DART+ (DART Expansion)

Irish Rail have access to live information of the trains location and consist, via Nexala. The use of that information is the issue. As far as I'm aware, signallers don't have access to that yet, but they will when the new system comes online at NTCC.

I right, I though you meant how long till it's due. Yes, knowing the length of the train would be handy!

I was in Japan the other month, and they even had it marked out on the platform where to board at each carriage. At stations with differing train types calling at it, there were different colour coded marks on the platform for each type of train.

I've seen that in France with the TGV too. Great help when boarding a train.

but the DART LHB DMUs and Luas Trams were established and well proven technology when introduced. Both basically risk-free from a technical standpoint. These are new tech.

Not so the LHB fleet was uber high tech train of its day with a solid state hard coded PLC style control. The traction electronics took a fair time to tweak as they blew up thyristors regularly in the early days and had to re engineer how the safety circuits worked and of course the tweaks to stop the EMI put out which killed long wave radio reception. ATP and radio did work out of the box though modifications were made. The UK were still building 1940's era camshaft control DC trains while we had state of the art GTO chopper drive.

Luas was proven and effectively a stock product (part built at the same factory as the LHB fleet…)

Yea that was a typo, Kilcoole was the second station I was refering two in my first sentence. I mix them up more than I'd like to admit.

I suppose we will see IE's plan as D+ south preferred options emerge and when the wicklow capacity study is published. If they want to increase Wicklow DART capacity above 1tph, Greystones-Wicklow will need some upgrades, and I hope that will include upgrades to Kilcoole sation. However I doubt there is enough space around Kilcoole to do that. The inner rail enthusiast in me wants to see at least part of the section rerouted away from the coast with an improved and reloacted Kilcoole station. Along side being 145km/h capable and either be partially dual tracked or have added passing loops. But I also don't expect IE to spend so much to upgrade a corridor that will always be so limited in capacity because of Bray Head.

i am driving to athlone tomorrow, I would prefer to take the train, but getting to heuston station is an hour from Churchtown with public transport! Why isnt there a park and ride, around the m50 or just west of it, for proper park and ride intercity services? In the absense of a proper transport system here, that would actually see, taking public transport over the car, make sense…

I regularly think this. Heuston station is a pain to get to for many. It has been made easier with the S2 and N2 of late.

I leave my place 70 minutes before my train is due off Heuston.

I could pop in my car 30 minutes before that same train leaves Heuston and get to a park and ride near the M50 comfortably (with the exception of the 07:00/09:00 slot which is not when I take intercity).

Of course because of this I regularly drive down the country because it is much faster because of the faff before and after Heuston or Connolly.

they're spending a fortune protecting the existing line and have ruled out moving it as part of the options process:

Kilcoole station (which is little more than a single platform halt) is down a narrow road nearly 2km from the village with a small car park I don't think can be expanded.

I'm sure during the Dart South consultation there will be calls for Newcastle to be reopened but it's in an even more remote and awkward location.

As expensive as the prefered option for ECRIPP will be, it is still likely a fraction of the cost of a even a partial new alignment between Greystones and Wicklow. And I think some of the works along the section would still need to be done even if the alignment was relocated?

I don't think its quite that far is it? Either way it doesn't matter, its not close and even if it was the road to the station is pedestrian-hostile. I almost think with how limited space is for a car park, that they would be better off asking the NTA to buy an Enviro100(or some other small single-deck bus) that can turn around in such a small space, and run a feeder service to Kilcoole as part of the DART extension. I would imagine ridership at the station will increase substantially(from being the second least used station on the line) if it recieves an hourly DART, and its not sustainable to have most passengers drive to the station.

Ah guarenteed. Correct me if I am wrong but I think every D+ project so far has come with calls to open/re-open some station. The only reason I could see IE even consider reopening Newcastle would be for it to serve as a passing loop between Wicklow and Greystones. However I think there would barely be any space as is, let alone after the sea wall upgrades from ECRIPP. If a passing loop is really needed, my guess is IE would look south of Newcastle where there seems to be more space to work with.

Driver testing on the new Dart+ train is due to start today.

Dynamic testing not driver testing