DART+ (DART Expansion)

Pretty sure I read in the latest consultation document that they're talking about a second pedestrian bridge alongside the rail bridge to provide access from Conyngham Road.

There are a large number of additional bus routes launching at the end of this month under BusConnects that will serve stations such as Hazelhatch, Adamstown, and Clondalkin and which will be connecting estates and areas to stations on the DART+ Southwest route that have had no public transport connection to the rail line before now.

That alone will open up the rail line as a new alternative commuting option for significant numbers of people.

Park and Ride facilities at Hazelhatch, Adamstown, Kishogue and Clondalkin will also facilitate people to use the DART line if increased frequency is provided.

Just because two stations aren’t opening doesn’t mean the service should not be upgraded.

As above there is already an all day PPT service.

https://www.irishrail.ie/IrishRail/media/Timetable-PDF-s/Heuston-timetables/16-Dublin-Portlaoise.pdf

However, they are still short of trains and drivers to drive them - remember that it takes 18 months to pass out a train driver, but the good news is that there are drivers in training as we speak, and new rolling stock is in build or about to be ordered.

And there will certainly be drivers available for when DART+ happens, which is what I’m talking about.

Dreadful atm. 1 TPH each way in the evening after 9. 😤

The point of DART+ is to improve the carbon footprint by electrification, and increase service capacity through re-signalling and faster acceleration/deceleration of new electric rolling stock.

None of the above is achievable any other way.

A large rolling stock order is part of the project, with a new depot near Kilcock - and these will be electric - not much use if you don't electrify the railway.

By the time DART+ is completed, the rolling stock will have been delivered, the drivers trained, and we will hopefully have returned to some form of normal working, which means far more commuters. There hopefully also will have been significant amounts of new housing completed near Adamstown and Kishogue stations (which will be opened).

For the record I never said that Kylemore or Cabra stations should not happen - they should of course. However, I was criticising another post, which, along with earlier ones from the same poster, was suggesting that DART+ South West should be abandoned just because those two particular stations weren't happening at present. I happen to think that is just nonsensical given the large scale housing plans along the line.

Yikes. A quoted price of between €5 billion to €6 billion to build Dart Underground/Dart+ Tunnel from Hugh Cregan's estimates are very eyewatering to take in.

I would take it that the global supply chain issues are the big major problem in making that price go high for us as it may reflect current market conditions at this point. And that level of inflation is being seen right now because of COVID which is being felt right now right across our own economy.

The prices all of the materials needed to build this massive project could be an quite an demanding challenge to overcome within this current period especially with combating climate change on top of it. All I can say right now is damn you COVID; you destructive git.

Given current bond spread they could probably raise a €10b bond with an interest rate of under 2%. Even at 2% over 20 years that would cost state €200m/year to finance. The NTMA would probably finance that with bunch of different Bond maturity dates to get even more optimal rate over such a period. Of course any underground system that will be built will be in operational use to at least 100 years.

In case above the €1.5b raised has an annual interest bill of €19m/year eg. 1.26%/year across the whole sum.

The 10bn figure is daily mail trash though and it was re printed by rte.

10bn is the combined estimated cost of dart expansion and metrolink.

This is good value for a commuter rail system that has been effectively without investment since 1984 bar one small extension in 2000 and a North South rail link that's been promised since 1975.

Even after dart expansion is finished, let's say in 2030, over its 47 year existence the cost of expansion and upgrade will have been effectively nothing on an anual basis. In fact over 47 years the DART probably will have made a net profit, inclusing its construction, a complete joke for a European commuter rail system.

https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/e9619-government-approves-dart-programme/

Good to see real progress on a big rail project. Still not clear on how Glasnevin is going to be sorted. It seems that DART+ West is going to be construction phase long before metrolink is. They're hardly going to build a large DART interchange and then dig it up to build a metro station underneath 2 years later.