Happy 22nd Birthday, DART

Ham'nd'egger

It was today in 1984 that the DART was officially inaugurated into service.

Hard to believe, eh?:)

DublinWriter

Thanks, I feel about a zillion now.

I remember our year head telling us not to go near the DART tracks back in 84 or we'd get electrocuted if we walked on them (the school was right beside the line).

Amazing how clean they've stayed, Dubs really are proud of them.

weehamster

And here we are today still with only 1 line.

And the worse bit is it will be over 30 years after the DART first opened, until we have a second line is open. :mad:

_Kaiser_

weehamster wrote:

And here we are today still with only 1 line.

And the worse bit is it will be over 30 years after the DART first opened, until we have a second line is open. :mad:

Kinda puts it in perspective alright Don't break out the birthday cake and champaigne just yet!

admiralofthefleet

no matter what people may say it is an excellent service. it may be overcrowded at times but just think where we would be without it. it has served dublin very well for 22 years and long may it continue

loyatemu

its the best public transport service in town, but that doesn't mean that it couldn't be better. Even compared to when it was opened, it is erratically scheduled and slow. Anyone got the original timetable?

Propellerhead

The service actually launched at the end of June 1984, today's date being the official anniversary. Garret FitzGerald made a speech at Connolly Station where he claimed that he would not have authorised the project if he had been in power at the time :mad: (1979 - five year gestationary period, after the Department of Finance robbed the EU funding and forced CIÉ to take loans out to build it).

Of course, this was when the dismal scientists of the Doheny and Nesbitt School of Economics were in the ascendancy, getting all excited over cut backs and impending mass unemployment.

Imagine the dung we would be in today if Dublin was permitted to be a wholly car and bus dependendent City and hinterland. That would have happened if quite a few commentators at the time had had their way - there was a serious proposal to replace the coastal railway with a motorway as the old diesel service track and rolling stock was life expired well before 1979.

Can any of you still remember the cannibalised railcars from the 1950's turned into push-pull sets? I can. Brown and cream interiors where the paint merged into the grime and graffitti and seating made from orange stacking chairs along the windows. Lovely.

OTK

Well the DART was certainly amazingly better than what went before. I remember the plastic stacking chairs around the windows. Like something from Kazakhstan. my memory of the DART timetable from the 1980s was that it had a 15 minute frequency with no exceptions but I could be wrong.

As it was such a success it's a pity that the government didn't try to follow it up by building more lines, at least acquiring the proerty to do so when it was cheap and building the lines when they had the money. Then again I guess the country was really broke back then. We did however find the cash to widen plenty of city streets to funnel more cars into the centre.

I'm no expert on trains but the DART seeems to have been surpassed by the Luas. The Luas got 20 million passengers in its first year, so much the same as the DART after 20 years. Its ticketing system is much better for passengers than the DART (I mean it wastes less of my time). I've got a smart card and I just need to go to a ticket machine every few weeks. Other than that no queueing to get on or off the train - perfect. It starts earlier and finishes later. It has a better and, crucially, a more predictable frequency (so it wastes less of my time). I know the DART was hobbled by having to share track with diesels, like the 3 trains a day from Rosslare trying to fit into 30 trains a day in Dublin.

I don't know if Irish Rail is humble enough to learn anything from the Luas.

PhilipFromBosco

OTK wrote:

As it was such a success it's a pity that the government didn't try to follow it up by building more lines, at least acquiring the proerty to do so when it was cheap and building the lines when they had the money. Then again I guess the country was really broke back then. We did however find the cash to widen plenty of city streets to funnel more cars into the centre.

It's cheaper for the government to acquire the property now than it was then (when I had that crappy job) in proportion to the amount of money the government had and the cost of borrowing then.

It's like housing, it's far more afordable now than it was in the 1980s and before. I know this is hard to believe for people who just look at it purely from the euro amount perspective (which I'm sure none of you are not)

OTK

Property inflation has averaged 15% in the past decade. GDP growth has not matched that and neither have wages.

Credit is cheaper, and thus there are many more property transactions now than 20 years ago so clearly there are more individuals who can afford houses than ever before.

To be fair, the government could not have predicted property inflation but they were given fair warning about oil dependence in the 70's.

DerekP11

When it began, DART was every 15 mins off peak and every 5 mins peak. It was every 20 mins on Sundays and Bank Holidays. Didn't really need a timetable. It was close to a "turn up and go" service. Increased services on the Northern line and Maynooth line, killed that frequency.

Happy Bertie

The year is 1984, a misty June morning with a gentle easterly breeze and I hear it as clearly as if it was yesterday, the sound of a rapidly accelerating train, a sound unlike any other that graced Dublin's coast line, which had trains of some sort or another for the 150 years prior. It was one of the sparks that ignited the flame that put Ireland where it is today. It is today as much a trademark of Dublin as the Liffey, or the ha' penny bridge. I speak no less of the Dublin Area Rapid Transit.

Congratulations DART on 22 years of successful service.

Happy Birthday from Happy Bertie.

MarkoP11

The offical date was 23rd July 1984 a Monday, 6:35am Pearse to Bray was the first commerical service. As far as the records show it was very low key. The weather was stunning the following weekend which led to huge passenger numbers.

Plently of demonstration runs before that but it wasn't until start July 1984 that the single manning of trains became possible and only on July 23rd did CIE sign the first 15 odd units onto the books

Back then rush hour wasn't even an hour it was only 30-45 minutes 5 minute frequencies only existed in the middle of the rush hour which was only 20 minutes really, the southside still has it in the morning and evening. 2 coach trains where the defacto standard after 6:30pm which is hard to believe and I remember the tip up seats standing didn't come until later

Unlike the Luas mess it was under budget and done in house with mostly Irish manufactured material by engineers in CIE with minimal consultants, it about only evidence that CIE could make it happen given the cash. Phase 2 to Tallaght and 3 to Blanchardstown was scrapped, Linke Hoffmann Busch walked away from a deal to build coaches in Inchicore which would have seen new intercity coaches and the DART coaches for phase 2 and 3 built in Dublin

And the biggest urban myth that the DART's reliability was down to its German construction is in fact false all the electrics came from the UK at the time totally untried technology a gamble which paid off after some shaky moments

OTK

MarkoP11 wrote:

Unlike the Luas mess it was under budget

Was the Luas over budget? My memory is that there was a low estimate in 1999 from CIE (sub 500m) then the tenders came in and the contract price was closer to 700m. Contingency of 10% plus some design changes at connolly arrived at a final price of 775m. Now, during the 1980s property prices were static but there must have been a doubling during the luas construction. So it seemed to me they did OK. Is this wrong?

MarkoP11

The redid the numbers on Luas 3 times during the project final budget numbers for luas €775 is the total allocation but €691 was the budgeted cost, a further €84 million was allocated for risk and contingency and all of it was used, that means they went over budget.The cost of Luas was quoted as €269 in 1996, that became €448 odd million in 2000 (think was linked up as well) only to reach €600+ million in 2001 increasing to €691 in 2002

You can blame inflation but those numbers are of the order of 15-10% pa and back then inflation was quite low

What is very telling is all the risk fund was used, not one penny was left and it was a year late

What is telling is IE claim to be 36 million under budget on a sum total of 1.3 billion euro set of projects. Offical figures quote DART as 3% under budget if you ignore the dodgy accounting by the DoF who effectively stole the EEC funds from CIE

Lesson is keep it simple, remain in control make reasonable engineering choices best on best practice and get your own people to make sure it happens relying on consultants and contractors for everything leads to a blame game not to mention more people on the hunt for 10% margin. Its a lesson for T21 simple solid contracts with supervision and accountabilty, fixed price no renegotiation if you find a underground river your problem not the taxpayer.

Victor

MarkoP11 wrote:

if you find a underground river your problem not the taxpayer.

Well the premium to buy out that risk adds another few hundred million.