Capacity issues Irish rail

Thrashssacre

With dublin rail infrastructure struggling to meet demand due to lack of suitable rolling stock and capacity issues due the loop line bridge and other bottlenecks, should we be looking to in future train orders have provision for dart/commuter sets to be 10/12 cars, obviously sets that long would not be needed the vast majority of the time but if the stock was ordered with the right mix of 2 and 4 car units these sets could be strengthened or reduced as needed as is standard practice around the world.

Is this feasible with the cost and issues that would come with lengthening platforms (Tara Street springs to mind as a major headache) and due to health and safety concerns I don't think under or overhanging of trains is permitted as was the case before at stations which were shorter. Thoughts?

Pete_Cavan

Surely an infinitely better solution in every respect is higher rather than longer trains? There are double decker trains (not sure what the correct term is when referring to a train) that are within the clearance of at least part of our existing DART network.

We really should be looking into this for the Northern line you would probably only have to replace a dozen or so road bridges and is a far more realistic prospect than adding tracks. There are a lot more bridges and tunnelled sections going south so probably not an option south of GCD.

In an ideal world, the DU tunnel (when/if ever it gets built) would have a bore wide enough to accommodate these trains and then you could have double decker DARTs running from Malahide (or whatever the northern terminus is) to Hazelhatch (assuming the two bridges replaced as part of KRP2 are left with sufficient clearance). You would save a fortune on the DU project if you only have to build ~100m underground stations.

devnull

Thrashssacre wrote: »

With dublin rail infrastructure struggling to meet demand due to lack of suitable rolling stock and capacity issues due the loop line bridge and other bottlenecks, should we be looking to in future train orders have provision for dart/commuter sets to be 10/12 cars, obviously sets that long would not be needed the vast majority of the time but if the stock was ordered with the right mix of 2 and 4 car units these sets could be strengthened or reduced as needed as is standard practice around the world.

Is this feasible with the cost and issues that would come with lengthening platforms (Tara Street springs to mind as a major headache) and due to health and safety concerns I don't think under or overhanging of trains is permitted as was the case before at stations which were shorter. Thoughts?

There's some stations already that are at the maximum length of platforms so you are not going to get longer trains unfortunately to run for any decent portion of the Dublin area network.

A fair few DART trains are still 6 cars at peak time with the odd 4 car working, getting these to 8 cars will create a nice capacity uplift, although that's going to be a few years away from being a reality.

Whilst some of the ideas in this thread are nice, some of them just aren't going to be practical or there is not going to be the funding made available to start erecting a dozen bridges

L1011

Are there any example of double deck trains running long underground stretches? NS do operate all their types, loco hauled and multi unit, underground e.g. at Schiphol - but nowhere as long as the DU tunnel is to be

G_R

L1011 wrote: »

Are there any example of double deck trains running long underground stretches? NS do operate all their types, loco hauled and multi unit, underground e.g. at Schiphol - but nowhere as long as the DU tunnel is to be

The RER in Paris run double deckers if I'm not mistaken.

schemingbohemia

Does frequency not trump capacity of individual trains?

Thrashssacre

schemingbohemia wrote: »

Does frequency not trump capacity of individual trains?

Ideally yes but the government has no plans to quad track any of the northern line until at least 2030 so I'm just throwing out some alternatives in the hope someone with more knowledge then me can say if there feasible or not

Stephen15

L1011 wrote: »

Are there any example of double deck trains running long underground stretches? NS do operate all their types, loco hauled and multi unit, underground e.g. at Schiphol - but nowhere as long as the DU tunnel is to be

Crossrail/Elizabeth Line when it eventually opens

markpb

L1011 wrote: »

Are there any example of double deck trains running long underground stretches? NS do operate all their types, loco hauled and multi unit, underground e.g. at Schiphol - but nowhere as long as the DU tunnel is to be

Stephen15 wrote: »

Crossrail/Elizabeth Line when it eventually opens

Is that true? The Crossrail website makes no reference to double deck trains.

devnull

They're single deck class 345 Bombardier Aventras which have been pretty problematic with ongoing software issues that is effecting all ordered Aventra fleets to some degree or other.

L1011

Stephen15 wrote: »

Crossrail/Elizabeth Line when it eventually opens

The Crossrail units are single deck and I'm fairly certain the loading gauge on some of the repurposed sections would not support double deck at all even if the new sections do. The Connaught Tunnel would be a major issue.

The UK loading gauge, with some exceptions (HS1, some bits of the old Grand Central) is even smaller than here.

Stephen15

L1011 wrote: »

The Crossrail units are single deck and I'm fairly certain the loading gauge on some of the repurposed sections would not support double deck at all even if the new sections do. The Connaught Tunnel would be a major issue.

The UK loading gauge, with some exceptions (HS1, some bits of the old Grand Central) is even smaller than here.

I thought you meant non double deck trains. Yes for double deck trains there are some examples the main one being the RER in Paris also some double deck trains in Sydney use tunnels aswell and I believe some double deck trains go underground in stretches in Rome.

L1011

The majority of underground systems are non double deck so that would have been a very odd question!

Stephen15

L1011 wrote: »

The majority of underground systems are non double deck so that would have been a very odd question!

I thought you were talking about underground heavy rail like Crossrail, RER or DU rather than lighter rail systems such as the London Underground, Metrolink or U-Bahn systems.