DART Service to be expanded

devnull

The only train I've seen that full so nobody can get on is that 17:10 from Bray.

Anything before Pearse is very crowded with quite a few standing but people can always get on even if it's quite close and personal from Lansdowne onwards but I've seen people not able too get on at Pearse, Tara Street, Connolly and Clontarf Road before. From Kilester to Clongriffin it's very crowded and not much room, but there is soome room, after Clongriffin there's plenty.

Hungerford

I presume that this means that longer distance commuter services on the Northern and Rosslare lines will become even slower as there are more DARTs to get stuck behind?

shoehorn

I've just been reading '150 Years of Irish Railways', published 1983. Under a paragraph titled 'Electrification' it reads "Four car trains will run every five minutes during peak periods and every fifteen minutes at other times."

Looking forward to this service.

thomasj

shoehorn wrote: »

I've just been reading '150 Years of Irish Railways', published 1983. Under a paragraph titled 'Electrification' it reads "Four car trains will run every five minutes during peak periods and every fifteen minutes at other times."

Looking forward to this service.

Jeez IE would be bankrupt in no time! :eek:

Captain Chaos

The best laugh about that is that when that was written they was 40 2 cars sets ordered. You would need 100% fleet availability and no sets in maintenance to achieve a 4 car set every 5mins between Howth and Bray. You are talking 3 DARTs one way within a 5 mile block at a time, no way could that have been achieved in the late 1980s. Only with the DASH 1 signal upgrades are we even getting this during peak times in the city centre area between long distance services.

Captain Chaos

Captain Chaos wrote: »

Thats sets 31/32, only back from the paint shop a few weeks. It's under frames are painted black instead of the usual grey so it does stand out.

It's anything that's left out the south end right beside the park fence that you worry about. That's where the 8200 units were dumped for years before being officially withdrawn and dumped in Inchicore depot.

The newly painted set was gone today when I passed the depot. Don't know if it was move inside or it's back in service.

The other set dumped at the south end of the depot has been pushed right up against the buffer stops over the weekend, not a good sign at all. Can't see it being used for anything any time soon.

devnull

Tonight there is 8339 parked there.

It's dirty as hell, but seems like they just applied new logos to it since they shine like hell and are very clean, you can see even the shape of the adhesives since they are so clean but everything else is very dirty.

I'd have thought they'd have washed the train before putting the new logos on, but seems they decided to skip that and apply new logos to the dirty train or am I missing something here?

There's one 8500 train parked up right over the far side, on the shed side on the south of the depot missing all it's logos on front and side, gives me the impression that is withdrawn now it's been totally debranded or it's due to be repainted.

Captain Chaos

devnull wrote: »

There's one 8500 train parked up right over the far side, on the shed side on the south of the depot missing all it's logos on front and side, gives me the impression that is withdrawn now it's been totally debranded or it's due to be repainted.

That set has been out of service for over a year and has repeatedly targeted by vandals. It got tagged very badly over the bank holiday weekend. They keep washing it off though yet it still looks grubby. Just needs a repaint. The drivers window has been smashed a long time and has not been fixed.

Speaking of overcrowding. Yesterday I got home far latter than usual and was in Connolly at 17:30. I was going northbound and at 17:40 a car car 8100 set shows up smash jammed to the doors, could not get on it and I along with others were left behind on the platform.

5mins later a southbound service arrives, 8 car 8100 set more or less empty. If you gathered everyone up they would take up all the seat of 2 coaches max.

So a 15 min gap at peak time and then next north bound DART is a 4 car 8500 set, I managed to fight my way on to that along with everyone else that was left behind from the last short DART. But it's a joke having half size trains going through the city centre at the height of the evening peak. There is no excuse for it.

They are not planning their sets right for the time of day at all.

Decuc500

Captain Chaos wrote: »

Speaking of overcrowding. Yesterday I got home far latter than usual and was in Connolly at 17:30. I was going northbound and at 17:40 a car car 8100 set shows up smash jammed to the doors, could not get on it and I along with others were left behind on the platform.

And yet the powers that be are telling us that all services are being monitored and there are no passengers being left behind. Shows you the regard IR have for their paying passengers.

LXFlyer

Captain Chaos wrote: »

That set has been out of service for over a year and has repeatedly targeted by vandals. It got tagged very badly over the bank holiday weekend. They keep washing it off though yet it still looks grubby. Just needs a repaint. The drivers window has been smashed a long time and has not been fixed.

Speaking of overcrowding. Yesterday I got home far latter than usual and was in Connolly at 17:30. I was going northbound and at 17:40 a car car 8100 set shows up smash jammed to the doors, could not get on it and I along with others were left behind on the platform.

5mins later a southbound service arrives, 8 car 8100 set more or less empty. If you gathered everyone up they would take up all the seat of 2 coaches max.

So a 15 min gap at peak time and then next north bound DART is a 4 car 8500 set, I managed to fight my way on to that along with everyone else that was left behind from the last short DART. But it's a joke having half size trains going through the city centre at the height of the evening peak. There is no excuse for it.

They are not planning their sets right for the time of day at all.

While not defending the use of 4 car DARTs at that time (and I am not - so please anyone don't suggest that I am), I'm not sure you can pass judgement on the southbound service by looking at the loading at Connolly. The main southbound stations would be Tara Street, Pearse and Grand Canal Dock - by the time it left Grand Canal Dock I'm sure the loading was much higher.

On its previous trip northbound it probably was heavily loaded with schoolchildren heading home from school and the capacity would have been needed.

You can't look at one particular time/location in isolation. That train may well have needed that capacity on the earlier northbound service. It's robbing Peter to pay Paul I'm afraid at the moment.

dublindiehard

Captain Chaos wrote: »

Speaking of overcrowding. Yesterday I got home far latter than usual and was in Connolly at 17:30. I was going northbound and at 17:40 a car car 8100 set shows up smash jammed to the doors, could not get on it and I along with others were left behind on the platform.

You hsould try the one 15 minutes later, which is worse still.

It's the first train to serve Clongriffin, Portmarnock Malahide for half an hour and it's a 4 car.

Meanwhile the DART half an hour before it to Malahide has 6 cars, despite the fact it has a commuter service about 10 minutes before it, same with all of the other earlier evening peak services.

You have a 30 minute gap in services to three stations and have a 4 car, you have a 10-15 minute gap earlier on in the peak and they're longer.

Go figure.

There is no excuse from the 17.10 from Bray to be 4 cars.

LXFlyer

dublindiehard wrote: »

You hsould try the one 15 minutes later, which is worse still.

It's the first train to serve Clongriffin, Portmarnock Malahide for half an hour and it's a 4 car.

Meanwhile the DART half an hour before it to Malahide has 6 cars, despite the fact it has a commuter service about 10 minutes before it, same with all of the other earlier evening peak services.

You have a 30 minute gap in services to three stations and have a 4 car, you have a 10-15 minute gap earlier on in the peak and they're longer.

Go figure.

There is no excuse from the 17.10 from Bray to be 4 cars.

Is it not a 20 minute gap?

There is a commuter train that serves all three at 17:35 from Connolly?

dublindiehard

Yeah, it's 20 minutes,my bad.

Still it's vastly overcrowded every day, a 8 car to Howth and a 6 car to Howth within 11 minutes is overkill like what it is at present, especially when on those trains there are plenty of seats with most people getting off at Raheny or Kilbarack.

The train to Malahide little people get off before Howth Junction, and the ones that do are replaced by more people and people still get left behind. There's a sizeable number of people now who simply don't take Malahide trains and just take Howth ones and change at Howth Junction, at least that way you have a better chance of being able to get on.

Running all three of them as six car would be a better compromise, ther'es no way that Howth train should be 8 car when it's got a service 10 minutes serving all stations before it, people are not even traveling to stations on the Howth Branch!

LXFlyer

dublindiehard wrote: »

Yeah, it's 20 minutes,my bad.

Still it's vastly overcrowded every day, a 8 car to Howth and a 6 car to Howth within 11 minutes is overkill like what it is at present, especially when on those trains there are plenty of seats with most people getting off at Raheny.

The train to Malahide little people get off before Howth Junction, and the ones that do are replaced by more people and people still get left behind.

Running all three of them as six car would be a better compromise, ther'es no way that Howth train should be 8 car when it's got a service 10 minutes serving all stations before it, people are not even traveling to stations on the Howth Branch!

Again though - you would have to look at what that train does beforehand as well before coming to that conclusion. You can't look at one train in isolation. For example, it could be jammed with schoolchildren on the previous journey.


Again I'm not defending the four car sets, far from it, but balancing the sets is an incredibly complex task - it's far harder than most people seem to think.

MGWR

shoehorn wrote: »

I've just been reading '150 Years of Irish Railways', published 1983. Under a paragraph titled 'Electrification' it reads "Four car trains will run every five minutes during peak periods and every fifteen minutes at other times."

Looking forward to this service.

I seem to recall that DART ran at five-minute intervals when first inaugurated. I recall that the longest trains used were six-car affairs.

I find it funny that all the hoopla with closing DART on weekends to extend platforms to eight cars at all stations has led to this pass.

goingnowhere

MGWR wrote: »

I seem to recall that DART ran at five-minute intervals when first inaugurated. I recall that the longest trains used were six-car affairs..

DART never provided a sustained 5 minute frequency in peak hour

First scheduled 6 coach train went into service in 1994 on a peak hour Howth Dun Laoghaire service

LXFlyer

goingnowhere wrote: »

DART never provided a sustained 5 minute frequency in peak hour

First scheduled 6 coach train went into service in 1994 on a peak hour Howth Dun Laoghaire service

To be fair, it was more a statement that during peak periods there would be times when there would be DARTs every 5 minutes.

I have a timetable from around the start of DART that shows DARTs leaving Bray at 08:00 and then every 5 minutes from 08:10 to 08:30.

At the same time through having a combination of Howth starters and others starting at Howth Junction there was a five minute frequency from Howth Junction at certain times - it was never possible to do a 5 minute frequency throughout the peaks due to the Northern line services and Maynooths having to fit in.

dublindiehard

lxflyer wrote: »

Again though - you would have to look at what that train does beforehand as well before coming to that conclusion. You can't look at one train in isolation. For example, it could be jammed with schoolchildren on the previous journey.


Again I'm not defending the four car sets, far from it, but balancing the sets is an incredibly complex task - it's far harder than most people seem to think.

Indeed, but the reverse could also be argued here, A complaint said that the reason that it cannot be long enough as there is not enough demand on the later service going south.for a six or eight car.

However in other trains, the argument is it's so long because and earlier train needs the capacity, and the later one doesn't. Which is a complate contradiction.

LXFlyer

dublindiehard wrote: »

Indeed, but the reverse could also be argued here, A complaint said that the reason that it cannot be long enough as there is not enough demand on the later service going south.for a six or eight car.

However in other trains, the argument is it's so long because and earlier train needs the capacity, and the later one doesn't. Which is a complate contradiction.

The bottom line is that you have to look at what each set's diagram is in their entirety before suggesting that a train ought to be shortened in favour of another.

You cannot look at a single train in isolation.

Captain Chaos

For the afternoon around, 15:00-15:30 all 4 cars set should be rotated out of service or increased to 6-8 car sets in both directions and nothing shorter than 6 cars should be in service between 16:00 and 19:30 in any part of the DART line during the weekdays.

I remember last summer and I used to get a northbound DART at Pearse every Friday and it was a 2 car set at 15:00 in the day!! I was wedged, when we got to Connolly the 2 car set was removed from service and an empty 4 car 8500 was waiting for us. On Friday alot of people and most students finish early for the weekend so it basically rush loads at 3pm in the city centre combined with tourists. I don't think IE have a real sense of reality and must think everyone works 9-5/6 and only take 15mins to get to and from work.

All that extra shunting movements and drivers during the day with sets running empty to and from Connolly-Fairview, Fairview to Malahide and Howth all empty movements and they still get it so so worng. It must be easier and cost less time and money and less drivers by leaving all the sets as they were up to 3 years ago as all 6 and 8 car sets regardless of time of day.

dublindiehard

Well I've seen two people collapse since the turn of the year, with the weather getting warmer, they're gonna hope that there is a seasonal reduction in passengers on that train that offsets the tourists since with the warm weather it's only going to get worse.

The other alternative is to rejig the timetable. On those two Howth trains there is barely anyone going on those two Howth trains to stations beyond Howth Junction with plenty of seats let alone standing space.

Meanwhile on the Malahide there is barely any room to stand even after Howth Junction where a load more people join, who go tthe earlier howth Train, becuase they knew they'd most likely not to be able to get on the Malahide.

Cookie_Monster

Captain Chaos wrote: »

All that extra shunting movements and drivers during the day with sets running empty to and from Connolly-Fairview, Fairview to Malahide and Howth all empty movements and they still get it so so worng. It must be easier and cost less time and money and less drivers by leaving all the sets as they were up to 3 years ago as all 6 and 8 car sets regardless of time of day.

100% agree. I can't see how minimal power and maint costs of running longer sets would ever outweigh the costs associated with empty running, chopping and changing lengths and the shunting work required.