DART+ (DART Expansion)

Had the pleasure recently on riding a few Italian trains and the thought has crossed my mind that Irish Rail really has shocking passenger information. On all of the Italian commuter trains there are screens which tell you the destination (and live-updating ETA) and origin of the train, a scrolling list of the stations on the route along with arrival times, a map of the route and the trains location, a train diagram, carriage capacity info and location of toilets and even a list of the next few departing trains and their platform number from the station you’re arriving onto.

I know the new DART trains have a pretty good looking PIS screen with the current time, the next station, the destination, and helpfully, what sides the door will open on, but does anyone else know what other features they’ll have? I know a lot of newer UK trains have that train diagram showing what parts are more crowded, do the 8/90000s have these?

That is not going to happen - you’d be using up valuable paths and eating into turnaround times - plus trains need to be serviced.

That's the old carriage valeting shed, I believe its completely unused now; having last been used by Hyundai Rotem during the initial 22000 deliveries.

If it is in use, someone with more recent info will post shortly!

It's still a constrained, hard to access (being in the middle of active rail lines) site.

Your objections are all over the shop and getting flimsier. First it was "grade separation would be a nightmare" - which made no sense given the tracks would already be completely separated from to the IC tracks, then it was the gradient (which involves a gentler incline than the original plan) and now you'r claiming there isn't enough space?

It's a deceptively huge site - the back of it where the PPT starts is over half a km from the front of the station. The box bounded by the yellow lines above is nearly 10 acres of staff car parking and brownfield. We're talking about building a rail tunnel entrance - not a space satellite launch site - 10 acres is absolutely loads. There's hardly a better site within the M50 for such works.

None of the construction would go anywhere near any running trains, tracks or passengers or even the NTCC, so there would be no disruption to Hueston operations.

"Inchicore won" because before DART+ the Kildare 4 tracking ended there. DART+ brings fully grade separated electrified DART tracks to the end of the black line above.

"Penny pinching around the edges"? The biggest expense is not the tunnel, it's the underground stations as the ML design team realized so replacing a mined out stations with cut n' cover isn't "penny pinching" - it's sensible engineering.

You're taking this very personally. All I've done is repeated the reasons why things were decided the way they were. That isn't an attack on you as a person, and I wasn't involved in these decisions.. I just read the reports, and the reports ruled out this idea.

If you really think you've got a better answer than the people who spent two years investigating it, go write to them. Give them your plan. Personally, I see it as a "what if", but that's all given the minimal detail you've given. It just looks like an idea to try save a little bit on building one station by disrupting the operation of Heuson station and falling short on utility to passengers: it's not clear where you intend to place the actual station box. Access from outside the main station building was seen as a desirable feature (to allow late DART services without needing to keep the whole Heuston building open) ... how do you achieve this? The ideal is access from the front, where the Luas stops are, and that's what the last DU plan had.

Regarding feasibility of a tunnel launch at Heuston, it has been stated more than once that it is no longer a viable option.. If you are confident that you know much better than the people whose job it was to find out, I suggest sending them your CV, rather than arguing with me.

I'm pretty sure the last DART+ Tunnel report suggested using the grassed area beside Good Counsel Liffey Gaels GAA Club for the tunnel western portal.

The stations are the big cost, and with DU most will have to be mined... you can't cross the Metro (at -22 m... the closest to surface it was possible to go) and then get close enough to the surface to do a cut/cover at Pearse, similarly to get under the Liffey, and also the M50 if your northern exit isn't closer to the docks It's not impossible to do deep stations with cut/cover:Rome is doing deep cut and cover on its central Line C stations, but this is not by choice: mining is the cheaper option when you're deep underground.

Tunnelling has a very high fixed setup and teardown cost, but the per km cost isn't huge. Paradoxically, the most expensive kind of tunnel to build with a TBM is a short one.

Lads, forget SSG, that won't happen. The original proposed location won't even link with Metrolink and there's no space to build next to the Metrolink station. Pearse doesn't make sense either now, the sites where the DU station box was to go have been developed already.

The DU two interchange thing was a crap idea, Tara will offer a single interchange with everything. Even if Tara costs more, it's still one station instead of two. A straight line from Heuston to Tara significantly reduces the tunnel length, it is the only sensible option.

It was looked at to do a stop at Tara, but I think it was judged that the curvature would be too tight to then reemerge at the docks. It also fell short on a few counts, environmental, cost/value for money etc.

I overall think that a version of the original plan is the best way to build this tunnel, and whether it’s been mentioned or not, a lot of the in-panning or near-construction-ready transport projects in the city have subconsciously taken that DU routing into account.

Somewhere outside Heuston-Heuston-Christchurch-Stephen’s Green-Pearse-Spencer Dock-Clontarf Golf Club is an ideal routing for the line. I also think that all stations on the line should be built from the start. It will be far more expensive and disruptive to add them in later, and besides a project like this should all be done in one fell swoop, despite the potential costs.

With regards to a Heuston situation I like the idea of cut and cover beneath St John’s Road with a temporary smaller road for busses. This would save costs elsewhere in the project, making up slightly for the longer tunnel needed on the northside, or the mined stations.

The TBM could be launched from the Irish Museum of Modern Art gardens and the portals built in the actual gullet. Realign the Con Colbert Road slightly (make the northern lane the southern one and build a new northern lane) and you can have the tracks rise up and join the slow lines here. Is this something that could feasibly work? It certainly seems less difficult than working in the confines of Heuston Yard and definitely gets the most bang for buck on the quad tracking.

Complete crayon job there, blue are the intercity fast lines, green the DART slow lines to the PPT, and red the potential alignment of the tunnel with black marking out the five box. I do think it sounds like something that could work, let me know if I’ve missed something glaringly obvious but is this something that could work?

You're taking this very personally. All I've done is repeated the reasons why things were decided the way they were. That isn't an attack on you as a person, and I wasn't involved in these decisions.. I just read the reports, and the reports ruled out this idea.

I'm not taking it personally but I am finding your style of presenting arguments frustrating. I normally enjoy your contributions on this forum Kris, but in this case, likely without being conscious of it, you're employing the classic "gish gallop" here.

This is where you swamp the discussion with a large number of objections/points, none of which stand up to close scrutiny but are incredibly tiring and time-consuming to respond to and try to filter. When someone takes the time and effort to respond, you shift to another bunch of objections without ever really withdrawing any of the first bunch.

And since responding takes time and effort, the effect is to drive people out of the discussion and killing the conversation.

Here is a list of your objections to a Heuston portal form just 3 of your comments:

- The place where the tracks to the tunnel would start is a particuarly bad pinch point - false, there's no "pinch point" - it's the furthest point away from operations in Heuston yards

- Trying put a proper grade-separation would be hugely disruptive - false as the start of such a DU line is already fully grade separated (after DART+)

- There would be "operational headaches during construction" - nope except for car parking

- The gradient would be too steep - false, you have over 400m to drop 8m

- When they looked at it, there are good reasons for going to Inchicore and mining out a deep station under the Hueston platforms - that was plan drawn up 20 years ago, pre-metrolink, pre-DART+ and pre-modern thinking of avoiding mined underground stations unless absolutely necessary.

- There really isn't space on site to build this unless you close lines - false, even leaving a large area around the NTCC leaves you with about 9 acres/3.5 hectares - an absolutely massive site

- It would massively disrupt the operations of Heuston for the long construction period - the proposed construction site is nowhere near Hueston tracks or platforms or the station buildings

- The idea of a portal at Heuston is dead ever since they built the train control centre - the footprint of the NTCC is absolutely tiny and is positioned away from the path for a DU portal

- Inchicore won because it wouldn't disrupt revenue service - no: inchicore won 20 years ago because DART+ didn't exist at the time and if you had a TBM in the ground you could just avoid dealing with the "gullet".  DART+ takes care of it

- It would constitue penny pinching around the edges won't save much, but will reduce the value of the final project - it would constitute replacing a deep mined stations directly under the platforms and concourse of the busiest IC station in the country with a simple cut 'n cover station away from the station and tracks

- It is risky digging the necessary deep pit near the river - non-issue, e.g. far bigger pits have been dug for offices along the north quays.

As for

If you are confident that you know much better than the people whose job it was to find out, I suggest sending them your CV, rather than arguing with me.

Well now YOU are trying to make it personal by throwing this sort of passive-aggressive shade.

Your opinions are no more valid than mine on this forum and neither of us are more qualified than the other - so present your best arguments. Your resorting to this because you don't have any good arguments - every single argument you have made has been flimsy and has collapsed under the slightest scrutiny and so as an appeal to "authority" you're trying to suggest we accept a 20 year-old design as the be-all and end-all.

Used for storage of MK4 carriages a long time ago. Then used more recently with the introduction of the new ICR B2 cars. As already posted, currently used for the 29000 PIS upgrade, as well as installing the new bike area.

Tara steet station is tiny as it is.. I suspect the Metro was kept a little further away so that it couldn't overload what is a very small station, so don't know how you could add a second DART line into the mix.

Pearse is the logical interchange point as it is a decent size station.

I had thought that if a station were to be dropped, then SSG should be the one to go, and the Pearse interchage could be moved down to Merrion Square. The two ends of Merrion Square are 250 and 200 m from the St Stephen's Green metro and the Pearse station entrance.