Luas

Ozwald

Anyone out there know if the Luas will be running this morning?

I heard there were a few problems yesterday with vandalism on the lines.

Planning to be at the Museum stop for about 6.30

ChairmanWow

http://www.luas.ie/
Sandyford to Beechwood only for now

CIE

Nice. Wonder how much it would cost to convert back to heavy rail? If anything, this should be the underground DART, going from the Broadstone line to Bray (and possibly Maynooth).

wolfpawnat

No luas' working at Cherrywood at the moment!

Mountjoy Mugger

Red Line OK for the museum stop thus far.

masterK

Just beware even though the Luas site states they are running from Tallaght to Abbey Street this may not be the case. At 7:15 there was an announcement at the Tallaght platform that it was running from the Red Cow to Abbey and that they hoped to be serving Tallaght in the next 30 minutes to an hour.

markpb

CIE wrote: »

Nice. Wonder how much it would cost to convert back to heavy rail?

I'll take two days of curtailed operations over the millions that would need to be spent adding level crossings, segregating the track and adding proper signalling for negligible benefit.

CIE

markpb wrote: »

I'll take two days of curtailed operations over the millions that would need to be spent adding level crossings, segregating the track and adding proper signalling for negligible benefit.

What "negligible benefit" is that? Any system that suffers like this is flawed, perhaps fatally so. Beechwood is no viable terminus for this line. Considering the money already spent for "segregating the track", it would not be much of a jump; the system as is was already overspent on, and being segregated from the general railway network is a detriment (consider why the Karlsruhe Stadtbahn came to be, for example).

markpb

CIE wrote: »

What "negligible benefit" is that? Any system that suffers like this is flawed, perhaps fatally so. Beechwood is no viable terminus for this line. Considering the money already spent for "segregating the track", it would not be much of a jump; the system as is was already overspent on, and being segregated from the general railway network is a detriment (consider why the Karlsruhe Stadtbahn came to be, for example).

The Luas has been in operation since 2004 and this is the first time I remember it being curtailed because of snow (I've been using it every day for almost four years). If they had spent many millions extra, all we'd have benefited was two days. You've already said it was over-spent on so why spend more?

I'll admit that most of the track is well segregated but there are sections between SSG and Charlemont which would have been very tricky to segregate without going underground. There are many benefits to light rail over heavy rail such as ease of access, cheap stations, safety, etc.

Tow

Ozwald wrote: »

I heard there were a few problems yesterday with vandalism on the lines.

Some children built a snow man on the line at Milltown and the Luas driver thought he could just run over it. Never underestimate the power of the snowman...

BrianD

I think that people are surprised that it would be defeated by the snow. Surely these vehicles run in European cities where this type of weather happens every year?

There was a crew down to The Point stop at lunchtime. Seems that it is suffering most where there is no clearing of snow already happening. The Mayor st/ section has a lot of snow lying and there's ice in the rail grooves. Is the weight of a tram moving sufficient to dislodge compacted snow/ice?

I also heard that some of the trams were having breakdowns.

CIE

markpb wrote: »

The Luas has been in operation since 2004 and this is the first time I remember it being curtailed because of snow (I've been using it every day for almost four years). If they had spent many millions extra, all we'd have benefited was two days. You've already said it was over-spent on so why spend more?

There's still a great gulf of what is potentially achievable versus what is. You're getting no better than a 16-mph average speed (making the word "Luas" a misnomer) while even a local DART making 29 stops has a 25-mph average speed. Running on street on tramways, the average speed plunges. You've also got the matter of unit train length, with an eight-car DART being four times longer (and two feet wider) than a single 40-metre Citadis tram. Also, lower voltage overhead wiring requires more substations than higher voltage. Two days loss of operation can result in billions in losses at businesses thanks to lost production due to delays in commutes.

Not building as DART from the start resulted in duplication of facilities, spare-parts inventories, vehicle fleets, ad nauseam; converting at least the Green Line to DART would be additional expense in the short term but mitigate the effects of needing to maintain multiplicative facilities, fleets, work cars et al over the long term. (The second best scenario would be some manner of conversion of Luas to tram-train so that you can have interoperability with the general railway network; but building to a different rail gauge makes that all the harder. If the Metro format is not interoperable with Luas, that will make things even more expensive to the public.)

I'll admit that most of the track is well segregated but there are sections between SSG and Charlemont which would have been very tricky to segregate without going underground. There are many benefits to light rail over heavy rail such as ease of access, cheap stations, safety, etc.

Safety? All I hear, whether in the media or anecdotal, is that such is one of Luas' biggest detriments. Not to mention, I don't see how station construction is any cheaper than that of heavy rail, especially with the paving of tracks at many stations on the segregated alignments. (Out on the WRC, station refurbishing, up to normal commuter standards, did not prove to be a big expense.) Ireland had the chance of having a unified railway network in Dublin and deliberately threw that chance away.

markpb

CIE wrote: »

There's still a great gulf of what is potentially achievable versus what is. You're getting no better than a 16-mph average speed (making the word "Luas" a misnomer) while even a local DART making 29 stops has a 25-mph average speed.

Dart from Pearse to Blackrock is 7.6km and takes 12 minutes which is 37.5kph. The Luas from SSG to Sandyford is 8.7km and takes 20 minutes which is 26.1kph. The Dart for all it's extra cost (if it was built from scratch instead of atop an existing rail line) is only 6 minutes faster over a comparable distance.

I'll agree that heavy rail is great but I'm not sure it's suitable for Dublin. I think light rail is a good compromise between buses and heavy rail in a reasonably mid-density city.

Running on street on tramways, the average speed plunges.

Out of curiosity, how would you run a heavy rail train line from the city centre to Tallaght without going underground?

I don't see how station construction is any cheaper than that of heavy rail, especially with the paving of tracks at many stations on the segregated alignments

Can you honestly tell me you can't see the difference in cost between constructing Milltown Luas stop (for example) and Sandymount Dart station?

Victor

BrianD wrote: »

I think that people are surprised that it would be defeated by the snow. Surely these vehicles run in European cities where this type of weather happens every year?

I wonder if there are differences in the cold weather specification. Certainly, we would go heavy on the damp/wet weather specification.

Is the weight of a tram moving sufficient to dislodge compacted snow/ice?

The wight of the tram bears on a tiny area, imposing huge pressures on the ice, thereby melting it, much like with an ice skate. The difference being the ice skate only goes through a part of the ice, the tram wheel should go through the whole way - 80kg person on two ice skates v 40,000-70,000kg tram on 8(?) wheels. During the day, the regular passing of tram should keep things clear, but in heavy snowfalls, quieter periods and first thing in the morning, there may be a build-up in front of the tram that needs clearing - as with the snowman, the tram can only go over so much snow.

I also heard that some of the trams were having breakdowns.

I wonder if some of the breakdowns (Irish rail had some also) are related to fluffy snow getting into the interior workings in a way that rain wouldn't.

Also, the electrical systems have been under pressure with higher passenger loadings and heating on full all the time, although I think Luas has its own dedicated generator in Sandyford.