Cork Area Commuter Rail (CACR) [Old archived version]

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122575470#Comment_122575470

Galway station is named after Éamonn Ceannt.

Cork station is named after Thomas Kent.

DylanQuestion

^ Thank you.

specialbyte

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122575407#Comment_122575407

but naming a station ‘central’ ‘east’ or ‘west’ just feels very boring and is something done in essentially no cities in Europe.

Brussel-Zuid (Brussels South), Amsterdam Zuid (Amsterdam South), Amsterdam Centraal (Amsterdam Central), Paris Gare du Nord (north station), Gare de l'Est (Station of the East) would all tend to disagree with you there.

OisinCooke

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122575602#Comment_122575602

Ok yes… point taken, but I still feel that it has less character than naming a station after a street or person, of which there are far more examples in Europe and the wider world

It was a trivial off-topic comment anyway, and plus changing the names of those specific stations is not something that will ever happen. I do still believe that ‘Dublin’ should prefix all the main termini on the announcements

Zebra3

Nobody wants character, they want accuracy.

Howth Junction has great character and history. Donaghmede is far more accurate and useful.

scrabtom

I want character. I wish the Dart lines had names too.

Zebra3

DART lines? There’s only one…

cantalach

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122575407#Comment_122575407

Just on the point about boring names, the main train station in most cities in the German speaking world is the Hauptbahnhof. This translates as Main Railway Station.

KrisW1001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122576644#Comment_122576644

Yes.. Munich's three mainline railway stations are "Haupt-", "Ost-" and "Süd-": Main, East and South (the latter is freight only). I don't think anywhere as the whole set of compass points.

This isn't very exciting, but it's actually useful when planning a journey, as the "Main" station will be the one closest to the city centre. No need to get a map, but you do need a little bit of the language (e.g. Prague's main station is clearly named Praha Hlavní Nadrazi "Prague Main Station")

Naming after streets is less useful to visitors, but at least it provides a geographical clue..

We, of course, take the worst option and name after people. (Although Connoly and Pearse are indeed as central to the 1916 Rising as their namesake stations are Dublin city, that is not an efficient way of conveying the information..)

@scrabtom I have the opposite opinion. I really dislike named lines.. they make signage more difficult to design, and make it less clear, and also the names cannot really be used to indicate a hierarchy of service levels (e.g., unlike numbered lines where high-numbered services have lower frequencies).

I have a greater dislike of systems where lines are named "Green", "Silver", "Blue" and so on (yes, I don't like how the Luas lines are named) ... there's only a small number of colours that people agree on (and lets not forget that around 5% of the male population is clinically colour blind), so the name-space is limited from the start. Plus, what additional useful meaning can you convey with colours? Is "Yellow" a higher level of service than "Green"? This is even worse than naming lines after people.

Anyway, this may be a moot point. From the new fleet mockup photos, it seems that DART services will be numbered "D1", "D2", etc.

DylanQuestion

Off topic to this thread but D1 and D2 could be confusing given the Eircodes of the same name. Cork probably does it better with “Midleton Line” or “Cobh Line”. It’s named, but not a random name (like Elizabeth Line, or Red Line), instead the end destination

scrabtom

Are they not called Dart North, Dart South, Dart East and Dart South East?

I know rationally probably it makes more sense to have them named like that but I do just find it a little dull. I love going to London and getting on all the tube lines with random names.

OisinCooke

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122576917#Comment_122576917

Again a very good point, I put my hands in the air and take back what I said about the European stations names, I’m not really sure where I got that from and it was very wrong…! Sorry!

I suppose though that this whole conversation is slightly trivial as whether you see it as a good or a bad thing, they aren’t going to rename the stations away from their current 1916 signatory names.

Very interesting point about numbered DART lines though, I wasn’t aware that that was a thing…

namloc1980

It's disappointing that in the latest changes to the timetables that later trains on the Cobh/Midleton lines were not considered. Trains finishing up at 10:45 to Midleton on weekends is nonsense.

KrisW1001

Here are the mockups of the trains showing “D1” and “D2”. This could just be someone at Alstom putting plausible-looking text on the display, or it could be based on a plan IÉ have for line numbers.

“North”, “South” as names wouldn’t work, because those are lines, not services: right now, services already run from Malahide (“North” line) to Bray (on the “South” line). By “service” I mean something that would be drawn as a continuous line on a map: basically what the general public would refer to as a “line”.

I can see at least four distinct services on DART+, or more if you decide to count branches and alternate terminal stations as separate services (as German cities do). But at minimum, the network will have these four, just as a result of replicating Commuter services and using the Phoenix Park Tunnel:

1. M3 Parkway/Maynooth - Connolly/Docklands (this could be two services, or one with two branches either end)
2. Drogheda - Bray, Drogheda - Docklands
3. Hazelhatch - Heuston, Hazelhatch-Heuston West-Docklands
4. Howth - Bray, Howth - Donaghmede (shuttle)

Looking at the links that have been electrified, there’s also potential for four new services to be provided (always remembering that there’s a big difference between “can”, “should” and “will”):

5. Bray - Heuston West - Hazelhatch
6. Bray - Heuston West - M3/Maynooth
7. Drogheda - Connolly - Hazelhatch (calling at Connolly)
8. Drogheda - Connolly - Maynooth/M3 (calling at Connolly)

The lack of a Northern-to-Western curve north of Connolly prevents a direct Drogheda - Hazelhatch or Drogheda - Maynooth, but it could be achieved by calling at Connolly from one set of tracks, and leaving via another.

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122577887#Comment_122577887

That was raised and they don’t have enough drivers yet to deliver that right now.

See point 39 on the link below.

As I’ve posted before on Boards, you’re seeing incremental increases in services across the network with every timetable change. The next timetable change will probably be in 2025 and hopefully that should see services such as that added.

https://www.irishrail.ie/en-ie/news/New-Timetable-2024

Cookiemunster

Sooooo, any CACR related posts? Can a mod move the DART stuff to the actual DART thread?

KrisW1001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122578654#Comment_122578654

Seconded.. Sorry to have contributed to this: I thought this was the DART thread!

spacetweek

Off topic stuff has been moved to a new thread:

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058367670/naming-conventions-for-train-stations-and-lines

DylanQuestion

I wonder once Platform 6 opens, will any of the commuter trains terminate in Kent, or if it will just be a stop on the Mallow-Midleton and Mallow-Cobh lines

hans aus dtschl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122901105#Comment_122901105

I think Kent will be just a stop for a lot of the trains but some will still terminate in Kent unfortunately. My understanding/belief is that Little Island will be the primary changeover point, and Cobh, Mallow and Midleton will be the terminus/termini. I don't know how realistic that is, and maybe they'll still tie into the Cork-Dublin for Mallow services? But it didn't work well last time so I don't see why it would work better next time.

Also there might be a lot of maintenance/storage facilities in Kent and I think they should try to move those facilities out to North Esk or something to reuse the valuable city centre land in Kent for development and rent-roll. I'm obviously not a train nerd, so I don't know the technical aspects about this stuff, but I don't see facilities like this right at the station in the centre of many European cities, it's usually on the periphery.

DylanQuestion

I wonder once Platform 6 finishes, what will they move their attention to. Oh how I would love for it to be the Blackpool stop, but I imagine that won’t happen until Midleton twin tracking is done

cantalach

The long term plan is for services from Glounthane to Kent to be at 5-minute intervals, and for services from Kent to Mallow to be at 10-minute intervals. So I guess that means that only half will be through services.

hans aus dtschl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122938355#Comment_122938355

I'd like to think if Kilbarry or Blarney came online that they could bring their 5 minute frequency through to the North but the intercity trains are the big problem here.

namloc1980

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122901423#Comment_122901423

The train stations are next up as well as a new depot once platform 6, signalling and Glounthaune twin tracking are done.

hans aus dtschl

Glounthaune accessibility works just in planning now too, I'm hearing

Pete_Cavan

Isn't the only "new" info in the image above that a P&R will be provided at Dunkettle? I was under the impression that indications were that a P&R there wasn't favoured. I'm pretty sure everything else had been confirmed already?

hans aus dtschl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122940661#Comment_122940661

I hate to be even more negative but I saw a similar graphic in Kent station twenty years ago.

Markcheese

Yeah , wasn't it supposed to be Blackpool , dunkettle park and ride , carrigtohil west , ballyadam ( for a factory that was never built) and waterrock ?

The NRA put the brakes on Dunkettle because they were planning the dunkettle interchange - (which they designed without the park and ride at all )

Ballyadam was the Amgen pharmaceutical site which never happened, but the site still belongs to the IDA,

Waterrock has got a road built to where the station could be , but they're going to wait till all the houses are built first , so basically till the train isn't required,

Kilbarry and carrigtohil west ,? Because the powers that be couldn't be bothered?

spacetweek

The NRA put the brakes on Dunkettle because they were planning the dunkettle interchange - (which they designed without the park and ride at all )

That’s not really correct. The P&R was never going to be part of the interchange. It’s going to be part of Little Island West interchange.

hans aus dtschl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122947535#Comment_122947535

Yes but it is partially correct: the NRA were the ones that put a stop to it. They needed the space for the interchange upgrade.

The P&R was never going to be part of the upgraded interchange for sure.

But I have strong doubts about it being part of Little Island West interchange either. We've discussed it at length in the DKI thread, but it seems like a waste of scarce resources to do the Little Island West station. Existing Little Island station should be where the first investment goes IMO. Get the pedestrian bridge to Eastgate and put in more parking and facilities. Glounthaune P&R needs a bigger car park too. P&R commuters are absolutely not coming from the M8, they're coming from the N25 and the local area.

With a lot of forward thinking, we'd ideally get a multi-storey car park at Little Island, with the pedestrian/rail bridge linking directly to one of the upper car park levels, and facilities at the lower levels (lockers, a shop kiosk, etc). Another sparse P&R station 1500m away from Little Island seems like a waste.

North Esk is the middle of nowhere. I can't see how putting a car park there is more enticing to motorists than an improved overall station at Little Island. Maybe they're hoping to facilitate Glanmire and Ballinglanna developments but there's zero chance of that happening. A "Tivoli East" would be more valuable than a "Little Island West" for everyone.