DART woes

HomunQlus

I don't know if anyone has brought this up yet, however, there's something which I really don't like.

For over four years I have been living here in Dublin, and most of the time I could get to work with Dublin Bus, which wasn't a problem, because my route wasn't going through heavy traffic in the morning.

Now I switched jobs, I am working in Belfield, but I am living in Littlepace, Clonee. As you can imagine this is quite some way to go. I don't consider moving because I don't wanna move, I'd have too much stuff to carry around.

Now, there are different shifts at my new job. To avoid all the heavy traffic in the city centre in the morning, I have no choice as to take the DART / Commuter into town.

The thing itself works pretty well for most of the time, I'm here on time, fares are pretty fair.

But:
They said they've doubled the capacity of the trains, so they could take twice as much people. I can't confirm that, as every morning when I have to take the train, it's FULL of people, sometimes you can't even move!!! ARGH!!! It's not that bad in the evening, I get a window seat.

I do understand that everyone needs to get to work. But I don't understand is why Irish Rail does not let the trains come more frequently so there's no Kernel Panic inside these trains. I don't like it if I'm standing on some spot in a vehicle or train, unable to move.

Can something be done about this?

MarkoP11

The current 8 coach trains southbound in the morning are (not 100% sure of northbound services yet)
8:00 Howth Bray
8:25 Malahide Bray
8:29 Howth Bray

There are 5 8 coach sets currently out, there won't be enough rolling stock available till late next year for full 8 coach operation but there will be a piece by piece increase. Its not so long ago there where 4 coach trains in the rush hour, October 2004

The system has reached bursting point and government withdrew funding for the city centre signaling upgrade 5 years ago which mean't no extra trains, the money is back having been reannounced several times. It will be 2009 now

There simply ain't enough space on the system, the remaining gaps are being plugged in December problem is the demand outstrips supply. There should be 3 extra morning services from Maynooth to Connolly one extra from Drogheda to Connolly and 2 extra evening services again from Connolly to Maynooth

In reailty you will have to wait till 2015 for a major improvement since the government put the interconnector tunnel way down the list despite it carrying more people than any other single project

Its easy blame IE and to some extent sh**e timetabling doesn't help the investment has not been forthcoming and what little there has been has come too late

daymobrew

HomunQlus wrote:

But:
They said they've doubled the capacity of the trains, so they could take twice as much people. I can't confirm that, as every morning when I have to take the train, it's FULL of people, sometimes you can't even move!!! ARGH!!! It's not that bad in the evening, I get a window seat.

You get a seat on the way home! - I've never gotten a seat, even on the 18:08 from Pearse to Maynooth. I'm not into the pushing that others are.

I've stopped getting the 7:54 from Coolmine because it is so bad (even trains suffer when kids go back to school). The 7:19 was a better but it's too early for me. I now work at home for an hour (8-9) and get the 9:20 - much better, though still no seats.

A new timetable will be introduced early next month. When I contacted Irish Rail early last month I was told:

We will be providing some additional services on the Maynooth line from timetable change in December. These services will be timed to best suit the maximum number of people along the line. We are currently working through the detail on this and I will be in a position to let you know the exact timings of these additional services in a few weeks if that is of help.

I haven't been told the exact timings, despite asking.

Aside: Twice (via online form I had to ask about additional - ignored the first time but got a quick response when I said I'd complain to Mr Richard Fearn (Acting CEO)

cullenswood

MarkoP11 wrote:

There simply ain't enough space on the system, the remaining gaps are being plugged in December problem is the demand outstrips supply. There should be 3 extra morning services from Maynooth to Connolly one extra from Drogheda to Connolly and 2 extra evening services again from Connolly to Maynooth

Do you know if any of these are going as far as Enfield?

MarkoP11

Not to my knowledge but there will be 5 Sligo services per day and changes to the Longford services so you never know.

Despite this needs of customer line IE have the trains are most likely to sit in the gaps that exist. Extra trains look like 7:15, 7:48 and 8:30 from Maynooth there are two possibles from Drogheda don't know which. It all depends if IE had the guts to ditch the current historically based timetable in favour of a clockface one heaps more trains could run IE just don't have any extra trains to run any more trains

dowlingm

HomunQlus

Writing to your local TDs (and councillors) and joining Platform 11 are two things that might help. IE can't provide more service without funding - they are prisoners of government (i.e. TDs). T21 is out there but I doubt it's cast in stone - look at the WRC people already looking for their project to be expedited.