DART capacity reconfiguration

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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