Timing of Malahide DARTs - Nonsensical

ixoy

Living out in Portmarnock, I've noticed a real oddity with regards to the scheduling of the Malahide DART trains, particularly noticeable at weekends - DARTs to Malahide leaving four minutes after the diesel trains to Dundalk. Then, after that, no more DARTs for often an hour essentially making it that the only trains that will stop at Portmarnock/Malahide leave within four minutes of each other and then it can be about a 50 minute wait.

Now wouldn't it be eminently more sensible to have the Malahide branching DART leave about 30 minutes after the Northern Line train, thus giving commuters a much better distribution of train times?

I can't fathom their reasons for doing this - the Howth branch isn't busy, because it only has DARTs anyway and there isn't enough traffic (it appears) on the Dublin/Belfast line to require an absence of DARTs. So why on earth do Irish Rail manage it this way? Other than the desire to think of typical incompetence, I'm stumped.

John R

The problem with Malahide is that there is nowhere for the DARTs to wait out of the way of the two running lines.

This may not be the reason for the lousy timing but it certainly makes timetabling the mix of fast, semi-fast and slow trains on the line even more difficult.

The best approach would of course be a third line through the station so that the DARTs could have their own platform to wait in while leaving the main lines free. Failing that a reversing siding immediately north of the station would allow them get out of the way quickly and stay there until close to departure.

In general though the DART timetable is now a mess, the headways are not consistent on any section with short gaps of less than 10mns followed by 20 min gaps throughout the timetable. The entire Dublin suburban timetable needs to be recast from scratch with an emphasis on consistency, clockface departures for all services and a minimisation of conflicts wherever possible.

A good timetable could give a better spread of services with better reliability.

KC61

John R wrote:

The entire Dublin suburban timetable needs to be recast from scratch with an emphasis on consistency, clockface departures for all services and a minimisation of conflicts wherever possible.

A good timetable could give a better spread of services with better reliability.

I understand that this is exactly what is planned once the city centre resignalling project is completed.

pinkypinky

There is a old siding along the left side on the approach to the station coming from the city centre. This could be elongated and modernised to accommodate a waiting train. But I'm sure Iarnroad Eireann have a very good reason for not doing this.:rolleyes: A siding at the other end woudn't work because it's a bridge over the Broadmeadow estuary.

MarkoP11

This whole problem goes back to the Michael Lowry FG election stunt in Greystones in May 1997. Politicians don't care about the mess they create when they force decisions which are not in the best interest of the traveling public

So if Greystones got the DART well Malahide had to as well, in a sane world there would have been no DART to Greystones and the funds would have been used to bring the DART the whole way to Skerries, so the problem wouldn't exist.

The quarry siding In Malahide is used by at least 2 DART services per day, however since it requires the train to reverse out to access it, it just delays an approaching train. There is a project costed at 40 million to solve the problem, no one knows how but there is money

A lot of the problem is down to horrifically poor timetabling which could be fixed if Irish Rail bothered, another thing is its impossible to run a shuttle service on the Howth branch, thats the root cause of a lot of issues, solve that and timetabling becomes quite trivial to fix

Rashers72

If the DART is extended to Balbriggan, will the problems not continue? As far as I know there is no siding north of Balbriggan station, or south of the station (Viaduct). So the DARTs must sit and wait on the mainline.
There is a siding north of Skerries (southbound), within walking distance (long walk!) of the station. There is also plenty of land west of the station to build a siding northbound.
Although it's been mentioned before, I think IE should build a passing loop from south of Balbriggan, around Skerries to before Rush + Lusk. That would provide some relief to the Belfast and Drogheda services, once the DART is extended. While presently suburban+Belfast passengers sit behind southbound DARTs from Malahide to Connolly if they miss their slot, if they have to sit behind a DART stopping at all stations from Balbriggan to Connolly I'd say there will be negative feedback!

Cormster

As fellow inhabitant of Portmarnock, I agree that the timing of the DARTs via Portmarnock is less than brilliant. I think there was an overall lack of planning or thought displayed in relation to that particular branch of the the DART e.g. the reduction in width of bridge at Portmarnock, the poor parking facilities at Portmarnock, and the non-existence of any feeder bus directly to the Portmarnock stations (i am aware of the 102 bus but this leaves you short of the station- it could better server people by dropping them at the station and operating earlier in the morning).

Victor

I suspect that we will see revised Intercity times before we see revised DART times.

Cormster wrote:

As fellow inhabitant of Portmarnock, I agree that the timing of the DARTs via Portmarnock is less than brilliant. I think there was an overall lack of planning or thought displayed in relation to that particular branch of the the DART e.g. the reduction in width of bridge at Portmarnock, the poor parking facilities at Portmarnock, and the non-existence of any feeder bus directly to the Portmarnock stations (i am aware of the 102 bus but this leaves you short of the station- it could better server people by dropping them at the station and operating earlier in the morning).

Or indeed the 230.