Dundalk 06:30 train to Dublin???

wiggy123

Could someone please explain this?

This train use to leave at 6:35 pre new timetable! And pre viaduct collapse this train would arrive in Pearse station @ 8:04. On a good day (very) and maybe 5 mins later. Common occurrence!

Since new timetable, has come in on Monday pass! The train leaves now at 6:30, but has not gotten into Pearse train station, any day this week till 8:10....why is this? Train leaves 5 min's earlier but arrives 6 min's later...could someone please explain! It equals a 11-15 minute delay...

This is a joke...a farce! And we paid the most per mile, than any other train journey from my reckoning in Ireland

Like its €259 for a monthly from Dundalk, but Drogheda is €195 a month...difference of €64...for what off a difference! You can check all ticket prices and some are ridiculous, i.e. €28 return from Dundalk to Dublin on a Friday...joke!

Angers me so much! That Dundalk gets such a poor service!

smcelhinney

CAPS LOCK? Seriously?

Anyway, its reasonable to assume that there would be some teething issues with the new timetables (from Dec 1) and for the sake of, as you say, 11-15 mins delay, its probably not worth getting worked up over.

If you feel aggrieved by it, why not write a) a hand-written letter to their customer care department, or b) an open letter to a newspaper. You may find other like-minded commuters, or you may find that you're over-reacting, either way you'll be able to vent.

Im in Drogheda, and I havent had any major issues with the line since the viaduct reopened (except for the publicised ones on day one of the reopening). It takes me an hour to get to Tara. No more, no less.

Cookie_Monster

essentially to accommodate all the clockface DART timetabling a lot of commuter services have had to slow down as they no longer have priority over DART when it comes to timing

wiggy123

smcelhinney
you would say that...sure drogheda has a great service--2 trains to dundalks one..morning and evening time

also with bus's..that time--who got looked after best???? drogheda

so i'd forget about ur opinion!

positron

I am from Drogheda, and I understand Wiggy's concern. There's a 6 mins added each way to my journey time, which makes it 12 minutes more on board the train - and when you do this daily, it quickly adds up. My wife, also a commuter, has nearly 30 mins added to her daily train-life.

We are now looking for slightly bigger bags to bring some useful stuff to the train - we are considering bringing quilts, coffee, breakfast, new paper and some pictures to hang on the seat in front - because at this rate we will soon be spending more time on the train than at home.

PS: If IrishRail would pay, I could use a visit to the doctor as I really have bad backache, from standing in a strange twisted angle on the 5:28 service from Tara, while it crawled along for ages behind a DART service.

covert

wiggy123 wrote: »

AND WE PAID THE MOST PER MILE,THAN ANY OTHER TRAIN JOURNEY FROM MY RECKONING IN IRELAND

LIKE ITS €259 FOR A MONTHLY FROM DUNDALK,
BUT DROGEHA IS €195 A MONTH...DIFFERENCE OF €64...FOR WHAT OFF A DIFFERENCE!

Ehhh....it's 31 miles Dublin to Drogheda by rail and 54 miles Dublin to Dundalk - therefore you're paying LESS per mile than Drogheda, not more....

MysticalSoul

By any chance is the train stopping at more stations? This has happened with some of the commuter trains with the new timetable.

cargo

Isn't there not a new temporary speed limit over the repaired bridge (and surronding area) that was adding a few minutes to journeys?

Search the end of the related threads to the bridge collaspe and you may see the stats worked out there.

ixoy

It's been pretty poor so far. The 8:12 from Portmarnock was moved to 8:19. So we'd be in later already except that, so far, it's always been 5 minutes late - so we're now 12 minutes later than we used to. It's later because there's a queue of commuter line trains all being squeezed into a very small window and the delays there have a knock on effect. Seems very poorly planned.

positron

ixoy wrote: »

It's been pretty poor so far. The 8:12 from Portmarnock was moved to 8:19. So we'd be in later already except that, so far, it's always been 5 minutes late - so we're now 12 minutes later than we used to. It's later because there's a queue of commuter line trains all being squeezed into a very small window and the delays there have a knock on effect. Seems very poorly planned.

I think some of the new stops were introduced just to get the trains to fit into that slot. 'Poor planning' is too kind - "absolute ignoramuses with crayons" if you ask my honest opinion!

ixoy

positron wrote: »

I think some of the new stops were introduced just to get the trains to fit into that slot. 'Poor planning' is too kind - "absolute ignoramuses with crayons" if you ask my honest opinion!

Indeed. For another example, there used to be a 19:52 train to Portmarnock with the next train at 20:17 (rail car) and then another dart at 20:54.
Now the 19:52 is moved to 20:21. So instead of 20-25 minute gaps, we've a 40
minute gap, a 3 minute gap, and another 40 minutes.

How does that make sense? Why would you put 2 trains in the same direction mere minutes apart and then leave a gap for 40 minutes? Do they draw up plans independently of each other for the two lines?

fh041205

wiggy123 wrote: »

€28 RETURN FROM DUNDALK TO DUBLIN ON A FRIDAY...JOKE!

This is false AFAIK. See below.

http://irishrail.ie/news_centre/news.asp?action=view&news_id=575

Hungerford

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

essentially to accommodate all the clockface DART timetabling a lot of commuter services have had to slow down as they no longer have priority over DART when it comes to timing

The issue is more complex than that. Basically, commuter services never had priority over DART services - indeed even the Enterprise doesn't. The theory is that they can make up the lost time once they leave the DART area.

Basically as a result of the clockface timetable, the number of DART services to/from Malahide have been cut. To pick up the slack, the commuter services, which didn't stop there before, now do.

That's your six minutes folks.

KC61

The train now calls at two extra stations en route (Gormanston and Malahide) which uses up the 5 minutes that it has departing earlier. However it is now right behind a DART from Malahide leaving at 0730. This means that it takes longer to get to Connolly than before.

positron

The more you look at the timetable, its getting bad to worse! facepalm's all around..!

What can we do to kick some sense into these lads? Can these people be sued for inefficiency or incompetency or something like that? I mean, if they wanted to do it right, they could have easily avoided such obvious mistakes - so this has to be professional negligence or intentional misconduct, right? This is really not good - they are wasting our tax money, right?

ecom

last years timetabling on the northern commuter line (and the previous years etc) resulted in some dangerous overcrowding on a daily basis.

Now that all nothern bound trains appear to stop at Howth Junction, Portmarnock and Malahide I witnessed overcrowding the likes I have never seen before on Tuesday last.

Why are these incompetent fools allowed to get away with this sort of timetabling? Yes I've sent letters, made phone calls etc, but all to no avail. They genuinely dont give a rats!

wiggy123

fh041205

i seen that--but thats for the month od december only!
read ur facts please!
incentive for ppl to use the train!

KC61

The fundamental problem boils down to this:

The DART has beeen reconfigured into a clockface timetable (with a small number of exceptions) between Greystones and Howth Junction. Services beyond Howth Junction are not split evenly between Malahide and Howth, but in a haphazard manner, caused by the availability of slots at Malahide and the desire to maintain a similar level of service to/from Howth as before.

Added to this, the Northern and Maynooth lines have not had clockface or regular interval scheduling introduced, with management deciding that they wanted to retain pretty much the same service pattern on both as was.

Now that is basically trying to operate a hybrid service. The result is that because of the reduction in the number of DART services to/from Malahide that most diesel services now also serve Portmarnock and Malahide. Because the existing northern line service pattern has largely been retained, many services are now taking longer as they have extra stops and are trying to fit around a reconfigured DART service.

What should have happened? IE should have bitten the bullet and introduced a standard interval clockface service on all routes out of Connolly, with an integrated service pattern that facilitated connections and where possible avoided "semi-fast" services being held up due to operating directly behind DART services. Instead there is a hotch-potch that is managing to annoy everyone on the the diesel operated commuter routes.

Effectively the problems have switched from DART customers complaining about long gaps to Commuter users complaining about longer journey times and more stops.

Issybella

there is a commuter train that stops at portmarnock in between 08.12 and 08.19 but no-one can get on, its already got people literally falling out doors. Which means getting the dart at 08.17 (but its been late every day this week - 08.21 etc which gets into connolly 8:45 if its going well. no more getting into work by 9am depending on how you have to walk...

MysticalSoul

Issybella wrote: »

there is a commuter train that stops at portmarnock in between 08.12 and 08.19 but no-one can get on, its already got people literally falling out doors. Which means getting the dart at 08.17 (but its been late every day this week - 08.21 etc which gets into connolly 8:45 if its going well. no more getting into work by 9am depending on how you have to walk...

This is why I've been getting the commuter train which leaves Portmarnock at 7.56 - still no seats, but there is at least breathing room.

BenShermin

The simple way to solve this would be to scrap direct services to Howth in favour of a shuttle between Howth Junction and Howth. By doing that you could keep the clockface Dart timetable to Malahide and ensure that all northern commuter trains are non stop to Malahide as there would no longer be frequency issues for Malahide and Portmarnock passengers.

shaungil

Guys excuse my ignorance but what is the clockface timetable mean. Is this reference to the 15mins darts.
Skerries commuter also totally peeved no response from Irisharail, trains from 5.20 in evening take longer more stops etc and longer gap leading to overcrowding.
Any groups on Facebook for commuters or user groups around. Public reps aren't great on this.

KC61

Clockface means that buses/trains leave at the same minutes passed each hour.

Combined with regular interval departures (i.e. same gaps between trains/buses) it is generally accepted as the best method of timetabling as it generally does not require passengers to look at a timetable more than once and should minimise waiting time.

KC61

BenShermin wrote: »

The simple way to solve this would be to scrap direct services to Howth in favour of a shuttle between Howth Junction and Howth. By doing that you could keep the clockface Dart timetable to Malahide and ensure that all northern commuter trains are non stop to Malahide as there would no longer be frequency issues for Malahide and Portmarnock passengers.

Until the issue of siding space at Malahide is addressed that will not work. This is needed so that the DARTs can wait there without blocking commuter and Enterprise services. There is a need for a siding north of the station, but as commented in another thread local residents blocked that. The existing sidings are south of the station and the movements to get to and fro use up too much time.

fh041205

wiggy123 wrote: »

fh041205

i seen that--but thats for the month od december only!
read ur facts please!
incentive for ppl to use the train!

I've read them. They are right. You were/are wrong. It is NOT 28e Dundalk-Drogheda return on Friday, its 10. Even pre-bridge collapse it was 10 for most of the day.

I suggest you get your own facts straight since most of your claims in your OP have been proven to be wrong.

positron

fh041205 wrote: »

I've read them. They are right. You were/are wrong. It is NOT 28e Dundalk-Drogheda return on Friday, its 10. Even pre-bridge collapse it was 10 for most of the day.

I suggest you get your own facts straight since most of your claims in your OP have been proven to be wrong.

fh041205 - as far as I know, the €10 is a brand new offer from IrishRail, post bridge-opening and aimed at Christmas season shoppers etc. It was not there before - or IF it was there all along, that would mean that the woman at the counter in Drogheda station scammed me big time, because I paid nearly 20 quid for a ticket on particular day in October...

kormak

wiggy123 wrote: »

smcelhinney
you would say that...sure drogheda has a great service--2 trains to dundalks one..morning and evening time

also with bus's..that time--who got looked after best???? drogheda

so i'd forget about ur opinion!

I know of quite a few Enterprise I would like to get home to Drogheda to shorten my day but only go direct to Dundalk...
it's not all boo-hoo for Dundalk commuters!

kormak

Also for what it's worth...
I will not be renewing my annual ticket.
My journey from work is now taking 2 hrs eachway with the new timetable.
Before it was an almost bearable 1-1.30 hours each way.
There's a public meeting in the Westcourt next Monday night with Irish Rail reps and T.D Fergus O' Dowd present. I would call on ALL commuters to act with their feet and show up with a wagging fist full or rage!! :mad:

Rashers72

I think this has been a bad week on the Northern suburban line. I have spent an extra 5-10 mins each day each way this week, waiting behind DARTS in the Howth Junction - Connolly section. That is on top of the extra stops at Malahide and Portmarnock etc. I also had the normal train and signal failures to deal with.
I would hope that IE makes a much bigger effort after this week to get DARTs operating on time. Their new timetable requires no delays to DARTS to ensure the Northern suburban services can make their slots, and thats even having extended their journey times.
I was on an off-peak service today at 11am, and we still spent 10 mins sitting outside Connolly.
I wonder when they open Clongriffin, will all the suburban services stop there also?
I would also be interested to hear what IE will say to all the issues at the meeting in Drogheda next week.

fh041205

positron wrote: »

fh041205 - as far as I know, the €10 is a brand new offer from IrishRail, post bridge-opening and aimed at Christmas season shoppers etc. It was not there before - or IF it was there all along, that would mean that the woman at the counter in Drogheda station scammed me big time, because I paid nearly 20 quid for a ticket on particular day in October...

http://irishrail.ie/news_centre/news.asp?action=view&news_id=368

Thats the offer that I was talking about (sorry should have linked it originally) which has been in place for over a year at least. I think 18 months actually. I'm just disputing the suggestion that its €28 all day every friday which annoyed me.

Is there a predefinded purpose to this meeting. Is Fergus O'Dowd the only 'big name' representative at the meeting?

fh041205

kormak wrote: »

I know of quite a few Enterprise I would like to get home to Drogheda to shorten my day but only go direct to Dundalk...
it's not all boo-hoo for Dundalk commuters!

Fortunately the 15.20 on a Fri now stops although it took a lot of pursuading from what I hear. How I could have done with that last year:rolleyes:

P_1

I'm presuming that the [insert insult] who came up with the new timetable doesn't actually suffer the "indignity" of having to use the Northern Line. Some of the timings on the timetable are rediculous.

Having a DART leave town 2 minutes before a Northern Commuter train just takes the buscuit. A bit of cop on would be much appreciated sometimes.

Cookie_Monster

pithater1 wrote: »

Having a DART leave town 2 minutes before a Northern Commuter train just takes the buscuit. A bit of cop on would be much appreciated sometimes.

Honestly, who ever thought that could possibly be a good idea? Really, have they no foresight and planning skills at all

wiggy123

maybe i am far out--with the €28 for friday..
but as u can see its €23.50 every day b4 this new xmas offer(december)...but i am nearly a 100% correct that the ticket is dearer on a friday..it could €25..
i will check it out--in new yr!

and drogheda does hav a better service than dundalk--always has had...

me thinking these days is--matthews bus is better value+better tiem keeping!
as 6:30--got into pearse today at 8:15....?????joke

KC61

Dundalk to Dublin is priced as an Intercity journey. Ticket prices on the other days are discounted to encourage travel, which is standard practice across the Intercity network. EUR 28.50 is the standard 5 day return fare from Dundalk to Dublin.

There are currently additional promotional fares available of EUR 10 on the route - the Leinster promotion and the Malahide Viaduct reopening.

fh041205

pithater1 wrote: »

Having a DART leave town 2 minutes before a Northern Commuter train just takes the buscuit. A bit of cop on would be much appreciated sometimes.

Its even worse than that. Yesterday I got the 17.55 from Pearse which came in on platform 7 in Connolly. There was a DART to Malahide on 6. Guess which left first....

In terms of service, Dundalk<Drogheda<Balbriggan<Malahide. Its all about numbers. There are thousands more people commuting from Drogheda than Dundalk.

positron

This morning's 6:54 (old 6:58) service from Drogheda, stopped Malahide, Portmarnock etc, and then was crawling along behind some dart for ages, and briefly paused in front of some dart stations.

May be they should just come clean and admit they have no way of running commuter trains, and change all commuter trains to call into all DART stops - at least that way, the DART stations will have a better service to claim, and us poor long distance commuters can just finally f*ck off and switch to Matthews or other bus services!!!

positron

If IrishRail doesn't take corrective action after Mondays' session at WestCourt, I think a lot of us will take that as a clear sign that they just couldn't be bothered.

I for one, instead of putting up with a system that is degrading (when the whole world is getting faster and more efficient), will return my annual ticket and will get a bus to work.

KC61

positron wrote: »

This morning's 6:54 (old 6:58) service from Drogheda, stopped Malahide, Portmarnock etc, and then was crawling along behind some dart for ages, and briefly paused in front of some dart stations.

May be they should just come clean and admit they have no way of running commuter trains, and change all commuter trains to call into all DART stops - at least that way, the DART stations will have a better service to claim, and us poor long distance commuters can just finally f*ck off and switch to Matthews or other bus services!!!

As it is now scheduled to do.

That train is the 0630 from Dundalk. It calls at Malahide at 0734 and follows the 0730 DART from Malahide to Bray.

As I have already said this all comes from implementing (and rightly so) a clockface DART service, but not extending the concept to the Commuter services to Drogheda and Maynooth.

kormak

positron wrote: »

This morning's 6:54 (old 6:58) service from Drogheda, stopped Malahide, Portmarnock etc, and then was crawling along behind some dart for ages, and briefly paused in front of some dart stations.

May be they should just come clean and admit they have no way of running commuter trains, and change all commuter trains to call into all DART stops - at least that way, the DART stations will have a better service to claim, and us poor long distance commuters can just finally f*ck off and switch to Matthews or other bus services!!!

I normally get this one but decided to get the 7.12am (parked train) from Drogheda this morning.
Exactly the bloody same!
It's scheduled to arrive in Lansdowne Rd. @ 08:26am but didn't get there till 8:32am. Absolute Bullsh!t...
all week now they've been late.
what a mess... just watch the mass exodus in the next few weeks unless they get their thick skulls together and come with an acceptable service.

fh041205

kormak wrote: »

just watch the mass exodus in the next few weeks unless they get their thick skulls together and come with an acceptable service.

I'll believe that when I see it. It didn't happen after the bridge collapse despite 80% (or whatever it was) of customers allegedly preferring the bus.

kormak

fh041205 wrote: »

I'll believe that when I see it. It didn't happen after the bridge collapse despite 80% (or whatever it was) of customers allegedly preferring the bus.

that's because it was somewhat reliable before the bridge collapse!!

Hungerford

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Honestly, who ever thought that could possibly be a good idea? Really, have they no foresight and planning skills at all

It's totally idiotic. If you let the commuter train go first, it would probably be out of the Dart's way in about 2-3 mins. But if you let the opposite happen, the commuter train is stuck behind the Dart for 20 mins.

Rashers72

So anyone got any feedback on what IE said at the meeting?
This week seems to be just as bad as last week.:mad: In fact some services are just getting worse, spending even longer stuck behind DARTS on the Malahide-Connolly section.

ixoy

I've yet to see a train actually make it on time since this new "schedule". What sort of simulations do they run? Does one person do up the Northern line schedule completely independently of the DART? The two trains always seem on top of each other and then long gaps before you get either on the Malahide line again.

MysticalSoul

Rashers72 wrote: »

So anyone got any feedback on what IE said at the meeting?
This week seems to be just as bad as last week.:mad: In fact some services are just getting worse, spending even longer stuck behind DARTS on the Malahide-Connolly section.

I was reading on the rail users forum yesterday, and it seems the only thing that was said, is that the reason the commuter trains are stopping at more stops is due to cut backs on the DART, so I doubt any changes are going to happen.

KC61

ixoy wrote: »

I've yet to see a train actually make it on time since this new "schedule". What sort of simulations do they run? Does one person do up the Northern line schedule completely independently of the DART? The two trains always seem on top of each other and then long gaps before you get either on the Malahide line again.

The two I understand are scheduled together.

The problem is this:
1) A decision, rightly in my view, was taken to introduce a clockface DART service.

2) A further decision (and this is where the company failed miserably) was made to try to retain the existing service times on both the Northern and Maynooth lines and make minimal changes to them, with the result that they are now fitting in around the DART service and taking longer.

What should have happened was that in line with the revised DART pattern, an updated Commuter service pattern should have been introduced that did not have Northern line trains running directly behind DART services and which retained the faster running times.

fh041205

Rashers72 wrote: »

So anyone got any feedback on what IE said at the meeting?

Is it just me or was this meeting utterly pointless. No clear motivation or demand, no conclusions and very little discussion about it anywhere. It seems most people came out of the place scratching their heads somewhat. Plus its hardly likely to get the timetable removed after only 1 week.

kormak

fh041205 wrote: »

Is it just me or was this meeting utterly pointless. No clear motivation or demand, no conclusions and very little discussion about it anywhere. It seems most people came out of the place scratching their heads somewhat. Plus its hardly likely to get the timetable removed after only 1 week.

exactly! it was a complete waste of time as far as I could see...
some excellent points raised by people and your man from Irish Rail just shook his head and offered no real solutions.
I believe they said in response to the commuter train getting stuck behind the DART in the morning.... "they'd look into it"
some of the excellent points raised in brief:

- Maynooth has 4 more peak time express trains running than Drogheda. Population of maynooth = 11,000, pop. of Drogheda over 33,000

- Drogheda, Laytown & Balbriggan have had population increases of over 50% in the past 10 years. Malahide has had a population increase of 7%
(to which Irish Rail replied much to everyones astonishment "sometimes in these situations you'll have Winners & Losers...")

- One man made the excellent point that an old artefact timetable in Drogheda from the mid 1950's says "Drogheda to Pearse - 1 hour"... now in 2009 it's "Drogheda - Pearse 1hour and 15 minutes"

I got up and left before it ended because I could not see any real interest on the faces of
Irish Rail spokespersons...
in 2010 people will hopefully vote with their feet eventually and leave the trains because they're an absolute joke at this stage.

fh041205

In fairness, from what I understand, overcrowding on the Maynooth line is far worse than anywhere else in the commuter belt.

Seannew1

Personally I think Dundalk gets a terrible service,from 11-4 only 2 trains from Dublin go to Dundalk whereas 7 go to Drogheda and terminate why don't IE just bring them up to Dundalk.
There really should be an express service to Drogheda/Dundalk at around 5pm to entice people back on the trains because I've noticed a huge reduction in the number of Dundalk/Drogheda commuters getting the train now, all within a year!