DART stopping just outside bray EVERY DAY

commuterised

I get the Dart every day from Greystones to Grand Canal Dock and back again.
Every day on the way home, we leave Shankill station proceeding to Bray and sit just outside of Bray station for anything from 5-15 mins. Can anyone tell me why this is??? It is soo frustrating.

I take the train to get me home quicker, if I had wanted to sit in a stationery vehicle I would have driven to work. There is rarely any intercom message to apologise for the delay or even explain it. It is getting to the stage where I expect the train to stop and when one day it didn't, I got such a shock!

p.pete

I've been on loads of trains where this happens - much to my annoyance.
Commonly the reason is that they are waiting for other trains to clear from the tracks. If you are waiting to get into Bray then there could be a train sitting in the station waiting to depart on the same side of the tracks as your train. Do you notice a Dart going in the opposite direction around the same time that yours eventually gets moving again?

dmeehan

i always used to get stopped between booterstown and merrion gates

sligoliner

Irish Rail's self manufactured congestion.

You have to remember that the DART and the Belfast, Sligo and Rosslare trains cross each other's paths at Connolly. Irish Rail could do lots to solve this problem but they won't.

The main cause of congestion is the Rosslare train crossing the Liffey when it should terminate at Pearse and not free up the loop line:

http://www.platform11.org/capacity.html

Connolly is underutilised:

http://www.platform11.org/rushhour.html

At rush hours the Gorey Shuttle should no go any further north than Bray:

http://www.platform11.org/wex_shuttle.html

Implementing these simple operational changes that won't cost €5 billion would allow more DARTS to be used and reduced these bottlenecks.

Irish Rail management are not interested in change and the unions are too busy feeling opressed - especially then they are being brought home by taxi from Longford to Dublin everynight because their are no train drivers or guards living in Longford because of the nepotistic hiring policies demanded by the unions. We pay fares and taxes so 'junior' can have a job "on deh railway" when he is 18.


Oh and they allow property to built right up against their lines thus murdering the chance of extra tracks being put in:

http://www.platform11.org/property.html

loyatemu

At rush hours the Gorey Shuttle should no go any further north than Bray:

I don't agree with this - the Arklow train (it doesn't serve Gorey yet) already takes almost 2 hours to get into town - it would not be fair to force these commuters to change at Bray and delay them by another 20 minutes. There might be an argument for terminating it at Pearce though.

This service is due to be changed from ancient slam-door carriages to railcars with automatic doors later this year. This should enable it to run more efficiently as the guard won't have to go along the train closing all the doors at every station.