DART capacity reconfiguration

dublinman1990

I had attempted to get on a 4 carriage DART heading for Greystones when it arrived in Sandymount at around 17:25 yesterday evening. It looked like a horror story as I walked past all the standing passengers with themselves jammed in right up to the doors as they were seen struggling to move within the carriages.

I was there with between 12 to 15 people left behind on the platform when the train made it's way off to Sydney Parade. A 4 carriage DART to Bray luckily wasn't like that when it came 5 minutes later as there was plenty of standing space in the train.

I heard lots of people have made complaints to Irish Rail about the DART overcrowding in the Herald sometime ago. I cannot find the link to that, but look at this now, Leo Varadkar and Simon Harris has now both made clinical move's by questioning IE's denial of overcrowding.

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/minister-queries-irish-rails-denials-of-overcrowding-on-dart-29724002.html

I'd know they are Fine Gael but fair play to them both for making these point's in the Dail.

Sam Russell

There appears to be no logic to the length of trains and no way of knowing the length of a train before it arrives (unless it is a diesel - when it will be 8 carriages). They are currently running a mixture of two, four, six, and eight coach trains randomly throughout the day.

I have noticed that people would rather stand than occupy the last few seats.

goingnowhere

dublinman1990 wrote: »

I heard lots of people have made complaints to Irish Rail about the DART overcrowding in the Herald sometime ago. I cannot find the link to that, but look at this now, Leo Varadkar and Simon Harris has now both made clinical move's by questioning IE's denial of overcrowding.

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/minister-queries-irish-rails-denials-of-overcrowding-on-dart-29724002.html

I'd know they are Fine Gael but fair play to them both for making these point's in the Dail.

Given Leo and Simon both voted to cut Irish Rail's subsidy in this years budget they are playing the classic two faced Irish politician, vote one way, act another.

Sam Russell

Most Saturdays and Sundays, Dart trains are 4 coach. Last Saturday, they were all 8 coach ones, including those made up of 2 car sets. For the last week or so, they have been running a mixture of 2 4 6 and 8 car sets during the day and I noticed a 4 car unit at 9 am this morning.

Am I missing something, or do the drivers decide which train they take out on their shift based on where it is parked rather than its appropriateness? There appears t be no logic whatsoever. The last train last night (at about 11.30pm) was an 8 coach with 4 passengers on it.

Could IR not indicate train length on the real time information system? It could be put in the 'Calling at .......' part of the display - as in '....This train consists of 4 coaches.'

If they settled on 4 or 8 coaches, and identify the 8 coach trains, that would help.

loyatemu

its completely haphazard. They've put up signs indicating where the short trains will stop, but the screens don't indicate how long the approaching train will be, and for whatever reason the short commuter/intercity trains don't stop at the signs so you still have to go up the end of the platform for those.

bikeman1

Last night there was the small matter of Ireland v Serbia at the Aviva, hence the extra capacity. There is no point in shortening the train if the carriages have to get back to Bray or Fairview.

There are always full capacity sets out on the days / evenings of events at the Aviva. Expect the same on Saturday when Ireland play Italy in the rugby.

LXFlyer

Sam Russell wrote: »

Most Saturdays and Sundays, Dart trains are 4 coach. Last Saturday, they were all 8 coach ones, including those made up of 2 car sets. For the last week or so, they have been running a mixture of 2 4 6 and 8 car sets during the day and I noticed a 4 car unit at 9 am this morning.

Am I missing something, or do the drivers decide which train they take out on their shift based on where it is parked rather than its appriateness? There appears t be no logic whatsoever. The last train last night (at about 11.30pm) was an 8 coach with 4 passengers on it.

Could IR not indicate train length on the real time information system? It could be put in the 'Calling at .......' part of the display - as in '....This train consists of 4 coaches.'

If they settled on 4 or 8 coaches, and identify the 8 coach trains, that would help.

loyatemu wrote: »

its completely haphazard. They've put up signs indicating where the short trains will stop, but the screens don't indicate how long the approaching train will be, and for whatever reason the short commuter/intercity trains don't stop at the signs so you still have to go up the end of the platform for those.

It isn't completely random, despite what you may think. Bear in mind that sets are replaced, split or joined in two locations - both at Connolly and Bray, so it may well be that a particular train will operate to Greystones south of Connolly as a six or eight piece, having been lengthened at Connolly, while the next train may be joined up to another set when it gets to Bray.

That way you could have a 6 or 8 piece followed by a 2 piece train. The same applies in the reverse also.

As Bikeman1 says, they tend to lengthen the trains at weekends or evenings when there are events on along the line.

I'd agree that they really need to get the PIS system upgraded to tell people how long the trains are. That isn't possible right now.

end of the road

they need to be 8 cars at peak times, then 6 at the lesser peak times, 4 at the highest off peak times, 2 at the lowest off peak times, no excuses

Sam Russell

bikeman1 wrote: »

Last night there was the small matter of Ireland v Serbia at the Aviva, hence the extra capacity. There is no point in shortening the train if the carriages have to get back to Bray or Fairview.

There are always full capacity sets out on the days / evenings of events at the Aviva. Expect the same on Saturday when Ireland play Italy in the rugby.

What was on last Saturday to warrant 8 cars all day?

LEIN

Leinster played in the RDS and I think there was a Fine Gale Ard Fheis as far as I know.

Sam Russell

LEIN wrote: »

Leinster played in the RDS and I think there was a Fine Gale Ard Fheis as far as I know.

And that warrants 8 coaches all day? They were empty most of the day. Fewer passengers than a weekday with 2 car sets.

LEIN

Sam Russell wrote: »

And that warrants 8 coaches all day? They were empty most of the day. Fewer passengers than a weekday with 2 car sets.

That was a guess and I am probably wrong but they are the only events that I knew of during last Saturday.

I got the 18:30 6 car from Greystones that evening and It was justified as there were people standing part of the way.

LXFlyer

Sam Russell wrote: »

And that warrants 8 coaches all day? They were empty most of the day. Fewer passengers than a weekday with 2 car sets.

Given that there are no rostered swaps at weekends - they would require drivers to be rostered to do it - you would have to draw up completely new set and driver rosters to start shortening/lengthening trains.

That simply isn't worth the effort, given the amount of work involved in doing that, and the fact that no two Saturday events are going to start/finish at the same time, you would have to draw up full new rosters every single time.

It's just easier to strengthen the sets.

There are fairly strict rosters in terms of sets - they have to start and finish in particular locations to ensure they are on the correct maintenance cycle. As I said above, despite what you may think, there would have to be fully detailed rosters in terms of what train works what service.

From your comments here, and those about buses, I'm not sure that you realise how complicated rostering and timetabling public transport actually is.

end of the road

thats not the problem of the customer, schedule the maintenance cycle at times of less impact, i know their possibly trying to avoid empty running but if having the sets matching the capacity when their supposed to means the odd empty run then maybe thats what has to happen, long distance services being subjected to 29 ks, short trains on very over crowded services, long trains on services that have small usership because of time of day or night, its just not good enough, we know the excuses, but they don't wash

Ernest

During the past fortnight I have encoutered very over-crowded 2- carriage trains going southbound towards Connolly in mid morning jam-packed with passengers.

And why do these short trains still stop at the very furthest point away from the stairs on southbound services arriving at Tara Street??

LXFlyer

They stop at the stop board on the platform. In the case of Tara Street it's located at a point where the driver can look back and clearly see all of his train.

If you stand beside the blue stop board that has a "2" on it you will always walk straight onto any train.

Captain Chaos

lxflyer wrote: »

If you stand beside the blue stop board that has a "2" on it you will always walk straight onto any train.

Not always, not all drivers bother to use them. I saw a driver stop a 2 car DART right at the very top of the south bound platform at Pearse one evening, the train was not covered by the roof anymore. Que the mass running or around 100 people down the platform. Just doing it for kicks or what I don't know.

LEIN

Captain Chaos wrote: »

Not always, not all drivers bother to use them. I saw a driver stop a 2 car DART right at the very top of the south bound platform at Pearse one evening, the train was not covered by the roof anymore. Que the mass running or around 100 people down the platform. Just doing it for kicks or what I don't know.

I have been on one of these and all it does is delay the service and frustrate customers.

bikeman1

All this shows to me is that the driver is totally incompetent at his/her job. It is really poor driving in my opinion.

Hilly Bill

Captain Chaos wrote: »

Not always, not all drivers bother to use them. I saw a driver stop a 2 car DART right at the very top of the south bound platform at Pearse one evening, the train was not covered by the roof anymore. Que the mass running or around 100 people down the platform. Just doing it for kicks or what I don't know.

Some of them just take the preverbials to be honest when there is no need for them at some stations to go to the end of the platform with a 2 piece.
Most are sound but there is a bad few amongst them.

LEIN

bikeman1 wrote: »

All this shows to me is that the driver is totally incompetent at his/her job. It is really poor driving in my opinion.

I'm using DART for years and I would be here all night if I were to tell you all of the other stories.

One has to wonder, are some still in the job and if they are, how?

Sam Russell

lxflyer wrote: »

From your comments here, and those about buses, I'm not sure that you realise how complicated rostering and timetabling public transport actually is.

I know nothing about the difficultes of scheduling a public transport system. What I do know is that prior to the reconfiguration a few months ago, empty 8 and 6 trains were going up and down to Bray most of the day, only full for about 4 trains in each direction.

So eventually, IR cop onto this and start running 2 coach trains, not noticing that they are (dangerously) crammed.

Now, I (who know nothing) would have changed the 8 coach trains to 4 coach trains first and see how that went before reducing capacity further.

Then I would consider adding extra 2 or 4 coach trains to cover for busy peaks during the day (such as school out times), but only running part distance (Dun L) to ease the load.

Then I would consider running a 10 min service to improve frequency on the reduced capacity.

Then I would look at the Commuter trains (29000) running south from Pearse to Bray and substitute them with Dart trains. North bound ones would be replaced with Darts running to GCD where passengers could cross the platform onto the waiting Commuter, which would then depart for wherever, Dart going onto Connolly or depot. Southbound Commuters would terminate at Pearse with a Dart directly behind. Only Rosslare diesels would run south of GCD. Darts are cheaper and quicker than 29000s.

When all these changes were bedded down, I would then look at express Dart trains for peak times with reduced stopping, and also realise the proposed Howth/Howth Junction shuttle service so frequency to Malahide and Howth are increased.

But as I said, I know nothing.

TheBandicoot

Sam Russell wrote: »

Southbound Commuters would terminate at Pearse with a Dart directly behind.

The problem with that is the reason why the commuters go to Bray in the first place- terminating at Pearse will delay peak time DARTs they have to wait for the train to empty and be checked, wait for the slow speed shunt to the sidings, northbound trains waiting for the shunt across the northbound track to complete, etc.

Actually, while on the subject, does anyone know what the DMUS that terminate at Bray in the morning do afterwards? The timetable shows they don't head back north in service until mid-afternoon, so are they stabling there for half the day or do they head ECS and then they or other units come down ECS in the early afternoon?

Sam Russell

They run empty back to Pearse.

Ernest

lxflyer wrote: »

They stop at the stop board on the platform. In the case of Tara Street it's located at a point where the driver can look back and clearly see all of his train.

If you stand beside the blue stop board that has a "2" on it you will always walk straight onto any train.

As I said earlier:
"Why do these short trains still stop at the very furthest point away from the stairs on southbound services arriving at Tara Street??"

With two-carriage train sets a driver can see back to all the two carriages from any point on the platform - including a point nearer the exit/entrance that pasengers would be using.

loyatemu

Ernest wrote: »

As I said earlier:
"Why do these short trains still stop at the very furthest point away from the stairs on southbound services arriving at Tara Street??"

With two-carriage train sets a driver can see back to all the two carriages from any point on the platform - including a point nearer the exit/entrance that pasengers would be using.

there's 2 sets of stairs at Tara St. the stop board is around the Townsend St exit, despite it generally being closed off-peak (when the short trains are running). Its badly placed at P7 in Connolly too - they should be stopping beside the ramp but its a good bit further up the platform.

Also as I mentioned earlier, the diesel trains seem to ignore the stop boards altogether.

Frank Lee Midere

loyatemu wrote: »

there's 2 sets of stairs at Tara St. the stop board is around the Townsend St exit, despite it generally being closed off-peak (when the short trains are running). Its badly placed at P7 in Connolly too - they should be stopping beside the ramp but its a good bit further up the platform.

Also as I mentioned earlier, the diesel trains seem to ignore the stop boards altogether.

Diesel trains are all 8 carriages though?

loyatemu

Frank Lee Midere wrote: »

Diesel trains are all 8 carriages though?

Wexford trains are 3 or 4 car, as are some Maynooth trains. Not sure about the northern line trains.

Captain Chaos

Frank Lee Midere wrote: »

Diesel trains are all 8 carriages though?

They are 4 off peak and 8 most of the time for the 29k commuter class.

end of the road

loyatemu wrote: »

Wexford trains are 3 or 4 car

3 car ICR or 4 car 29 (which should be gone from the line by now no excuses) god be with the days of a full rake of carriges, then those heaps of junk/scrap that were the 2700s were put on to the line