Portmarnock residents up in arms

lawred2

PCros wrote: »

What time did the 814 get you into town at? Pearse?

Roughly 844 or so at Connolly

devnull

Zulu wrote: »

The "majority" of the day? You mean "off peak"?

For the first half of morning peak, Clongriffin had trains at 6.37, 7.07, 7.37. Now it has trains at 6.27, 6.47, 7.07, 7.27. Note that whilst all commuter services stopped at Portmarnock, very few of them did at CLongriffin.

The earlier first train was also lobbied to Irish Rail by business at EastPoint Business Park, to allow their staff to get in for a 7am start.

Zulu

devnull wrote: »

For the first half of morning peak, Clongriffin had trains at 6.37, 7.07, 7.37. Now it has trains at 6.27, 6.47, 7.07, 7.27. Note that whilst all commuter services stopped at Portmarnock, very few of them did at CLongriffin.

The earlier first train was also lobbied to Irish Rail by business at EastPoint Business Park, to allow their staff to get in for a 7am start.

My point stands for Portmarnock regardless.

Sono

Got the 7:19 Dart from Howth junction this morning, half a dart, wedged by Raheny.

I used to go in early so I would get in comfortably on the dart and sit down for my 35 min journey, not impressed this morning at all

Decuc500

Sono wrote: »

Got the 7:19 Dart from Howth junction this morning, half a dart, wedged by Raheny.

I used to go in early so I would get in comfortably on the dart and sit down for my 35 min journey, not impressed this morning at all

Has every dart from the Northside being cut in half? Surely there's enough carriages in circulation to have rush hour 6/8 carriages and non rush hour 4?

This new timetable is beyond ridiculous and has created crushes where there were none previously.

AlekSmart

Serena Williams could'nt play a better ding-dong game

In essence this thread underlines the reality of how Dublin and environs continue to rely upon a largely unaltered Railway network from the latter half of the 19th Century.

http://industrialheritageireland.info/railwayarchaeology/index.php/railway-archaeology-of-ireland/chapter-1-railway-history-of-ireland/

Sadly for Busconnects,the attempts to encourage multi-modal commuting will fall at the hurdle of attempting to sledgehammer the 19th Century Rail into a (hopefully) 21st Century Bus system.....

I do hope the NTA have a suitably enthusiastic fellow to handle the PR for this aspect alone ?

thomasj

The NBRU in the booklets that it distributed following busconnects announcement warned that this would happen .......

XPS_Zero

I'm of two minds on this, at first it seems like the same "only look at my bit of the jigsaw puzzle not the big picture" tendency among Irish people that plagues any policy change. But it seems odd to cut services to a station with so much increaced capacity.

Could someone explain something, I get that the locals hate losing the more express service to CC and half their services, but I don't get two things:

1. Is Portmarnock only mad busy at the rush hours? If so, is there not some soloution that can be arrived at where trains are slotted into the timetable that are rush hour only?

2. What is IE trying to gain here? To main more room overall for 10 min DARTs by getting more Commuters out of the way faster?

3. Anyone have any actual ideas on how they could fix this without making a balls of the 10 min plan?

end of the road

devnull wrote: »

There are a higher number of DART carriages in service at peak time now than before the timetable change.

Think the belief that you seem to suggest that there are less DART coaches in service than before is ridiculously hyperbolic.

Even if they didn't add any more and kept the same capacity would be the same it would just be spread different on DART services.

i don't think he is suggesting there are less dart carriges in service. i think his point is that the amount of dart carriges we have cannot do both the running of a 10 minute service and have full capacity on services. in short, we have enough sets to send a train out to run services but not enough sets to insure those trains are as long as possible/needed. you are right the load will spread around a bit but don't forget the new users/potential new users including those displaced from the suburbans at portmarnock.

ixoy

I get on at Killester and packed trains could stop me completely. My 0757 train used to be followed by one at 1802. Now there's a 10 minute gap and what sounds like reduced capacity, which will be a right pain.

Was there any thoughts given to properly increasing capacity at rush hour? It's nuts to have almost the same numbers as off peak.

devnull

ixoy wrote: »

I get on at Killester and packed trains could stop me completely. My 0757 train used to be followed by one at 1802. Now there's a 10 minute gap and what sounds like reduced capacity, which will be a right pain.

Well on the old Timetable when I used to work at Eastpoint in 2017, my Malahide DART was at 18:01 and the next one was at 18:46, both of which were regularly a struggle to board.

For people working in Eastpoint and living in Malahide, Portmarnock and Clongriffin, the new timetable is a massive improvement on what went before.

I agree there are winners and losers, but people make out that the last timetable was perfect, when there were people, like Eastpoint workers living in the places above, who were very badly served by it.

ThunbergsAreGo

Really feels like the Transport Authorities dont plan for people commuting to work in rush hour at all

Colonel Claptrap

XPS_Zero wrote: »

I'm of two minds on this, at first it seems like the same "only look at my bit of the jigsaw puzzle not the big picture" tendency among Irish people that plagues any policy change. But it seems odd to cut services to a station with so much increaced capacity.

Fingal county council designated lands directly beside the station as priority residential zoning when creating the South Portmarnock Local Area Plan (LAP). This provides for up to 900 dwellings.

In addition, 1 of these developments was the first in the country to be awarded fast track planning permission under new Dept. Of Housing initiative to strategically build homes close to key transport infrastructure.

In this case, it's not the locals obsessed with the jigsaw piece and ignoring the bigger puzzle. Its the NTA and Irish Rail.

devnull

naughtb4 wrote: »

Really feels like the Transport Authorities dont plan for people commuting to work in rush hour at all

With all due respect, the infrastructure that is needed to make the services the best they can be is not there, but they don't use the loop at Clongriffin anywhere near enougn.

XPS_Zero

Colonel Claptrap wrote: »

Fingal county council designated lands directly beside the station as priority residential zoning when creating the South Portmarnock Local Area Plan (LAP). This provides for up to 900 dwellings.

In addition, 1 of these developments was the first in the country to be awarded fast track planning permission under new Dept. Of Housing initiative to strategically build homes close to key transport infrastructure.

In this case, it's not the locals obsessed with the jigsaw piece and ignoring the bigger puzzle. Its the NTA and Irish Rail.

Aren't there plans to four track this area and don't we already have to CPO and smash through houses to accomplish this? Why build houses on this land?

Or was that just a proposed "could be done" thing I'm confusing with an actual plan? If we do DU and Metro (ever...ever...) it might negate the need for that.

It does seem strange to depriortize a growing area. The entire rationale for BRT, new bus plans in north side and Metro was the exploding population in the Swords area.

Colonel Claptrap

XPS_Zero wrote: »

Aren't there plans to four track this area and don't we already have to CPO and smash through houses to accomplish this? Why build houses on this land?

Plenty of room was left for quad tracking.

XPS_Zero

Colonel Claptrap wrote: »

Plenty of room was left for quad tracking.

As part of the plan? Good if that's the case, it would just be surprising competence.


Its not just the ps
As I get older, I find that what I was told was true, you find far more incompetence in the world than the opposite.

ThunbergsAreGo

devnull wrote: »

With all due respect, the infrastructure that is needed to make the services the best they can be is not there, but they don't use the loop at Clongriffin anywhere near enougn.

They have just removed trains from the time people are commuting

devnull

naughtb4 wrote: »

They have just removed trains from the time people are commuting

Not for all people, as I said, people at Eastpoint who live in Portmarnock, Malahide and Clongriffin had to wait over 40 minutes between services in evening peak and even then were not able to board a train. Now they have a service every 20 minutes.

They were also unable to get to work for a 7.00am start, which was a problem because most of the companies there are doing work for the whole of Europe which is an hour ahead so 7.00am in Ireland is 8.00am in Europe. This has also been resolved as first train of the day leaves 10 minutes earlier.

Sure, there are some losers in this as well, but to say everyone has lost out isn't true at all.

thomasj

https://twitter.com/IrishRail/status/1039168031124086784?s=09

devnull

I believe the issue is a lack of staff to drive the trains.

Zulu

devnull wrote: »

...Sure, there are some losers in this as well, but to say everyone has lost out isn't true at all.

"Some"? Save the handful who work in Eastpoint (and I'm not convinced they've gained but I'll take your word fro it), the majority from Portmarnock have lost out

ThunbergsAreGo

devnull wrote: »

Not for all people, as I said, people at Eastpoint who live in Portmarnock, Malahide and Clongriffin had to wait over 40 minutes between services in evening peak and even then were not able to board a train. Now they have a service every 20 minutes.

They were also unable to get to work for a 7.00am start, which was a problem because most of the companies there are doing work for the whole of Europe which is an hour ahead so 7.00am in Ireland is 8.00am in Europe. This has also been resolved as first train of the day leaves 10 minutes earlier.

Sure, there are some losers in this as well, but to say everyone has lost out isn't true at all.

I did mean more general transport as opposed to this directly. The trains are full to capacity and large increases are expected in Fingal over the next few years.

The plan seems to be leave the trains as they are (or reduce service in this case) and remove express buses, replacing them with interchanges.

PCros

devnull wrote: »

I believe the issue is a lack of staff to drive the trains.

If that was the case surely they would have known that more than 15 minutes before the first cancellation?

devnull

PCros wrote: »

If that was the case surely they would have known that more than 15 minutes before the first cancellation?

Not if it's unofficial industrial action, which has been hinted at previously.

Zulu wrote: »

"Some"? Save the handful who work in Eastpoint (and I'm not convinced they've gained but I'll take your word fro it), the majority from Portmarnock have lost out

More than a handful, the number of staff who work there is in four figures!

Before it was impossible for someone from Clongriffin/Portmarnock/Malahide to get there for 7.00am, people in Clongriffin had 30 minutes between trains in morning peak and now have 20 and there was a 40 minute gap in Malahide DARTS in the evening, these are all facts.

I'm not saying that it means that others should suffer, just highlighting the point.

Zulu

devnull wrote: »

More than a handful, the number of staff who work there is in four figures!

And yet, they dont make up the majority. By a long shot.

I accept you are making a specific point, but in context it's a bit trivial.

Infini

devnull wrote: »

Not if it's unofficial industrial action, which has been hinted at previously.

Could also be people just sick and the lack of any spare drivers showing how thinly spread staff are too.

XPS_Zero

How did this line get on before the DARTs came along?

or is that so long ago is't an apples and oranges comparason? was there a major population spike during the latter tiger era in that area?

lawred2

1714 from Connolly to Malahide is a few carriages short

lawred2

XPS_Zero wrote: »

How did this line get on before the DARTs came along?

or is that so long ago is't an apples and oranges comparason? was there a major population spike during the latter tiger era in that area?

Not a relevant comparison I'd say.