DART+ (DART Expansion)

There were plans for both. Crazy!! Thankfully never happened.

https://randall.ie/unfinished-dublin/

Unless the plans have changed , the plan is/was for Maynooth-Bray, Maynooth/M3 parkway-Spencer Dock and Hazelhatch-GCD/Spencer Dock/Heuston

Are riff raff afraid of the smell of diesel? Or how else are they prevented from using the trains that already run to Skerries?

Don't know what the exact plan is/was. I'm fairly sure the service patterns have not been decided. They'll also change a lot, as and while the full Dart+ and Metro plans are built.

However, I highly doubt all Maynooth Darts, which head via Connolly, will continue all the way to Bray, if that's what you mean?...

They'd need to massively reduce the amount of Northern Darts heading to Bray and, instead, terminate some of these in GCD/Connolly. The plans for Spencer Dock only have a single alignment connection from the Northern Line to Spencer Dock, so it's unlikely any Northern Darts will terminate in Spencer Dock.

The only way you can 3 0r 4 track west of Glasnevin junction is through infill of the canal. CPOs won't do it.

Looks like plenty of green space between Clonsilla and Coolmine without having to infill the canal. No houses or private gardens built right up against the line like most other areas.

For Drogheda trains, stopping at Dart stations probably won't add much time. While officially nonstop from Malahide to Connolly, you end up queuing behind Darts anyway.

For Dart+ West, would you still expect to see some level of construction this year? No sign of RO yet, maybe Spring 2025 is more likely?

Decent segment on Newstalk on Dart+ including interviews with IE & Alstom.

https://www.newstalk.com/podcasts/highlights-from-the-hard-shoulder/new-fleet-of-electrified-trains-coming-to-dart-services

I'm not sure the BEMU version of the Xtrapolis in in service in Australia, but the regular EMUs are used all over the place. The Australian ones may be the latest version, though.

Yes, the batteries can be expanded or even removed to save weight. The products from all manufacturers have become highly modular: for instance Stadtler's latest FLIRT intercity trains can be swapped between diesel, EMU, BEMU or hydrogen power after purchase.

Seems NTA plan to extend to Kilcock proper for Dart+ West

"When questioned by Social Democrats TD for Kildare North Catherine Murphy, Deputy CEO of the NTA Hugh Creegan said that assuming planning consent comes through for the project this year, "we would envisage starting a project with Irish Rail next year to extend to Kilcock and ensure that we get the extra distance out there."

Mr Creegan also stated that it should be able to run concurrently with the construction of the larger Dart+ West project."

https://www.kfmradio.com/news/localnews/nta-intends-to-extend-the-dart-west-out-to-kilcock-train-station/

Not to downplay the reasonable chance that these things simply weren't thought of, but all evidence of how the NTA is handling its big projects, Dart+ and Busconnects (Metrolink excepted, kinda has to be an all in one) speaks to a compartmentalised approach to the planning process. Not having these stations be part of the Dart W/SW planning application, but being concurrent applications that the actual construction phase can account for, means that, for example, a Kylemore station could be rejected/JRd to death (bigger land take, "stealing my garden" etcetc) without it killing the whole Dart + SW (or the whole Dart+ project)

That said, I would say in the case of Kilcock there's a very good chance they just didn't account for the furore over it.

The NTA is wasting a lot of time and money with the approach they have

Kilcock is an obvious case for a limited frequency extension, doesn't require a new substation just a few hundred meters of wire. Numerous responses during public consultation pushed for Kilcock. Now we have to do another set of studies and planning, so € wasted

Same thing with a station at Cabra and Inchicore, more time and € wasted

You would think the NTA are on our side and pushing to get things done right and done quickly

Adding those stations to the existing project would have added more time to the planning of the project as a whole (maybe not as much as doing them separately, but a fair whack, and resources are finite), all the same environmental factors, impact studies etc would have to have happened, this way they are just decoupled from what is effectively their "parent" project (importantly of course while being at arms reach legally from it) at worst you are missing out on some fairly minor benefits in concurrent processing, (good chance planners moved straight on from Dart+ West planning to Cabra Station planning anyway) while gaining significant benefits in the decoupling of the overall scheme. While there are zero guarantees, getting individual stations through to construction shouldn't take anywhere near as long as getting all of one Dart+ corridor through, so there's every possibility of the stations being ready/near ready when the corridor goes live. (Some will point to the cork level crossings issue as NTA failing to deliver, but it's unclear what exactly is holding that up).