4 carriage DARTs at peak hours... why????

jelly&icecream

I'm typing this about to pass out on a packed north bound dart at Connolly. Why do these mini DARTs exist. Would it cost that much to stick another few carriages on this bloody train?

TranslatorPS

Irish Rail have a limited amount of electric stock – to add to your train, they'd have to remove from another train.

Essentially, there are two series in service: the original build from the 1980s, the German 8100s built in 2-car sets, of which we have 38 in service, and the 2001–2004 refill order of Japanese 8500s built in seventeen 4-car sets. These are the basic compositions possible to operate with and are operationally unalterable.

The current schedule calls for 19 sets in service Monday to Friday, although the following data bases on the previous timetable and I haven't gone around checking if it's still the case since last December. Nine of these are supposed to be operated with 6-car 8100 sets (requiring 27 sets), and the remaining ten with the 8500 sets: nine double and one single. Of course you'll notice that this adds up to 19 sets when there are 17 available, so it's impossible to operate exactly per the book, and more 8100s are required to top up, so we're looking at probably about thirty 8100 sets in use, possibly more if they make 8-car sets out of those.

In any case, there must also be maintenance done on cars, so there's no way they're going to be able to use the full fleet. As such, with the uneven numbers, you'll usually end up with a 4-car set, be it a double 8100 or a single 8500, and given the schedule requirements vs fleet availability, well. Yes, it's borderline physically impossible.

Decuc500

This is all to suit the 10 minute timetable. It results in 8 carriage trains that are almost completely empty running outside of rush hour and 4 car sets completely jammed in rush hour.

If Irish Rail don't have enough sets to run a 10 minute service without resorting to mini-darts in rush hour they shouldn't have brought it in in the first place.

Rootsblower

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121080347#Comment_121080347

Irish rail didn’t want to bring it in the NTA insisted.

jelly&icecream

That's a very detailed response Translator!

And is it impossible to source more compatible carriages? I understand they're so old they aren't being manufactured anymore but surely somewhere else has modernised their rail system and is shifting some on cheap or something!

I guess moving 40 year old trains internationally isn't straight forward either...

Ah it's just such a pain.

That being said I would also be unhappy if the frequency was reduced. So I guess I'll just have to suffer on!

cython

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121083200#Comment_121083200

Irish railways use a different gauge than most other countries, so rolling stock from other countries is not a drop-in replacement by any stretch of the imagination. Instead adapting such second-hand stock would require a large engineering project in and of itself. I believe the specific mode of electrification on the DART lines may also add further constraints/complexity to such a venture.

So while perhaps not impossible, it's complex enough not to be far off of it too.

AngryLips

When is the new stock expected for delivery?

TranslatorPS

@cython has already listed the key points that make it impossible to source stock rapidly: Ireland operates on a 1600 mm rail gauge while pretty much everything west of Ukraine/Belarus runs on 1435 mm (isolated narrow gauge networks and the Iberian peninsula at 1668 mm notwithstanding), and the DART network is electrified at 1500 V DC, and if OpenRailwayMap isn't betraying me right now, the only other places to use this voltage in Europe are the Netherlands and sections of the French network. So buying anything used as a stop-gap measure would be inordinarily expensive in conversion – refitting the electrics for 1.5 kV and brand new bogies for the broad gauge.

You'd have to get stock from Brazil, which has a 1600 mm network, except that's... largely non-electrified!

dowlingm

in addition to voltage and gauge, platform height / door height needs to be taken into account - one only need look at the Elizabeth Line carry on

https://www.railmagazine.com/news/network/pidgeon-slams-crossrail-for-non-standard-platforms

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121079988#Comment_121079988

Then buy more carriages or simply stop complaining that people dont use public transport!

(Not you Translator, the govt.)

end of the road

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121124376#Comment_121124376

this is being done, new carrages will arrive as part of the dart+.

the builder has been decided so they should be on the way in the next couple of years, which is not good enough i agree as we needed extra stock years ago when the 10 minute dart started, but it's where we are.

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121124382#Comment_121124382

Indeed. Too little, too late.

But Ryan needs to shut his gob in the interim.

The sinking Greens in the polls would concur.

Aontu polling higher even. Ha!

Atlantic Dawn

Hopefully we don't end up with poverty spec carriages with opening windows and no AC, we will be laughed out of the factories again as bloody idiot fool buyers.

loyatemu

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121124424#Comment_121124424

they're a standard design that's in use elsewhere AFAIK - the first units are due to start arriving next year

you can see the new trains here: https://www.dartplus.ie/en-ie/projects/dart-fleet

loyatemu

a minor grip - Irish Rail have installed new passenger information screens in many Dart carriages. As these are proper LED screens they could be used to display any amount of useful information but from observation they spend 90% of their time showing the Dart logo and nothing else. As they approach a station they briefly show "Next Station: Wherever" in English and Irish (separately) and then switch to "Mind the Gap".

It would be much more useful if they permanently displayed the destination and next station, with a timer to the next stop as well. Not complicated to do I wouldn't have though - they already do similar on the InterCity trains. I assume like the previous PIS systems they'll eventually just give up and turn them off.