DART+ (DART Expansion)

Sad Professor

https://m.independent.ie/regionals/louth/drogheda-news/why-the-dart-expansion-wont-ease-overcrowding-on-drogheda-dublin-train-line/a1536597413.html

This is completely wrong, right? Irish Rail is clearly promising significant capacity improvements as part of Coastal North. Yet a senior source is telling the Indo only an extra track will make a difference.

cgcsb

Yes that's wrong. The trains themselves will have a higher capacity and modernised signalling, better acceleration and deceleration and a passing loop at Clongriffin will add capacity to the line. 4 tracking will of course add much more capacity but its wrong to say that DART+ will do nothing to improve capacity.

CatInABox

So Drogheda to Malahide will go from 11 trains per three hour peak, to 24 trains per three hour peak. It's a very clear improvement over those three hours.

However, I will caveat that a little bit. The NTA currently run Drogheda to Malahide as a one hour peak service, i.e. there's one hour in which the NTA commit to having good service. They don't provide the figures comparing the old one hour peak service to the same hour post Dart+ North, but honestly, I'd imagine that it's probably around the same number of trains pulling out of Drogheda station.

I guess neither the NTA or this article are really telling the full story, vis a vis capacity.