roadmaster wrote: » To help with ten minute darts could you expand the size of Docklands and make it the fourth Dublin station and send all Sligo/Mullingar/Maynooth trains to it instead of connolly?
LXFlyer wrote: » Neither you nor bk have put forward a reason why they can’t continue other than you don’t think it’s a good idea?
LXFlyer wrote: » And how many trains make up that figure? You are comparing apples and oranges.
LXFlyer wrote: » Running the train through to Connolly alongside the 10 minute DART service is perfectly possible - it has no bearing on that service so I fail to see why you would force people who are paying a significant premium to have to change when it is completely unnecessary. You seem to be incapable of grasping that it is possible for both to co-exist without diminishing the 10 minute DART.
LXFlyer wrote: » More trains using the space, particularly from GCD northwards plus one extra stop en route. Higher usage at stations can also mean longer dwell times required at peak. The current DART schedule is not fit for purpose as it doesn’t reflect actual running times. One look at the DART punctuality will tell you that. But to change it would require new rosters, and the unions are blocking that pending the resolution of the mentoring dispute.
LeinsterDub wrote: » Fine we'll charge them a suburban fares seems like an easy fix.
Bray Head wrote: » Can someone tell me why the Bray-Tara service has slowed from 35 minutes in the mid-80s to about 40 minutes today? From memory the draft 10-minute frequency had it at 45 minutes.
LXFlyer wrote: » People are paying full Intercity fares south of Greystones - not suburban fares and as such I think are entitled to a through service.
bk wrote: » Interestingly your first paragraph above clearly shows why the trains should be terminated at Bray and people transferred to DART. So few are using the line, then it better to slightly discommode them for a better service for the vastly greater numbers of passengers on the line north of Bray and ironically would also give a better service south of Bray (allow it to be turned around quicker. Lets out some actual numbers to this. According to the 2015 rail census, just 2,117 people used the intercity service on the South Eastern Line and that includes people getting on at Greystones and Dun Laoghaire. By comparison 23,000 got on from Bray in. In fact adding up all the stations south of Greystones, it is a whopping 681 people!! So you are talking about just 681 people versus 20,000+ I have to say, people need to get use to the idea of changing transport for an overall better service. We are going to see this happen at south of Sandyford when the Green Line is upgraded to Metro. It is going to happen way more across the Dublin City Bus network with Bus Connects. We will likely to see it happen at Howth Junction and around Connolly when the other lines are electrified. Changing trains/buses/trams is absolutely normal on a high quality public transport network.
hmmm wrote: » Only worth bothering if passengers could board at any door IMO. The slowdowns are at loading, and rarely at unloading.
LXFlyer wrote: » Let's be honest about this, the future of the railway line south of Greystones is primarily as a commuter service into and out of Dublin. Since the M11 opened the coach services have cornered the market to/from Gorey, Enniscorthy and Wexford, and the notion that the railway is going to be a serious competitor for that Intercity market is a fantasy, due to the speed restrictions and the inland diversion via Rathdrum. The need for trains is towards Dublin in the morning peak and in the evenings southwards. The main market is from Arklow northwards. Expecting everyone to detrain at Bray on a busy peak hour commuter service is frankly nuts. It's also an insult to people paying a premium (i.e. Intercity prices) for their tickets to expect them to use a DART connection between Bray and the city centre.
bk wrote: » Though there is talk about three door double deckers now, so maybe we will get some of those lovely Berlin style dual stairs, three door double deckers on this routes.
Stephen15 wrote: » I think that BRT (if being built) should be built as a trolleybus system as trolleybuses would be easier to run to run than EVs as they don't require charging and are more reliable than an EV atm. I don't see why Dublin can't have some trolleybus lines they would be cheaper to build than light rail and most modern trolleybuses can run off the wires if needs be.
LXFlyer wrote: » There are only two tracks on the loop line bridge. To access the southbound one any train would have to cross the northbound one at grade north of or directly south of Connolly. There is no way around that. You’d avoid conflicts all right with your proposal, provided no Maynooth line trains went south of Connolly.
bk wrote: » Zero emissions pertains to local pollution. Their is literally zero emissions out of the back of an EV or DART. No PM's or NOX, like from a Diesel which cause cancer and various other horrible health issues. So yes they are zero emissions and if that was their only benefit it would still be well worth it. Eliminating Diesel from our cities would make them much healthier. Global emissions, CO2 which causes global warming is a bit more complicated. Of course it depends on how the electricity is generated. EV's and EMU's at least have the ability to be zero emissions. It differs from country to country depending on how each country generates electricity. For instance in Norway or France they would be really close to be truly zero emissions as they use Hydro and Nuclear to generate electricity. Here in Ireland we generate our electricity about 25% wind, 50% gas (which produces WAY less CO2 then Diesel or coal) and 25% coal/peat. This means these aren't zero emissions in terms of CO2, but they are still WAY better then diesel. An EV in Ireland produces about 1/3rd the amount of CO2 per 100km travelled versus a typical Diesel car. So still well worth it. And an important point, the grid can get cleaner, which of course makes all EV's and EMU's even cleaner. 20 years ago the grid was far dirtier then today. 2% wind, 65% coal/peat, 25% gas, it has cut the amount of co2 almost in half in the past 20 years and it will only continue to get cleaner. Wind continues to ramp up and the government has already announced that the peat plants and moneypoint (the only coal plant left) will be converted or closed by 2030. So no, our electricity is not fairly dirty.
D.L.R. wrote: » What if you realign the platforms so that Maynooth have two dedicated tracks west of the Dart?
LXFlyer wrote: » Sorry to burst your bubble, but any train going across the loop line bridge from the Maynooth line will have to cross over the northbound line at Connolly at some point (either north or south of the station) to access the southbound line.
D.L.R. wrote: » DU would solve the Maynooth conflict, but it's not the only way to eliminate it. If you moved all Maynooth line services to the western side of the station you'd have no conflict with northern line trains. So for Maynooth commuter trains, just run them through the Dart platforms and across the Loop. And for Intercity to Sligo etc, there's a huge car park and defunct wheelhouse beside the Dart platforms that regulars would be familiar with. Build a platform there and terminate Sligo trains on it. There's also a lot of space between the Dart platforms and main station as anyone who's walked through the station for a Dart will be aware. There are options if there is money to spend. Open to correction, but I think that removes all conflicts. People talk about Connolly as if its this insurmountable rock in the centre of the network and the only answer is to avoid it. But there's plenty of scope to improve it if the state was willing to spend the money and get serious about rail. We should be thinking of more engineering solutions around Connolly.
LeinsterDub wrote: » If the capacity exists then I agree with you but we have been told be need DU as the mainline is a bottle neck so which is it?
LXFlyer wrote: » The notion that you need to terminate the trains at Bray is a nonsense.
bk wrote: » To be honest, I expect this issue will go away in time. I suspect the Deisels will end up terminating at Bray and it will be only DARTs running on this section. Alternatively, the Diesels get replaced by hybrid Diesel/Electrics and they end running similar speeds and stops as DARTs. Once you get to 10 minute or lower DARTs you can't continue to mix DMU's and EMU's like they have until now.
Ireland trains wrote: » If irish rail speed up the trains to rosslare increase the service to 7pd they could have off peak trains terminating at Bray and peak time trains to Dublin. Also possible with the bi mode trains to extend some DART services to wicklow
murphaph wrote: » You wouldn't need to close the up and down lines. You do one at a time. You drive a steel retaining wall into the ground and work on one side. The other side has single line running. There's single line running on some stretch of the Berlin ubahn (and any other major mass transit system in the world, lest some people get their knickers in a twist about a German example-didn't realise this had become like the comments section of the Daily Express!) probably every day. It's what signals are for. We raised the N25 (now N40 I believe) over the roundabouts without shutting it. The only issue here is nimbyism. But if you bought a property adjacent to a railway you have to accept it may see development.
LeinsterDub wrote: » Busy by what metric? Certainly not busier than Dart and Dublin commuter trains. In an ideal world we'd have capacity on the mainline to run all the services we want but we quite simply don't. Why is asking people to walk about 10 metres nuts? People don't give a second thought interchanging between Buses, Luas or Dart.
LXFlyer wrote: » Expecting everyone to detrain at Bray on a busy peak hour commuter service is frankly nuts..
Sam Russell wrote: » That is justification for more trains from Wexford. There could be an extra Dart train to provide for the Wexford passengers. The Wexford train has 3 or 4 coaches and so, even at crush, would not fill a 8 coach Dart. The replacemet Dart need not stop at all station to Connolly, only at those served by the diesel. That is a timetable issue. Any train turned back at Bray is an hour or more worth of train time available for either more service to Wexford to other services. Currently a 6 coach IC train heads down from Connolly to DL at about 10 am to park, and return empty at 1:15 pm from DL back again to Connolly. If there is a shortage of stock, maybe they could use that set for something. There is plenty of dead running on the system as it is.
