Portmarnock residents up in arms

ILBondo

I can see the rationale in Iarnrod Eireann's decision but it is having disastrous consequences. I get the Dart from Tara Street and the impact is taking effect even there, trains are showing up full to the brim and 5 minutes late since Monday.

Forcing people off commuter trains and on to Darts is all well and good, if the Darts are either twice the size or running on a higher frequency, but it's clear not even the 10 minute Dart can alleviate that problem.

Rashers72

And remember passengers on the Northern suburban line have equally ended up a lot worse off.
Despite removing 3 stops from most Northern Suburban line journeys, all seven of the pre 9am inbound Drogheda trains to Pearse M-F now take longer compared to last week. One takes 5 mins longer, one 6 mins longer. 1 remains the same. How can you disimprove journey times by removing so many stops? We simply crawl behind the DARTS once we hit Howth Junction.
All weekday suburban trains from Drogheda after 10am till 3pm now cease at Connolly. And leaving Pearse, all weekday trains from 10am till 3.45pm require an additional journey to Connolly. So much longer journey times from Pearse.
At weekends, all Northern Suburban trains now cease at Connolly:
2 examples: 1. Last Saturday, leave my local station 7.52am, arrive into Pearse 8.36am 44 mins later.
This Saturda get the same train, but it finishes at Connolly. Long gap for the next DART southbound, means you don't arrive into Pearse till 8.49am. New journey time = 57 mins. So a 13 mins disimprovement to service, or 30% longer journey time.
2. You could also get a later 9am train last Saturday with a journey time of 37mins to Pearse. Same journey will be 52mins this Sat = 15 mins longer, or 40% worse off. The got the connection times completely wrong.
Irish Rail/NTA should know from their own data that most customers on the Northern Suburban line want to go to Tara St and Pearse, and not end their journey @ Connolly.
Every year Irish Rail just adds more time onto the journey into town. Ever since the PPT trains were crammed into Connolly last year timetable was heavily padded on Northern Suburban line. Service was much quicker a few years ago.

Cookie_Monster

Rashers72 wrote: »

Despite removing 3 stops from most Northern Suburban line journeys, all seven of the pre 9am inbound Drogheda trains to Pearse M-F now take longer compared to last week. One takes 5 mins longer, one 6 mins longer. 1 remains the same

you keep mentioning this, and that fine. But you state 7 trains but only ever note 3 being later. what happened with the other 4?

sm3ar

The stations can’t actually handle the amount of trains or length of trains needed in Dublin anymore. Big capital needed to expand the big 3 stations in the city, Tara, Pearse and Connolly. Until this happens, Irish rail can try whatever with more frequencies etc but ultimately it will fail.

devnull

sm3ar wrote: »

The stations can’t actually handle the amount of trains or length of trains needed in Dublin anymore. Big capital needed to expand the big 3 stations in the city, Tara, Pearse and Connolly. Until this happens, Irish rail can try whatever with more frequencies etc but ultimately it will fail.

It is pretty pathetic isn't it that you have stations like Pearse especially, that has just two platforms in the middle of a capital city. But then again it's like that through the network, so much of it is two platforms that it was never going to be future proof very much!

It just sums up the planning when all these stations were built ages ago and in the years that followed, that someone thought they could get away with it. Same with not building the other passing loop at Clongriffin to save a few bob when it was built, they even marked the platform up and put a shelter there and wrote stay behind the yellow line, put the signs up etc, but no actual track was laid!

sm3ar

devnull wrote: »

It is pretty pathetic isn't it that you have stations like Pearse especially, that has just two platforms in the middle of a capital city. But then again it's like that through the network, so much of it is two platforms that it was never going to be future proof very much!

Hopefully lessons will be learned for the underground

Deviso

I do think the issue with the station sizes is the fact no one forsaw Dublin growing into what it has become

devnull

sm3ar wrote: »

Hopefully lessons will be learned for the underground

You have more faith in our politicians than I do if you think that!

Unfortunately too many of them are thinking about the next election and needing to get results before that it comes in, so they take the short term view. Also has t be said the electorate often have a short term view as well to be honest, which is almost a self fulfilling prophecy.

devnull

Deviso wrote: »

I do think the issue with the station sizes is the fact no one forsaw Dublin growing into what it has become

Perhaps but in some cases, such as Pearse, they at one point had more platforms which were since removed and also we've seen sidings sold off as well to outside interests which have been lost to the railway for potential future expansion forever, in some cases the CIE Property group have made a lot of money from it.

goingnowhere

None of the platforms in Pearse would help us in the current situation, they faced the wrong way
In the last 35 years only for 18 months was any of the lost platforms in daily use and only for departure

bk

sm3ar wrote: »

The stations can’t actually handle the amount of trains or length of trains needed in Dublin anymore. Big capital needed to expand the big 3 stations in the city, Tara, Pearse and Connolly. Until this happens, Irish rail can try whatever with more frequencies etc but ultimately it will fail.

And not just stations, but track too. If you look at German cities with similar rail networks (S-Bahn is equivalent to DART), you will see they are all at least quad tracked and in many cases even 6-tracked.

So that the DART/S-Bahn have their own two tracks, while longer distance commuter and intercity have their own so that they can easily overtake the slower DARTs stopping at every station.

People asking how commuter trains can now be slower, despite less stops, is very simple, they are stuck behind frequent stopping DARTs on the same track.

I've been warning about this for years, that as DART is expanded, commuter services will suffer and end up no faster then DART.

Now you might ask, why expand DART? Well the answer is it allows the network to carry ever more people as our city grows.

While people point out that trains are getting slower, they seem to forget that our trains are carrying ever more people. There are more trains on the network then ever before and that means more capacity then ever before, but also unfortunately slower trains.

Here are the Irish Rail passenger numbers over the years:
1979: 17million
2002: 35m
2017: 45m

That is massive growth in a short period, almost 3 times as much in just 40 years. And most of that growth is due to DART.

I say this, so people can help understand the issues that the network are facing, understand that we are unlikely to see a return to old schedules, that the capacity of the network has to continue to grow to meet a growing city population.

So that people can understand that shouting for the old schedules to return won't help, instead much better to put the blame in the right place, at the feet of your politicians.

Shout at them to invest in Rail. Shout at then for more DART and commuter carriages. Shout at them to quad track the northern line. Shout at them to expand stations. Shout at them to build DART Underground.

Because they are the only things that will truly fix your journeys.

Dublin Spur

Over the years, unhappy Portmarnock Train Commuters have had the option to switching to Dublin Bus.

But with this Bus Connect thing coming in it seems like alternatives are just as bad.
You're going to have to go to Town via Swords now. A to Z to get to B.

Basically Portmarnock is getting more disconnected by Rail and Bus - its a double whammy !

n97 mini

goingnowhere wrote: »

None of the platforms in Pearse would help us in the current situation, they faced the wrong way

Same could be said for Connolly's platforms 2, 3 and 4. If it's ok to originate a bunch of northern/western commuter trains from Connolly, it should be ok to originate some southern services from Pearse.

Pearse and Connolly are neck-and-neck in the rail census, so it's not like Pearse is in any worse of a location than Connolly.

lawred2

Dublin Spur wrote: »

Over the years, unhappy Portmarnock Train Commuters have had the option to switching to Dublin Bus.

But with this Bus Connect thing coming in it seems like alternatives are just as bad.
You're going to have to go to Town via Swords now. A to Z to get to B.

Basically Portmarnock is getting more disconnected by Rail and Bus - its a double whammy !

no they haven't

DB takes a minimum 45 minutes to get into town

that's not a realistic alternative

ThunbergsAreGo

lawred2 wrote: »

no they haven't

DB takes a minimum 45 minutes to get into town

that's not a realistic alternative

And under the new way it will take an 1h15m

I know people from Portmarnock that would have got the 142 to town for a guarantee of a seat on which they can read a book, watch netflix etc.

Dublin Spur

lawred2 wrote: »

no they haven't

DB takes a minimum 45 minutes to get into town

that's not a realistic alternative

Well I did and I know many others who did the same
The 32x is a good service, not perfect but better than the train for many

PCros

I got the 7:55 DART for the second time this week from Portmarnock and it was 8 carriages as opposed to 4 on Monday.

Throughout the journey there were only about 8-10 people standing in the two standing areas and none of the stations on wards were busy.

Much improved but has another service been sacrificed I wonder?

Muahahaha

Just on expanding stations and upgrading to four tracks, does Tara even have the space anymore for this to happen? It seems like it is hemmed in by buildings.

bk

Muahahaha wrote: »

Just on expanding stations and upgrading to four tracks, does Tara even have the space anymore for this to happen? It seems like it is hemmed in by buildings.

You'd ideally want the DART Underground tunnel too, so that you could avoid Tara and the loop line bridge.

There is little chance of quad tracking the line south of the river and not much need anyway if an unpopular with some, truth be told.

XPS_Zero

bk wrote: »

You'd ideally want the DART Underground tunnel too, so that you could avoid Tara and the loop line bridge.

There is little chance of quad tracking the line south of the river and not much need anyway if an unpopular with some, truth be told.

Everything ends up coming back to DU and Metro...everything. It's gonna have to be done. I am so worried that when the next crash comes (and it WILL come before the shovels start digging that I promise you) they'll think short term again and cancel it. We can't let them do it. I keep telling TD's and councilers that instead of pandering on stuff like this ^ saying "IE should look after my voters, screw the ones down the road if we have to rob capacity from them to do it" they should be all joining together facing the govt benches and saying "finish T21! Build it, just build it!" because that solves all of this long term and if you explained that to people you can get them behind it, they'll demand it at the doors and off we go then.

TBH, being non partisan for a min, I think FG TDs need to do something that they never do, and FF and Lab TDs never did in govt either (with two brave exceptions I can think of) and start standing up at question time and asking their own ministers what the hold up is, every week, over and over and over until they are sick hearing about it..I'm gonna bring it up the first day I get in there if it's not, no matter whos in in what combination , bringing it up every time I open my mouth to the point where I won't be satisifed until I hear "ah jaysus not again" every time I stand up... if they are talking about f---g EU farm subsidies I'm gonna ask them about DU and Metro while they ring that bell to try to shut me up, I won't get an answer in that situation but it will keep the topic alive. We'll have to be all like a broken record on it because their entire mindset is "they want the tax cuts and the 5ers on welfare rates more". We need to change that establishment understanding and the way to do it is to convince people in your daily life that these problems all lead back to the failure to finish T21, then they'll tell canvassers that and we have the required pressure.

They do seem to have spread out the capacity a bit more in the last few days but all of this is short term tinkering.


There is just not enough space on the city streets even on the northside to solve this problem totally with more platforms and tracks, modern cities go underground, we need a combination up not out housing policy - and underground soloutions for rail.
It's gonna require a mindset change from people, but it's the only way, or before we know it Athlone will be a Dublin suburb.

Cookie_Monster

lawred2 wrote: »

no they haven't

DB takes a minimum 45 minutes to get into town

that's not a realistic alternative

you can cycle quicker than that...

Zulu

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

you can cycle quicker than that...

You can, and I do!

PCros

Portmarnock will have two additional services from next Monday.
-07:29 Portmarnock Pearse
-07:42 Portmarnock Bray

Clongriffin will have the following extra service:
-07:45 Clongriffin Bray

http://www.irishrail.ie/news/timetable-alternations-from-monday-17th-september-due-to-customer-feedback

ThunbergsAreGo

PCros wrote: »

Portmarnock will have two additional services from next Monday.
-07:29 Portmarnock Pearse
-07:42 Portmarnock Bray

Clongriffin will have the following extra service:
-07:45 Clongriffin Bray

http://www.irishrail.ie/news/timetable-alternations-from-monday-17th-september-due-to-customer-feedback

Wow! Direct from Portmarnock and everything

PCros

naughtb4 wrote: »

Wow! Direct from Portmarnock and everything

I'm not sure if these are originating from Portmarnock or actually just addressing the areas as they were a problem.

Muahahaha

bk wrote: »

You'd ideally want the DART Underground tunnel too, so that you could avoid Tara and the loop line bridge.

There is little chance of quad tracking the line south of the river and not much need anyway if an unpopular with some, truth be told.

I get the importance of DU and personally think it is more important than Metrolink and should have been prioritised. But given that policy is the Metro comes first and the earliest we are likely to see DU is around 2040 would quad tracking between Connolly and Tara now not at least alleviate that bottle neck and improve capacity significantly? If trains cant pass each other out it is difficult to see any further improvements for IE in that stretch of the city centre over the next 20 years, possibly longer.

Muahahaha

XPS_Zero wrote: »

TBH, being non partisan for a min, I think FG TDs need to do something that they never do, and FF and Lab TDs never did in govt either (with two brave exceptions I can think of) and start standing up at question time and asking their own ministers what the hold up is, every week, over and over and over until they are sick hearing about it...

One thing that has always struck me about the difference here and in the UK is how the parliament functions at question time. In the Commons members of the governments own party stand up and ask questions to hold their ministers to account. Question time is not just for the opposition to ask questions but for the governing partys politicians to also do likewise. Here at question time we have an empty chamber and all the government party TDs are nowhere to be seen. The policy of the governing party here always seems to be that TDs from their own party are not allowed to publically question them at question time, likely for fear of them being made look bad or some such guff. It makes a farce of democracy compared to how they do it across the water.

lawred2

PCros wrote: »

Portmarnock will have two additional services from next Monday.
-07:29 Portmarnock Pearse
-07:42 Portmarnock Bray

Clongriffin will have the following extra service:
-07:45 Clongriffin Bray

http://www.irishrail.ie/news/timetable-alternations-from-monday-17th-september-due-to-customer-feedback

Fair play - a prompt reaction. That's impressive

goingnowhere

To be fair anyone with any cop on would have known from day 1 it wasn't working, no praise due here at all

bk

Muahahaha wrote: »

I get the importance of DU and personally think it is more important than Metrolink and should have been prioritised. But given that policy is the Metro comes first and the earliest we are likely to see DU is around 2040 would quad tracking between Connolly and Tara now not at least alleviate that bottle neck and improve capacity significantly? If trains cant pass each other out it is difficult to see any further improvements for IE in that stretch of the city centre over the next 20 years, possibly longer.

It depends on what you mean by improvements?

If you mean faster journey times, then no, I don't see any major improvements in that area without significant investment in quad tracking, passing loops, etc. and even then there is only so much you can do before you run into platform/station capacity constraints.

If you mean improvements in capacity? Then yes, more can be done with the existing network.

More DART carriages, so all DART trains are 8 carriage trains would go a long way to helping ease the overcrowding we are seeing.

More commuter carriages and trains are badly needed.

Commuter trains being hybird eletric-diesel, so that they can act more like DARTs along the electrified sections of track, stopping more frequently at stations, would help better balance capacity between services (e.g. where people are seeing half empty commuter trains pass by jam packed DARTs).

There are things to be done infrastructure wise that can help. Closing level crossings would be a major one. But to be honest I wouldn't expect big journey time improvements from them, I suspect time gains will get eaten up by increased capacity, more trains, more frequency, more stations, more stopping.

Honestly I'd say the best to hope for is journey times remain relatively static, while capacity grows greatly.

I'm looking forward to see what they come up with for the DART expansion plan.