[PR] Phoenix Park Station opens Monday

Poxyshamrock

www.irishrail.ie

General News
New Phoenix Park Station opens Monday 21st January by Corporate Communications


The new Phoenix Park Station will open for commuters on Monday 21st January.

The station will be served by commuter trains on the Maynooth/Clonsilla to Dublin line.

Full timetable details are available at www.irishrail.ie

The station will serve the new Phoenix Park Racecourse development.

Victor

**cough** http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=54903469&postcount=151

But talk away.

Poxyshamrock

apologies victor

Trampas

Where do all the people go?

They must be putting them on the roof as no room in the carriages

Poxyshamrock

Trampas wrote: »

Where do all the people go?

They must be putting them on the roof as no room in the carriages

Hopefully extra stations mean extra trains in the near future.

KC61

Poxyshamrock wrote: »

Hopefully extra stations mean extra trains in the near future.

Not for the forseeable future. Some trains may however be extended to 8-car formations.

Slice

They can do it like they do it in Delhi and Calcutta

marmajam

Kolkota

eve

I was on an inbound that stopped at 8.22 this morning and I didn't see a single person on the platform at the station. There were 2 men standing on the stairs-one looked to be an emplyee the other I'm not sure.

MarkN

As someone who lives in the PPR you'd think Irish Rail would've even bothered to stick a letter in your letter box telling you the station is now open to be used.

I won't be using it for work but unless they add on a few more trains you might see a lot of Ashtown station people going to the new station. For one, there's loads of parking and two, you can barely get on as it is at Ashtown so if a few more start using the Phoenix Park station it'll get even harder to get on at Ashtown.

eve

MarkN wrote: »

As someone who lives in the PPR you'd think Irish Rail would've even bothered to stick a letter in your letter box telling you the station is now open to be used.

I won't be using it for work but unless they add on a few more trains you might see a lot of Ashtown station people going to the new station. For one, there's loads of parking and two, you can barely get on as it is at Ashtown so if a few more start using the Phoenix Park station it'll get even harder to get on at Ashtown.

Does Phoenix Park have a carpark? Any idea how many cars it can take? Is there a charge for it?

MarkN

I'd say it could be free - there's no other reason why you would park there.

There's a lot of spaces, not sure of the exact amount but a lot. At the moment the slip rd from town direction is not open but the slip coming from M50 is and there was a small amount of cars parked there this morning.

daymobrew

MarkN wrote: »

I won't be using it for work but unless they add on a few more trains you might see a lot of Ashtown station people going to the new station. For one, there's loads of parking and two, you can barely get on as it is at Ashtown so if a few more start using the Phoenix Park station it'll get even harder to get on at Ashtown.

I forsee people who drive to Ashtown (and park in Martin Savage Park) driving to Phoenix Park station.
This will please those living in MSP.

Recently cars there had grease put on their windows. Before Christmas cars were scratched!! All the cars were legally parked (confirmed by the Gardai). Nasty.

blah

marmajam wrote: »

Kolkota

Kolkata

MarkN

daymobrew wrote: »

I forsee people who drive to Ashtown (and park in Martin Savage Park) driving to Phoenix Park station.
This will please those living in MSP.

Recently cars there had grease put on their windows. Before Christmas cars were scratched!! All the cars were legally parked (confirmed by the Gardai). Nasty.

Don't agree with that type of scum carry on at all. Is MSP a private estate or former council estate? Just seems like a certain type of breed will start doing that to cars.

I just hope it doesn't affect parking in the racecourse itself, there's not enough room for residents without a designated space as it is and clamping will start very quickly (cause I for one will push for it!! ) if that car park in the new station starts to overflow.

John R

The Dublin Bus 38/A, 39 services using the Navan Rd inbound are now serving the station forecourt.

Traffic

Looks like there are extra services on the Maynooth and Sligo lines from today

www.irishrail.ie

daymobrew

MarkN wrote: »

Don't agree with that type of scum carry on at all. Is MSP a private estate or former council estate?

It's not a private estate, nor is it the most affluent place in the world.

In Riverwood, beside the Coolmine station, one unknown resident was big into his inaccurate stickers - claimed the parking was illegal though it was changed to "inconvenience" (and that was pushing it too).
Now the Riverwood Road is home to a lot of yellow paint in the new double yellow lines. I proposed tolerance but the proud NIMBYs shouted me down. (Hi Rosser )

Slice

Kolkota

...if you insist

gazzer

There's a lot of spaces, not sure of the exact amount but a lot. At the moment the slip rd from town direction is not open but the slip coming from M50 is and there was a small amount of cars parked there this morning

Does that mean that if you say live out Dublin 15 direction and wanted to park in the station that coming home would have to drive all the way down to the roundabout at the Halfway House and then double back on the way you came on the opposite side of the road?

marmajam

blah wrote: »

Kolkata

Ah, an alphabet wallah.
Kolkota and Kolkata are both being acceptable.
Pronounciation is col-cot-ah.
You should be looking before you are leaping.

icdg

Irrespective of how you spell the names of Indian cities, which has little to do with this thread...

Not one person got on my inbound train at Phoenix Park station this morning. One person got off in the evening - both of these being packed peak hour trains.

Has there been any advertising in the local area to greet the new station? Irish Rail took out a 1/2 page advert in some national newspapers today - to announce the arrival of the 22000 Class. Nothing about a new station opening...

Victor

I imagine the official opening is next week and then advertising will be for then. So the can have a 'successful' opening party.

jlang

Didn't see anyone get on or off there, morning or evening. Even still, the train was extremely busy both ways. Coming home, a lot of people got left on the platform at Tara Street - I decided to hot foot it to Connolly. Just wondering, did they shuffle the no of carriages on some trains with the new timetable.

Best thing about the new timetable is the outbound train at 7:30pm - it was bloody inconveniencing to just miss the one at 7 and not have another train for an hour - now the most annoying gaps are inbound of a Friday/Saturday evening.

DWCommuter

This new station was built and paid for by the developer of the old Phoenix park racecourse. No station, no properties. It's a veiled attempt by local Government (watched by actual Government) to look all nice and up to speed with public transport needs. The assumption was that all those new residents use the train or public transport. The assumption went even further and proclaimed that they worked in areas that the train service could serve. The station was used as a sales tool before a single property was built despite it being a naive stipulation.

While the station is not a waste of tax payers money (being paid for privately) it is a drain on the existing network as trains have to stop there. Now we all know about the existing overcrowding, but if you're a developer, all you have to do is build a station. The operator will pick up the tab of stopping trains there and apparently the state will pick up the tab of maintaining the new station and funding the trains to serve it.

So far stations like this (Adamstown) have a very poor take up of patronage, but havent we planned well into the future. :rolleyes: I think the Phoenix park station will eventually develop some off shoot usage as people will drive to it. But that may lead to further problems. The network is already at bursting point. In fact its at a similar stage in problems to the late 70s. Back then we had ****e trains that were very unreliable. These days we have decent trains, but feck all capacity. Lets just hope that the Government actually fund the interconnector and electrification of the existing commuter routes. If they don't, then all this developer funded station frenzy will cause untold damage to what is already a network creaking under the pressure.

MarkN

Well I checked my postbox again this evening.. Nothing from the developer or IR about the station being open. In fact, the builders and security etc all fecked out of here for good on friday - the same day the station was finished. When buying my apartment here there was no hard sell about the new station being honest but personally if I use the new station twice this year I would be surprised. I also was under the impression I could walk out my door, without leaving the racecourse itself and get onto the bridge and across into the platform but doesn't appear that way!!

MarkN

gazzer wrote: »

There's a lot of spaces, not sure of the exact amount but a lot. At the moment the slip rd from town direction is not open but the slip coming from M50 is and there was a small amount of cars parked there this morning

Does that mean that if you say live out Dublin 15 direction and wanted to park in the station that coming home would have to drive all the way down to the roundabout at the Halfway House and then double back on the way you came on the opposite side of the road?

Correct. Wouldn't be huge amount of traffic for you though. Try living in the racecourse, gotta do it all the bloody time

inforfun

I haven't a clue how much more houses/ apartments are going to be built in that area but for now that train station is situated in the middle of f***ing nowhere.

I doubt if you have to walk there and take the train that you are much faster than just taking any of the 37/38/39/70 buses into town.

Have to admit i am not traveling during the worst periods of morning and evening traffic so i dont know how bad those buses are around 8/8.30

Navan Junction

Seems strange alright.

North - landlocked against canal and fields.
South - Poor/No access and the Phoenix Park beyond the new developments
East - No point coming out from town to go back in again
West - Once you get past the M50/N3 gridlock you are hardly going to change to a (crowded) train at that point with the worst of the journey done

Fine station by the looks of it but without developing the area around it, I can't see the point

I suppose the upshot is that even if the trains are overcrowded, at least the platforms are spacious, airy and empty

marmajam

icdg wrote: »

Irrespective of how you spell the names of Indian cities, which has little to do with this thread...

Not one person got on my inbound train at Phoenix Park station this morning. One person got off in the evening - both of these being packed peak hour trains.

Has there been any advertising in the local area to greet the new station? Irish Rail took out a 1/2 page advert in some national newspapers today - to announce the arrival of the 22000 Class. Nothing about a new station opening...

I am agreeing. Let us stick to the issue of the Feenix Pk station.

MarkN

Well you can't exactly pick up a train line and move it alongside the bus stop on the Navan Rd.

I can't imagine much else going in there, you've an Esso, a bit of green, a train station, a bit more green and then an industrial estate of sorts.

KC61

icdg wrote: »

Has there been any advertising in the local area to greet the new station? Irish Rail took out a 1/2 page advert in some national newspapers today - to announce the arrival of the 22000 Class. Nothing about a new station opening...

There is a half-page advert in the Irish Times today advertising the new station.

Traffic

Full page in the indo as well

Barry Kenny was on the radio this morning promising extra rolling stock/services will be deployed to the route as soon as some come available as a result of the delivery of the new intercity trains

fitzyshea

Any pics? Would like to see it.

meanmachine3

inforfun wrote: »

I doubt if you have to walk there and take the train that you are much faster than just taking any of the 37/38/39/70 buses into town.

Have to admit i am not traveling during the worst periods of morning and evening traffic so i dont know how bad those buses are around 8/8.30

buses take 30 mins - 50 mins to get to town. depending on certain locations
like cabra cross down to hanlons corner, phibsboro around doyle's corner and of course o'connell street

MarkN

20 quid a week for a space according to the news I just heard there on the radio.

kdevitt

My brother lives in the Phoenix Park racecourse estate, and he's closer to Ashtown station than the Phoenix Park one! Although I'm sure the developer plans to lump more people in the area and it'll soon start filling up in the morning.

As said above, it will more than likely attract those who drive to Ashtown at the moment.

the_syco

Does the Docklands train stop there?

daymobrew

the_syco wrote: »

Does the Docklands train stop there?

Yes. When you look up services on the Irish Rail site it will list the stop info when you look at the details for a particular train.

smurfbaby

Still haven't seen ANYONE use this station in the last 3 days, either morning or evening.

kdevitt wrote: »

My brother lives in the Phoenix Park racecourse estate, and he's closer to Ashtown station than the Phoenix Park one! /QUOTE]

I would have thought that was the case as well

marmajam

smurfbaby wrote: »

Still haven't seen ANYONE use this station in the last 3 days, either morning or evening.

kdevitt wrote: »

My brother lives in the Phoenix Park racecourse estate, and he's closer to Ashtown station than the Phoenix Park one! /QUOTE]

I would have thought that was the case as well

I was there PM yesterday, there was about a dozen people got on my train.

KC61

smurfbaby wrote: »

Still haven't seen ANYONE use this station in the last 3 days, either morning or evening.

All in good time - Given that the development has much further to go, this will be a case of a station gradually building up custom.

And in the case of motorists/bus users changing there, it'll take a bit of time for the word to spread about the station. It's similar to the new 128/151 bus services - gradually word of mouth spreads and people start using them!

gobdaw

KC61 wrote: »

All in good time - Given that the development has much further to go, this will be a case of a station gradually building up custom.

Fingal has brought in a policy of limiting or refusing new developement until infrastructure is provided.
The new station had to be provided by the developer before the next phase of the racecourse could start, which is how there is a station with no apparent catchment area.

MarkN

Could be wrong here but the plans were for another 7 years of building at the racecourse. Doesn't appear to be happening now though !!

Only block I see being worked on is the current unfinished block of apartments and that's it. When I was waiting on my unit to be finished they had 3 blocks on the go being built.

I doubt the Ashtown station is any nearer than the new one. If anything they would be the same.

KC61

gobdaw wrote: »

Fingal has brought in a policy of limiting or refusing new developement until infrastructure is provided.
The new station had to be provided by the developer before the next phase of the racecourse could start, which is how there is a station with no apparent catchment area.

Which is exactly as it should be. Far too often in the past there have been major developments built with zero infrastructure. Now with both Adamstown and Phoenix Park the infrastructure has been built first, and we're still getting people complaining about it!!!

By the time the station does have a large throughput, hopefully there will be a nice clockface service with 8-car trains!

MarkN

KC61 wrote: »

Which is exactly as it should be. Far too often in the past there have been major developments built with zero infrastructure. Now with both Adamstown and Phoenix Park the infrastructure has been built first, and we're still getting people complaining about it!!!

By the time the station does have a large throughput, hopefully there will be a nice clockface service with 8-car trains!

That's what the government would have you believe. But reality is, the Navan Rd has a bus passing every few minutes, M50 is 2 mins away and town is 3kms away. It was never in the middle of nowhere in the first place, the train station is not going to have as big an impact as it will in Adamstown and other housing hubs which are fairly far out.

icdg

Took a trip out to this station tonight...only eastbound on/off slips open at this stage and absolutely no signage on N3 proper to tell you where the slip is going. Once on the slip "Railway Station" is signed left which I think is the one of the only times a station is signed on an official road sign (not one erected by IE) in Dublin.

Congratulations to IE for getting their logo on the outside of the station with a large "IE Phoenix Park Station" sign. Signs like this should be on every station (although to be fair most Maynooth line stations have exterior signs of some kind), at Adamstown IE didn't manage to get their own logo on the outside but rather have to make do with the developer's "Adamstown" logo instead. Meanwhile Hueston Station the flagship and biggest railway station in the country still has no exterior signage of any kind...

DWCommuter

KC61 wrote: »

Which is exactly as it should be. Far too often in the past there have been major developments built with zero infrastructure. Now with both Adamstown and Phoenix Park the infrastructure has been built first, and we're still getting people complaining about it!!!

By the time the station does have a large throughput, hopefully there will be a nice clockface service with 8-car trains!

Sorry to disagree my friend, but that station is hardly a case of providing infrastructure. There is more to it than that. Without increased throughput of trains on a fast and frequent basis, the station won't work. In fact the whole route won't work. Proper rail infrastructure for this area involves the provision of extending the DART and building the interconnector. The concept of simply putting up a station and accepting that rail infrastructure has been provided is already outdated. This assumption is a one way ticket to nowhere.

daymobrew

Does anyone know how it is that the electronic information signs on the platforms at Phoenix Park work and those at Ashtown don't? I thought that the data for the signs wasn't available west of Drumcondra, somehow due to the signalling setup.

Victor

daymobrew wrote: »

Does anyone know how it is that the electronic information signs on the platforms at Phoenix Park work and those at Ashtown don't? I thought that the data for the signs wasn't available west of Drumcondra, somehow due to the signalling setup.

There is a limited explanation here: http://www.railusers.ie/forum/showthread.php?t=3671

KC61

DWCommuter wrote: »

Sorry to disagree my friend, but that station is hardly a case of providing infrastructure. There is more to it than that. Without increased throughput of trains on a fast and frequent basis, the station won't work. In fact the whole route won't work. Proper rail infrastructure for this area involves the provision of extending the DART and building the interconnector. The concept of simply putting up a station and accepting that rail infrastructure has been provided is already outdated. This assumption is a one way ticket to nowhere.

I would certainly accept that - hence my final comment re clockface services and 8-car trains. This station will not have heavy usage for some time, and by the time it does, there needs to be a full clockface service (DART), and a full resignalling of the line, which is what is planned. No they're not all being delivered together, but I cannot see the passenger throughput of this station being particularly high for sometime to come.

It is of course only one part of the jigsaw. Pressure needs to be maintained to ensure that the other parts are delivered and put into place.