DART+ (DART Expansion)

LXFlyer wrote: »

I would suspect that the station in Cabra won’t be beside the Green Line - The most suitable location would be between Cabra Road and Faussagh Avenue where there is development planned as well.

The tunnels over and the tight curvature of the railway line closer to the Green Line mean that area is unlikely to be suitable for a station.

The cabra station was proposed for the space between Fassaugh rd and Cabra rd, which would mena a 600m walk to Cabra luas, not ideal but hey.

A new interchange station at the back of the beans factory could also be possible with some CPO

MJohnston wrote: »

I'd also like to pipe up for my previous idea of a Dublin Zoo station just after the tunnel ends.

A station somewhere between the tunnel portal and Blackhorse Ave. would be a great asset, there's even an existing bridge connecting the army barracks to Marlborough mews and plans to demolish the blackhorse industrial estate and build multi storey apartment blocks. For this to work well we'd have to get cleaver with pedestrian links. Gardaí HQ might have to loose some parking for park access.

MJohnston wrote: »

I'd also like to pipe up for my previous idea of a Dublin Zoo station just after the tunnel ends.

cgcsb wrote: »

A station somewhere between the tunnel portal and Blackhorse Ave. would be a great asset, there's even an existing bridge connecting the army barracks to Marlborough mews and plans to demolish the blackhorse industrial estate and build multi storey apartment blocks. For this to work well we'd have to get cleaver with pedestrian links.

You face the same issues as the Batchelors location - it would be on a tight curve.

Even if you could fit a station there, it would be very close to Cabra and Heuston West, if not too close. It’s a railway not a tram line.

Pedestrian access from Heuston West would provide access to the Zoo, I don't think it warrant's it's own station (I've now got U2's "Zoo Station" stuck in my head)

LXFlyer wrote: »

You face the same issues as the Batchelors location - it would be on a tight curve.

Even if you could fit a station there, it would be very close to Cabra and Heuston West, if not too close. It’s a railway not a tram line.

I'd be happy with just a Heuston West station on platform 10 and 11, this can be connected to the park by new ped bridge even. Plus a station at Cabra and that's grand. The track at Blackhorse ave is perfectly straight.

p_haugh wrote: »

On the topic of curves, platform 10 at heuston is already on a curve so I'd say they wouldn't be that keen to add in a platform 11 too.

It’s a much gentler curve than would be at either of the other locations that I excluded above.

Line of sight for drivers would still be possible and gaps minimised.

loyatemu wrote: »

it's an urban/suburban line, there are stations on the existing Dart that are only 1km apart where it goes through the city and inner suburbs.

The DART doesn't deviate though. If you were going from Cabra to O'Connell St, you'd be better off getting the Luas or a bus rather than hopping on a train which goes North, before heading East and stopping twice more before it finally turns South to the area you want to go. Encouraging this kind of use detracts from the service vital to getting lots of people from the West into the City quickly.

LXFlyer wrote: »

I don’t think anyone is saying no station in Cabra.

But I would think that two stations between Heuston West and Glasnevin would be overkill.

One really is sufficient, as originally planned, located between Cabra Road and Faussagh Avenue.

Every station adds two minutes to journey times and I don’t see anymore than those three actually happening, not least due to the location issues.

Inchicore?

loyatemu wrote: »

Inchicore?

That’s going the other way from Heuston.

Kylemore Road I would see as a certainty.

But along the “Gullet” would be next to impossible given it is to be expanded to four tracks. There really isn’t the space.

Possibly just west of Sarsfield Road on Inchicore Works land?

LXFlyer wrote: »

I don’t think there’s enough space there for a station, and I also think that it would be highly unlikely to be served by Heuston terminators - you’re only going to fit a two platform station in that area.

I understood it that it would be further east with access through Clancy Quay.

But again, no detail has been published for any of this.

We need to see concrete plans first!

Very crude measurement on Google maps suggests that the space between the road and the boundary of the buildings to the south, before the Chapelizod Bypass/SCR junctionis not much less than the width of Parkwest Station including platforms. Major works will be needed there anyway to get four tracks under SCR .

Obviously more detailed design work would be needed but I'd say a station could work there, even if it just has two platforms for DARTs and other services bypass the station.

I don't see little benefit in having a station at Platform 10, it has very little commuter potential and if the point is to access Heuston, interchange with a train going to the main station does that without the long walk.

I fail to see any benefit to having a station at Inchore, Gullet. Even Kylemore Road has little potential but will probally happen. The denisy is not there nor do I think the dmeand. Where are the people going to come from?

Quad tracking the Gullet, is some task and rumour is it was looked at before and the advise was not to do it. We shall see if it fully happens this time round.

Jamie2k9 wrote: »

I fail to see any benefit to having a station at Inchore, Gullet. Even Kylemore Road has little potential but will probally happen. The denisy is not there nor do I think the dmeand. Where are the people going to come from?

The benefit is to serve additional neighbourhoods with infrastructure that's already there. Dublin Airport is a major trip generator and source of employment, for example. Such a stop would allow people to interchange at Drumcondra or Glasnevin when Metrolink is built. Similarly it would allow students to get to DCU and workers get to Grand Canal. All of these journeys could be done while avoiding the city centre. It could even facilitate trips to Maynooth University if the NTA ever get their finger out and offer bus connections from Hazelhatch and Celbridge. And it's not just about serving existing residents in these neighbourhoods, it would facilitate further development in the area by making Inchicore a more attractive place to live. Because, even though Inchicore is reasonably well served to the city centre and Tallaght, it's actually not well connected to anywhere else.

Jamie2k9 wrote: »

There is nothing around Inchicore/Gullet to even make a station viable, its in the wrong area and within 10 minutes there is almost nothing apart form parks/railway works/N4. DART Underground proposeld a station but in the right part of Inchicore.

The area around the proposed Kylemore station is ideal for major residential-led redevelopment with a new town centre. The area between the train line and the canal is either poor quality light Industrial units or underutilised space. The canal and its cycleway would be a nice amenity for it.

Several redevelopments are already planned on Industrial plots south of the canal beside the Red Line, over 1,000 units at Royal Liver and probably the same again on other sites. DART service along there will have major capacity given it will be segregated from other services, far more than the Red Line which is already at or near capacity without extra developments.

Such lack of imagination is to be expected from random members of the public but unfortunately it is often matched by official Ireland.

I would agree its the only "viable" option between Park West and P10.

P10 is not a viable station location, what would be the point of it?

gjim wrote: »

I've always found this idea of a curve from Heuston into the PPT quite appealing.

If you started the curve across the river - probably over a new bridge - it looks like you could connect to platforms 7/8 without significantly more curvature than the curve into the tunnel from the west. The only stuff in the way are a few old sheds and some surface car parking.

You could then have Kildare DARTs (or maybe half of them) include a Heuston stop. It would mean the driver switching cabs but I've used a few s-bahn type services in Europe which included terminal station stops like this. It's not ideal of course - the stop lasts a few minutes longer than at a through platform.

It shouldn't cost more - probably less (?) - than building a station to the west and would provide a better interchange opportunities with Kildare DART, Intercity train, DB and Luas all in one place.

The new national signalling centre is being built right in the middle of where any such curve would exist, so it isn’t a runner.

I don’t want to rain in your parade, but you would singlehandedly destroy the usefulness of the PPT service by serving the main station at Heuston en route. Journey times would be totally uncompetitive.

Far better to have a mix of PPT and separate Heuston terminating services from the west.

There’s a need for both.

Heuston terminators facilitate anyone travelling to points west of O’Connell Bridge (OCB) and will still be needed.

PPT services cover the north inner city and points east and south of OCB.

Kildare Line DART services can connect with Portlaoise commuters at Hazelhatch which would then feed into Waterford Intercity services at Kildare, Galway/Mayo services at Portarlington and Cork at Portlaoise, with those stations being the first stop on those Intercity services out of Heuston.

ncounties wrote: »

As I think about DART+ in the absence of U-DART, it just feels like it will cause more problems than benefits. More services to Hazelhatch, Maynooth and M3 Parkway getting funnelled into Connolly/Pearse, or to the non-destination "The Docklands" Station. We need Spencer Dock station, and U-DART delivered or the benefits of DART+ will not be realised.

I actually think that's IE's plan . Make the case for DU by showing how D+ is being hamstrung

gjim wrote: »

The advantage of having an interchange in Heuston is that you get integration with Luas, DB and IC trains for free. This is the only reason that I find the idea interesting. A new station to the west would offer no such integration - maybe with some DB routes would be possible but not with intercity trains or Luas.

That can be achieved by changing to a Heuston terminating service further out. That is partly why the Heuston West station on the mainline before the split to PPT is such a good idea, people on DART could jump onto a commuter train and be in Heuston in a few minutes and then get Luas/DB as required. The commuter services wouldn't have to stop at any other stations between HH and Heuston West and they would be slowing down on approach to Heuston anyway so it wouldn't add much time but gives that connectivity.

loyatemu wrote: »

Moving Docklands closer to the river is part of Dart+ AFAIK.

Where is there space closer the quays in the docklands for a station though?

gjim wrote: »

Sure I accept it's not going to happen but I'm curious why it's never been considered.

I accept that it cannot happen if/when they build the signalling centre where they intend but that's not a reason that such a curve has never been proposed.

I think you (apologies if I'm misattributing) stated that it would be impossible because of the required curvature but the curvature doesn't look much worse than that of the curve into the tunnel coming from the Kildare direction.

The driver switch adds 2 minutes to the stop time (looking at the timetable of an S-Bahn service that does this manoeuvre that I've used a few times) so it seems a little bit hysterical to say it would "destroy the service" - or make it totally uncompetitive (uncompetitive with what?)

The reason given by Pete_Cavan - that it would cost a lot more than I am envisaging - seems like a more plausible reason for not doing it.

To be honest, my suspicion is that for the last 20 or 30 years IE has been reluctant to even use the PPT never mind use it to offer a connecting service from Heuston to Connolly or the Docklands as any improvements in this area are seem to undermine their case for the inter-connector.

I agree - but I think I suggested the same - that there would be a mix of Kildare services - some calling at Hueston and some skipping it.

I never referred to curvature with regard to serving Heuston at all - I just don’t see any point to a through service calling at Heuston main station.

As for my comments being “hysterical” regarding routing the train through Heuston, I would prefer to think that perhaps my comment was based on a long and detailed understanding of the operating and scheduling practices involved.

Re-routing through Heuston would mean adding 3 minutes pathing time overall to cover the additional journey into and out of the station over existing journey times

There is no way an eight car DART would be scheduled to turn in 2 minutes, whatever you saw with an S-Bahn. German practices and rules differ from those in Ireland.

From a discussion that I had some time back at a “meet the manager” session, the minimum schedule turnaround time on the Irish Network for a train is 3 minutes, but realistically for an eight car suburban operation it is more likely to be 4 minutes to allow the driver pack up and walk the length of the train and set up again and perform a brake test.

That’s a total of 7 minutes minimum added to the journey time for anyone travelling from north and east of Heuston to points west of Heuston and vice versa.

That would make the service uncompetitive for those passengers.

It would also result in uneven headways between DARTs as the following DART which wasn’t serving Heuston would now be 3 minutes behind it at Islandbridge Junction (assuming a 10 minute base frequency).

As for interchange, anyone who wants to interchange with Red Line LUAS and DB from the west can still use direct Heuston services.

Anyone coming from Connolly can interchange with longer distance commuter services at Hazelhatch, and use those trains to connect with Intercity services at Kildare, Portarlington and Portlaoise for Waterford, Galway and the southwest respectively if those services schedules are recast to feed out of the commuter.

There is also nothing to stop there being an hourly path for a long distance commuter starting from Grand Canal Dock/Connolly and using the PPT line.

I’m not sure how many people would need to interchange from the line from Connolly to LUAS/DB that can’t already do so by using one of the radial bus routes planned under BusConnects, Metrolink or at Connolly already.

That’s why I don’t think it is a good idea.

LXFlyer wrote: »

It is to be moved to be adjacent to Spencer Dock LUAS stop.

That's not really closer to anything except the luas in fairness. I wonder which would cost more, moving the station or re-routing the luas on a small detour

AngryLips wrote: »

That's not really closer to anything except the luas in fairness. I wonder which would cost more, moving the station or re-routing the luas on a small detour

Another bridge is planned to cross the Liffey near the new station.

Re-routing the LUAS would be daft.