shunt down now. 227 was at the shed last Monday and Tuesday shutdown and 233 was there all of today again shut down.

Jonathan · 20-09-2013 6:25pm

Captain Chaos wrote: »

They are actually shunt down now. 227 was at the shed last Monday and Tuesday shutdown and 233 was there all of today again shut down.

Maybe you're right. I could have sworn I saw heat haze from the 233's exhaust as I was passing on the DART this evening.

dublinman1990 · 23-09-2013 10:52am

DD9090 wrote: »

I heard a staff member in Greystones say that there is something in the RDS all week so they are running longer DARTs all day all this week.

Oh; I should have wished that source was correct because unfortunately for us that news did not filter through this morning.

I boarded a two carriage DART at 9:50am going towards Howth while boarding it at Seapoint. The rest of the DART's on the opposite side were six carriages long though.

It just goes to show that IE are particularly bad when communicating behind the scenes when we don't hear about it.

LEIN · 23-09-2013 10:55am

dublinman1990 wrote: »

Oh; I should have wished that source was correct because unfortunately for us that news did not filter through this morning.

I boarded a two carriage DART at 9:50am going towards Howth while boarding it at Seapoint. The rest of the DART's on the opposite side were six carriages long though.

It just goes to show that IE are particularly bad when communicating behind the scenes when we don't hear about it.

That info was for last week. I should have been more clear, apologies.

LXFlyer · 23-09-2013 11:51am

DD9090 wrote: »

That info was for last week. I should have been more clear, apologies.

I think you were perfectly clear!!

N64 · 23-09-2013 7:01pm

Anybody else notice that even with 8 long DART carriages, the RTI boards say that it is a "two carriage service" ? :rolleyes:

bikeman1 · 23-09-2013 9:52pm

Im on an 8 car DART southbound at the moment. I have seen two other 6 car sets on my travels and 1 four car, all heading north.

I know there were celebrations in Merrion Square for the Dublin Team, and it takes a while to get sets back in place, but it looks ridiculous having such capacity with noone around.

Its good to know who IE are happy to look after. Their regular bread and butter commuter at 1900? No we'll cram them onto two cars. However we can't manage to cut down off peak sets after an event has finished.

One day it seems vital that trains are as short as possible as soon as possible, while others they don't care about 6/8 rolling around off peak.

This short formation of trains is so poorly managed.

LXFlyer · 23-09-2013 11:38pm

bikeman1 wrote: »

Im on an 8 car DART southbound at the moment. I have seen two other 6 car sets on my travels and 1 four car, all heading north.

I know there were celebrations in Merrion Square for the Dublin Team, and it takes a while to get sets back in place, but it looks ridiculous having such capacity with noone around.

Its good to know who IE are happy to look after. Their regular bread and butter commuter at 1900? No we'll cram them onto two cars. However we can't manage to cut down off peak sets after an event has finished.

One day it seems vital that trains are as short as possible as soon as possible, while others they don't care about 6/8 rolling around off peak.

This short formation of trains is so poorly managed.

There needs to be an element of realism here.

In order to operate the 2 car sets there is a complex number of set swaps at Connolly, Bray and Greystones, which presumably took some time to organise.

Are you seriously expecting that for every special event that they come up with alternative 2-car swapping schedules, given most events will have alternative starting and finishing times?

In situations like this it's just easier to leave the full length sets in service - frankly that is the most sensible option given that the finishing time would be rather flexible.

bikeman1 · 24-09-2013 9:39am

Whilst I understand that it takes time to swap trains in and out. I saw 6 DART sets late last night (all coming from Bray, where they can swap them) and not one was a two car.

Yet it seems of utmost importance that they run a 2 car at 1900 when a lot of people are still coming home from their days work. Surely 5 x 6 cars + 1 × 8 and probably more running around for 3 hours after the event with NOBODY on them is a waste of resources. Yet they still run 2 cars just outside the peak and people can't get on them?

A sensible approach is to plan effectively for the demands and yes run trains to the appropriate length to coincide with the finishing time of an event. They do this at the Aviva quite effectively. There are fleet controllers getting paid good money, they should work out ways to chop and change the fleet in an effective manner.

A Dart set should be able to pull into Clontarf Rd. heading south, drop off the last 2/4/6 proceed on in a matter of 3 mins and the dropped off portion gets shunted into the adjacent new sidings. It is done with ease on countless other systems in the world, why not here?

LXFlyer · 24-09-2013 10:25am

bikeman1 wrote: »

Whilst I understand that it takes time to swap trains in and out. I saw 6 DART sets late last night (all coming from Bray, where they can swap them) and not one was a two car.

Yet it seems of utmost importance that they run a 2 car at 1900 when a lot of people are still coming home from their days work. Surely 5 x 6 cars + 1 × 8 and probably more running around for 3 hours after the event with NOBODY on them is a waste of resources. Yet they still run 2 cars just outside the peak and people can't get on them?

A sensible approach is to plan effectively for the demands and yes run trains to the appropriate length to coincide with the finishing time of an event. They do this at the Aviva quite effectively. There are fleet controllers getting paid good money, they should work out ways to chop and change the fleet in an effective manner.

A Dart set should be able to pull into Clontarf Rd. heading south, drop off the last 2/4/6 proceed on in a matter of 3 mins and the dropped off portion gets shunted into the adjacent new sidings. It is done with ease on countless other systems in the world, why not here?

I'm not disagreeing with you with regard to the 2pce sets at 19:00 - I do think that's too early. But I think you're being a little bit unrealistic with regard to this sort of situation.

Given that the event lasted several hours with a relatively open ending, and people might return home over a longer period afterwards, then I think the right decision is to just leave the sets out.

Organising drivers and sets to split up when you're dealing with a movable feast is not realistic - as with events at Lansdowne Road they just leave all of the full length sets out.

There's an element of you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't about this.

josip · 24-09-2013 11:01am

I've no knowledge of how to run a railway apart from a Thomas the Tank set at home. Would the new combinations of Darts require additional flexibility from the drivers in order to maximise the savings?

I'm asking this because I used to know a few train drivers a few years ago and their work practices were a bit unusual. They were originally employed at Drumcondra or close by, but then at some stage their work switched to Heuston. Years later, they continued to clock in at Drumcondra and would make their way to Heuston where they would start work an hour after clocking in. Same procedure in reverse in the evenings. Is that kind of practice still common or did the Croke Park agreement improve things? If not, I would imagine that drivers work practices have to be factored in when reconfiguring sets. Not an easy job.

LXFlyer · 24-09-2013 12:15pm

I think you're mixing Drumcondra up with Pearse - it was Dublin/Galway drivers that clocked in at Pearse and then went to Heuston to pick up their train. This went back to the days when Galway trains operated from Connolly.

Thankfully that sort of nonsense is long gone.

The drivers are based in Fairview and Bray so no new flexibility needed other than revised rosters.

In saying that, that's part of the reason for my argument in the post above regarding special events. The drivers doing the set swaps probably finish around 7.30 or so. Keeping them later would probably require overtime which may negate any cost savings from doing switching later.

PRAF · 24-09-2013 1:25pm

lxflyer wrote: »

I think you're mixing Drumcondra up with Pearse - it was Dublin/Galway drivers that clocked in at Pearse and then went to Heuston to pick up their train. This went back to the days when Galway trains operated from Connolly.

Thankfully that sort of nonsense is long gone.

The drivers are based in Fairview and Bray so no new flexibility needed other than revised rosters.

In saying that, that's part of the reason for my argument in the post above regarding special events. The drivers doing the set swaps probably finish around 7.30 or so. Keeping them later would probably require overtime which may negate any cost savings from doing switching later.

Is that the reason why they stop the DARTs between Connolly and Clontarf? I've always thought that it was ludicrous to inconvenience hundreds of passengers and delay an important service just to swap drivers or whatever the hell they do. Why can't the drivers get on or off at either Connolly or Clontarf? I'm not sure that all of the nonsense is long gone, there is still plenty of nonsense left

PRAF · 24-09-2013 1:32pm

bikeman1 wrote: »

Whilst I understand that it takes time to swap trains in and out. I saw 6 DART sets late last night (all coming from Bray, where they can swap them) and not one was a two car.

Yet it seems of utmost importance that they run a 2 car at 1900 when a lot of people are still coming home from their days work. Surely 5 x 6 cars + 1 × 8 and probably more running around for 3 hours after the event with NOBODY on them is a waste of resources. Yet they still run 2 cars just outside the peak and people can't get on them?

A sensible approach is to plan effectively for the demands and yes run trains to the appropriate length to coincide with the finishing time of an event. They do this at the Aviva quite effectively. There are fleet controllers getting paid good money, they should work out ways to chop and change the fleet in an effective manner.

A Dart set should be able to pull into Clontarf Rd. heading south, drop off the last 2/4/6 proceed on in a matter of 3 mins and the dropped off portion gets shunted into the adjacent new sidings. It is done with ease on countless other systems in the world, why not here?

It strikes me that there is a hell of a lot of time and effort required to chop and change the fleet to suit customer demand. You need people to forecast demand, plan the schedule, match capacity to demand, shunt the trains, etc, etc.

In addition, there are significant risks in terms of delays to services as people try to cram onto trains, the possibility of loyal customers getting annoyed and switching to the car or bus, reputational damage, possibly even health & safety issues due to over crowding on trains.

I wonder have Irish Rail factored any of this into their planned cost savings of €3m. I suspect they have not. Seems like an awful lot of effort and quite a bit of risk just to save <1% of total operating costs.

LXFlyer · 24-09-2013 3:13pm

PRAF wrote: »

Is that the reason why they stop the DARTs between Connolly and Clontarf? I've always thought that it was ludicrous to inconvenience hundreds of passengers and delay an important service just to swap drivers or whatever the hell they do. Why can't the drivers get on or off at either Connolly or Clontarf? I'm not sure that all of the nonsense is long gone, there is still plenty of nonsense left

To be honest I'd forgotten about that - that's about the only example left.

TheBandicoot · 24-09-2013 3:46pm

Is there not some weird practice around Portlaoise? Since there is a railcar depot which needs drivers, the per way depot which will need drivers to shunt, and the station itself is a point where drivers on the Cork line change over, as well as a terminus for the commuter service.

bikeman1 · 02-10-2013 9:02pm

Some interesting observations this week and today while travelling about.

With the onset of wheel slip season, the 2 car DARTs really struggle along and drivers are wary to build up any speed. A huge number of 2 car LHB sets have developed "wheel flats" and are making some very bad rattles.

With a 2 car the set has a tendency to slip and slide a lot more than say with a 4/6/8 car, which is causing this increase in wheel flats above and beyond the normal levels at this time of year.

DART are really going all out on this. I had a chance to travel during the day this week (11am) and every set was a 2 car LHB set. Today just outside the peak at 10am I noted one 4 car LHB set. They are literally swapping everything out!

Again at night, ALL two car sets. I thought there would be a good few 4 car 8600/8620 out and about for the day / night, but no.

The off peak trains are carrying the passengers, albeit very cramped just before/after IE's peak hours. One or two services could be tweaked a bit better. I have to say the DART off peak, feels a lot safer as there are people all around you!

Finally, the big question is, will all this effort add up to real savings? In my opinion, the amount of electricity being drawn by DART has been significantly reduced by this measure. The biggest hi-cup for the company will be missing out on a big-ish event and passengers getting left behind.

highdef · 03-10-2013 12:52am

I thought that during the refurbs, the original DARTs were fitted with traction control and ABS......both car terms but the same terminology would apply for trains. Would these systems not stop the possibility of wheel flats, ABS in particular?

Ernest · 03-10-2013 7:57am

Yesterday the two carriage DART trains were still stopping at the old position at the top of the platform furthest from the exit at Tara Street southbound and Pearse northbound.

josip · 03-10-2013 10:08am

Ernest wrote: »

Yesterday the two carriage DART trains were still stopping at the old position at the top of the platform furthest from the exit at Tara Street southbound and Pearse northbound.

Is that so they can use the mirrors at the front of the station to see that its ok to close doors?

Heisenberg1 · 03-10-2013 10:25am

bikeman1 wrote: »

Some interesting observations this week and today while travelling about.

With the onset of wheel slip season, the 2 car DARTs really struggle along and drivers are wary to build up any speed. A huge number of 2 car LHB sets have developed "wheel flats" and are making some very bad rattles.

With a 2 car the set has a tendency to slip and slide a lot more than say with a 4/6/8 car, which is causing this increase in wheel flats above and beyond the normal levels at this time of year.

DART are really going all out on this. I had a chance to travel during the day this week (11am) and every set was a 2 car LHB set. Today just outside the peak at 10am I noted one 4 car LHB set. They are literally swapping everything out!

Again at night, ALL two car sets. I thought there would be a good few 4 car 8600/8620 out and about for the day / night, but no.

The off peak trains are carrying the passengers, albeit very cramped just before/after IE's peak hours. One or two services could be tweaked a bit better. I have to say the DART off peak, feels a lot safer as there are people all around you!

Finally, the big question is, will all this effort add up to real savings? In my opinion, the amount of electricity being drawn by DART has been significantly reduced by this measure. The biggest hi-cup for the company will be missing out on a big-ish event and passengers getting left behind.

IE say that they will save 3.2 million PY with the changes to DART and

the ICR Fleet. Any events on in the city center no splits have taken

place.

DART capacity reconfiguration

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