Enterprise Service and Drogheda

LXFlyer

positron wrote: »

Absolutely. I was just emphasing the difference the 16:50 service would make to the life of a Drogheda commuter - Enterprise gets there in 35 mins where as normal commuter trains takes 65 minutes (and usually more, thanks to DART clockfacing, new stops - it's not all because bridge maintenance before someone brings that up - This service used to take 10 mins less a few years ago).



lxflyer, can I ask are you a regular commuter on the Enterprise? Please don't take this the wrong way, I am just trying to understand if you are speaking because you fear few added minutes to your daily commute, or have expertise on Irishrail operations, or are you just expressing your opinion of how you would like it to be, with nothing to gain or lose (aka just a habitual naysayer). Thanks.

I am a frequent user of rail and bus services both here and abroad, and a fairly frequent flyer, and at this stage would understand what is and what isn't best practice with regard to transport having made submissions to various bodies over the years.

What you are asking for is for the principal "flagship" departure on Dublin-Belfast Intercity route, that is designed primarily for long distance Intercity travel and aimed at the business market, and with expected Intercity levels of comfort (trolley service etc), to also become a commuter service with potentially passengers standing (from your own words). That is not what that particular train is supposed to be, and what you are looking for would fly in the face of International best practice.

As I've said before - a radical rethink for the Northern line is badly needed, with semi-fast services to/from Drogheda and Dundalk using the 22k stock that is for delivery later this year, along with stopping services, proper DART turnback facilities at Malahide. That's what's needed here rather than making the Enterprise even worse than it is.

I will stick to my view that stopping this particular train would not be a good start as it is just reducing the Enterprise to irrelevance as a cross-border Intercity service.

shamwari

positron wrote: »

Sure, if 1650 is arleady packed like the commuter trains, it makes no sense to open it to Drogheda commuters. If it's just mildly full, I suppose I am finding it hard to understand that as 'packed' as in commtuerland packed really means packed like sardines or standing like you are playing twister.

I am sure Drogheda is well served by a lot of trains throughout the day - if you take the quantity of the serivce. Quality of the service is entirely different matter - 65 minutes to get 30 miles by train - am I the only one who thinks it's a bit odd? Then again looks like I am expecting value for money, which seems a bit of an exception and raises eyebrows!

Yes you are right that commuterland is in effect high density travelling, and 65 minutes to travel 30 miles by train is hard to fathom. However, in trying to get the Enterprise to provide additional cover for Drogheda with the 16:50 as you suggest is in effect transferring the burden from a commuter service to an Intercity one. In doing this, you risk denying passengers north of the border a service. And IMHO that would be unfair.

Seannew1

I'm with you on this one that they should bring the 4.50 to drogheda,I heard from someone one day though that the reason it doesn't stop in Drogheda is because IE want to give some preference to Dundalk commuters, from 4pm to 7pm only, 3 trains go to Dundalk,one being the 4.50 enterprise and the other two being the 5.13/5.55 service which take for the best part an hour and a half each,whereas drogheda has 7 train services during that time period,unfair I now but I never did understand how Iarnrod Eireann works!

positron

lxflyer wrote: »

I am a frequent user of rail and bus services both here and abroad, and a fairly frequent flyer, and at this stage would understand what is and what isn't best practice with regard to transport having made submissions to various bodies over the years.

That sounds good but hardly unique - and I see you have not answered my question. I still don't understand your interest/expertise in this you never mentioend you either experience the service and it's possible degradation yourself, and/or has mentioned you have factual data for any of this. This is something I have mentioned three or so times already on this thread.

lxflyer wrote: »

As I've said before - a radical rethink for the Northern line is badly needed, with semi-fast services to/from Drogheda and Dundalk using the 22k stock that is for delivery later this year, along with stopping services, proper DART turnback facilities at Malahide. That's what's needed here rather than making the Enterprise even worse than it is.

I agree, this would be the ideal solution. However, while we don't have the funds and/or the will to implement all of the above, key stakeholders would naturally try and get the system to work to their best advantage which is why Drogheda trains now call at Dart stations, and that's why as a Drogheda commuter I am trying to get more services to Drogheda.

shamwari wrote: »

However, in trying to get the Enterprise to provide additional cover for Drogheda with the 16:50 as you suggest is in effect transferring the burden from a commuter service to an Intercity one. In doing this, you risk denying passengers north of the border a service. And IMHO that would be unfair.

I agree with you in principle. Does stopping 1650 enterprise at Drogheda turn it into an all out 'commuter' train? How many Drogheda commuters would potentially turn up for that service if that was choice. All I am trying to say is, does anyone has the facts that these decisions were based upon, or are we just repating over again what we "think" would happen? If IrishRail works based on feels and hunches, I probably should stop using them because there are more bridges on that line.

shamwari

positron wrote: »

I agree with you in principle. Does stopping 1650 enterprise at Drogheda turn it into an all out 'commuter' train? How many Drogheda commuters would potentially turn up for that service if that was choice. All I am trying to say is, does anyone has the facts that these decisions were based upon, or are we just repating over again what we "think" would happen? If IrishRail works based on feels and hunches, I probably should stop using them because there are more bridges on that line.

Irish rail will have all sorts of data available to them from ticket sales and usage patterns to calculate likely loadings on a service. Capacity on that 16:50 Enterprise is already tight. I know because I have travelled on it and seen it for myself. If you allow another pile of people on who are travelling just to Drogheda, there is the likelihood that people heading to Newry and beyond may not make this train. Potentially, a lot of Drogheda people will use the service because it is 50% quicker that the suburban stops. Previous loadings were so high that Irish Rail introduced a priority queueing system for that train to facilitate cross-border customers (before Drogheda and Dundalk were removed a few years). If they missed the 16:50, they had a two hour wait for the next train.

Now look at below. Suburban departures to Drogheda from Connolly between the 16:50 & 19:00 Enterprise services are as follows:

16:51 / 17:21 / 17:29 / 18:03 / 18:22 / 18:40.

As you can see, Drogheda is adequately served. It makes no practical sense to stop that 16:50 Enterprise service there as there is the real likelihood that doing so will result in the train being saturated with commuters from Drogheda, resulting in cross-border customers either travelling in very crowded conditions, or worse, not being able to get on the train.

One final point: the Enterprise service is a joint venture between Translink and Irish Rail. I doubt very much that Translink would be amenable to what you propose. The rail service is struggling with competition from private car and bus, and the last thing Translink will want to see happen are its customers dissuaded from using the service as a result of a decision which will facilitate only IE customers. As far as they would be concerned, if capacity is limited, you target it where it is needed most.

DWCommuter

I'm still amused as to why we are still debating this.:D

The Enterprise is struggling to compete and now we want to use it to serve commuters. Please stop this crap. The Enterprise should be non-stop Dundalk - Dublin, vice versa all the time, every time.

But the *cough* property boom caused the problem. It seems that we will have to spend many billions retrofitting parts of the network to compensate for all these disasterous planning decisions.

Sometimes I do feel sorry for Irish Rail and what their political masters expect them to do.

dowlingm

So Irish Rail bypasses a town of 35,000 people en route to a metro area of a half million leaving a four hour gap in service, not to mention commuters from Drogheda to Dundalk, all because it can't simply say "no set down at Drogheda", enforced at the gate and by onboard ticket checking?

Drogheda-Belfast 1550, 1720, 1932
Drogheda-Dundalk 1550, 1720, 1813, 1904, 1932

positron

shamwari wrote: »

Capacity on that 16:50 Enterprise is already tight. I know because I have travelled on it and seen it for myself.

Thank you, you are the first person to comfirm this from personal experience, which is what I was looking for all along.

shamwari wrote: »

Now look at below. Suburban departures to Drogheda from Connolly between the 16:50 & 19:00 Enterprise services are as follows:

16:51 / 17:21 / 17:29 / 18:03 / 18:22 / 18:40.

As you can see, Drogheda is adequately served.

'Adequate' is a relative term. All of these services take 65 minutes to do 30 miles, and I don't think it's adequate at all. I would rather be in a packed but fast train rather than many slow coaches, imho.

Anyway, point taken that 1650 is fairly full and having Drogheda commuters there has caused issues in the past requiring priority boarding etc. I don't have figures to support my argument, but I *hope* that they would review the situation as I suspect 1650 service is not as full as it used to and number od Drogheda commuters who would go for the 1650 has also come down over the last few years - so may be a review is worth the time.

On another note, the fast running 1650 Enterprise leaves a gap on the northern route where other fast trains could follow. I see that there is already a 17:07 service from Connolly-Balbriggan calling at very few stations. Now I wonder what is the logic in terminating this service at Balbriggan? Why are they not running it to Drogheda? Is it because the 1721 catches up with 1707 by Balbriggan?

Apologies for all the questions - but commuting is so long and so painful, it gves me time and motivation to keep going like this...

LXFlyer

positron wrote: »

On another note, the fast running 1650 Enterprise leaves a gap on the northern route where other fast trains could follow. I see that there is already a 17:07 service from Connolly-Balbriggan calling at very few stations. Now I wonder what is the logic in terminating this service at Balbriggan? Why are they not running it to Drogheda? Is it because the 1721 catches up with 1707 by Balbriggan?

The train goes straight back to Pearse to operate another peak hour service that would otherwise not operate at all if it didn't.

When the new rolling stock gets commissioned at the end of the year (17 new 3-car trains), that will allow for some improvements.

shamwari

Travelled on the 16:51 from Connolly to Skerries today. The Enterprise was leaving alongside it and I had a good look at the at the loadings on it. The standard coaches all looked loaded and I noticed no free seats. Some people were standing in the dining coach, and the first class looked just under half full.

The train I was on was a 6piece railcar and was modestly loaded too. What could be causing this train be heavily loaded when really busy is its length. It was running @8 coaches before it had two nicked when the Dunboyne / M3 parkway service started.

kingshankly

shamwari wrote: »

Travelled on the 16:51 from Connolly to Skerries today. The Enterprise was leaving alongside it and I had a good look at the at the loadings on it. The standard coaches all looked loaded and I noticed no free seats. Some people were standing in the dining coach, and the first class looked just under half full.

The train I was on was a 6piece railcar and was modestly loaded too. What could be causing this train be heavily loaded when really busy is its length. It was running @8 coaches before it had two nicked when the Dunboyne / M3 parkway service started.

you should have waved at me when I was passing ya;)

Hungerford

DWCommuter wrote: »

The Enterprise is struggling to compete and now we want to use it to serve commuters. Please stop this crap. The Enterprise should be non-stop Dundalk - Dublin, vice versa all the time, every time.

I can actually see the logic in the Enterprise stopping at Drogheda. It is one of the largest towns in the state and has relatively close links to the North.

I've seen the Enterprise at Drogheda on occasion and the numbers boarding the Northbound trains are quite healthy and I very much doubt all of them are going to Dundalk.

The problem is that your suggestion would drive this business away as it would result in journey times for such passengers increasing by 90 minutes each way.

The only way that it would be workable would be if there was a shuttle service from Drogheda to Dundalk connecting with the Enterprise.

shamwari

kingshankly wrote: »

you should have waved at me when I was passing ya;)

I did.