Current commuting train services

The Black Oil

These have hit national headlines recently for the wrong reasons. I'm not a regular user of the train from Rush and Lusk. I thought there might be throngs of people, but that's not been the case (before 8am). Maybe it's the days I have been on them.

the_amazing_raisin

What's the issue exactly? Haven't noticed anything in the news recently

The Hill Billy

Irish Rail made a bollix of the new timetable, particularly with many southbound services terminating at platform 2 in Connolly and not giving commuters enough time to get to other platforms to catch connecting Dart services.

The Black Oil

It was covered on Prime Time last night. Duncan Smith, plus Barry Kenny (IR) in the studio.

subpar

The reality is that the Northern Line is at capacity. The solution lies not in the adjustment of timetables but in icreasing the capacity by installing a four track line from Connolly to Howth Junction. This would be a large enginning project and would carry a significant cost but it has to be done given the growth in passenger population all the way to Dundalk.

munsterfan2

They also need to reopen a lot of the smaller stations, e.g. dunleer, castlebellingham, drogheda north and have a 1 carraige train run up and down between Dundalk / Drogheda stopping at these stations so people could then get off at drogheda / dundalk to get on express / semi express trains. Could also put in a passing track in Skerries and do same for drogheda to howth junction and back.

Atlantic Dawn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122660201#Comment_122660201

Yes it would even make a big difference to have partial sections of it 3 or 4 tracks where tracks 3 and 4 could be used to let trains pass, particularly when the DART is extended northwards.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122660201#Comment_122660201

Honestly I'd say it's more realistic to build a parallel line further west. Do the metro north as a proper rail line and extend it north from Swords

To my knowledge the bottleneck is Connolly, not so much the line north of Donabate. So maybe the metro north could link into the existing northern line at some point

Also I'm not sure about the whole "at capacity" viewpoint. It might be at capacity for the existing infrastructure, but could more be done around signalling or passing sidings to increase capacity