DART+ (DART Expansion)

bk · 16-01-2026 06:32PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124153391#Comment_124153391

Yes, I was thinking the same. When I get a chance I’ll start a “Post DART+” thread.

Pete_Cavan · 16-01-2026 08:29PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124153406#Comment_124153406

Is it necessary given there is already a Post Metrolink thread?

PlatformNine · 16-01-2026 11:30PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124151503#Comment_124151503

This will allow all outer commuter services to Portlaoise, Carlow, and Mullingar/Longford to operate ‘semi-fast’ into/out of Spencer Dock as follows:
Portlaoise and Carlow outer commuter services will serve Monasterevin, Kildare, Newbridge, and Sallins on the existing route as the “slow lines”, and join the fast lines at Hazelhatch where they join from the bypass. Outer commuter services from Longford will operate similarly, using the Sligo Line - Heuston Line link to join the fast lines, with all services running fast to Islandbridge Jnct, where they will branch into the PPT and run slow again serving Heuston West, Cabra, and Glasnevin, before terminating at Spencer Dock.

I have been thinking about this a bit, and I think it would make more sense for the Portalington-HH slow line to be turned into a DART line in the long term. I think it's really just Sallins & Naas and Newbridge that will need the DART as they are both quite large urban areas and have a good few small towns nearby too. However it would be difficult to extend the DART only to Newbridge, rather than all the way to Portarlington to meet with the fast line.

The rest I agree with though. I quite like the idea of turning SD into an outer commuter station post-DU, as it would free up Heuston and Connolly Terminal platforms for IC expansion. I think it is also the best way to put SD to work after DU, as the platforms are very likely to be too short for the flagship IC sets.

It does mean having to keep PPT and one of the lines through Glasnevin non-automated, but that would be needed anyways. Both for Northwall Freight but also as a connection between Northern line and Kildare IC services (for depots, freights, etc).

Citizen Six · 17-01-2026 04:20PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124149106#Comment_124149106

It's currently used Monday to Friday to bring trains down to Docklands. It was used previously to bring a train up from Docklands in the morning, but that now goes via Glasnevin junction, which gives more destination options compared to just platform 7 from Newcomen.

EarWig · 27-01-2026 10:35AM

Dart+ South West: How long more must we wait for it and how much has it cost so far?

https://www.irishtimes.com/transport/2026/01/27/dart-south-west-how-long-more-must-we-wait-for-it-and-how-much-has-it-cost-so-far/

Thomas.Telford · 27-01-2026 11:38AM

Originally scheduled for after 2030, Deputy Lawless said he is "now receiving strong indications that the project may proceed on an accelerated timeline".

https://www.kfmradio.com/news/localnews/kilcock-to-get-dart-services-under-first-phase-of-dart-west-project-says-kildare-td/

Seems like it's a matter of time before Dart southwest gets the go ahead.

Thunder87 · 27-01-2026 12:07PM

It wasn't "originally scheduled for after 2030", it was originally scheduled for early 2022 with completion in 2024

https://www.transportforireland.ie/news/radical-new-dart-plan-for-dublin-launched-dart-west-plan-first-round-of-public-consultation-now-open/

The feedback will assist in further progressing the design process prior to another public consultation later this year, with the railway order (planning application) process due to take place mid-2021. Construction is expected to commence in early 2022 with completion expected in late 2024.

marno21 · 27-01-2026 12:35PM

The department said funding secured under the NDP will see construction start before 2030 on the Dart+ programme, beginning with Dart+ West, which is the “crucial enabler” of the rest of the programme, and in particular Dart+ South West.
“Dart+ West must be advanced as it will provide the depot capacity for the new fleet to be used on South West and also will provide the capacity in the city centre to allow for South West services to proceed,” it said.
The compulsory purchase orders (CPO) processes for Dart+ South West will begin this year.
Aspects of the procurement frameworks put in place for Dart+ West will be available for use on South West when its main construction works commence, which the “department hopes to accelerate through the additional NDP funding made available in 2028 onwards”, it said.

Good to see some clarity on the operational reasons for the delay.

Turns out it's not being canned to fund a roads bonanza as some people claim.

Former Former Former · 27-01-2026 01:05PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124184327#Comment_124184327

in fairness, I think the “2030” reference is to Dart SW.

but still chilling to be reminded of quite how badly IE have missed their timelines on Dart West

cgcsb · 27-01-2026 03:55PM

To be fair to IÉ they were told to programme 6 months for statutory process, which including a JR took almost 3 years. So you can give them a 2.5 year discount there which doesnt leave them wildly off the original programme.

BestWestern · 27-01-2026 04:41PM

The legal system is grinding to a halt due to all the appeals and reviews. How anything gets done with the system we have is beyond me.

In top of that, we've a government afraid of its shadow.

bk · 27-01-2026 05:18PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124184390#Comment_124184390

LOL, I’m feeling pretty vindicated, I’ve been saying exactly this for weeks!

Clearly our conversations here are being read for them to spell it out like this.

D+SW has always been reliant on D+W and the new depot which still hasn’t gone through planning. But great news that it is being pulled forward. Hopefully the new depot goes to planning soon and passes quickly through planning.

Consonata · 27-01-2026 07:19PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124185310#Comment_124185310

If that was the case, once again, why did they go out to tender together

bk · 27-01-2026 08:14PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124185640#Comment_124185640

To be clear, they haven’t gone to tender yet!

They have both gone to “pre-qualification questionnaires (PQQ) notices for Design and Build works” which isn’t an actual tender. PQQ is a market engagement phase where they shortlist possible contractors to deliver the project, but haven’t actually agreed a tender yet.

Once the PQQ is complete, it then goes back to the government to decide to continue to the tender phase or not, to make the funding for the project available or not, called Approval Gate 3.

The government could decide to put the brakes on D+SW at this point if they wanted to delay it by a few years (to be clear I hope they won’t, but they could).

As an aside, there are actually currently 5 PQQ’s at the moment and more to come. There is one which is an overall framework for delivering DART+ electrification, another for civils works and then a separate one specifically for the quad tracking and other civils works for D+SW. There is also a separate one for Spencer Dock station and another for Connolly station works.

The first two are supposed to be a framework to apply to all parts of DART+, but DART+SW also has a specific standalone one.

So they could delay or cancel the standalone one for D+SW and go ahead with the rest or they could potentially use the first two overall frameworks to start doing some works on D+SW, but perhaps not the whole project including quad tracking, etc.

So in reality there continues to be a lot up in the air and it is yet to be seen how the government decide to progress on this.

Bsharp · 27-01-2026 08:34PM

four tracks is better than two. There's plenty of delays on the Kildare Line because of services conflicting. Operational reasons is a nonsense.

bk · 27-01-2026 09:10PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124185815#Comment_124185815

No one is saying it won’t be quad tracked. But it is possible that it could be phased over a number of years.

Of course it is all theoretical when there is no depot to put new trains in!

Bsharp · 28-01-2026 12:15AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124185869#Comment_124185869

saying it's delayed for 'operational reasons' is a nonsense. it wasn't included in the NDP because of funding and nothing else.

they could have argued they didn't want to do busconnects Liffey valley and dart+SW in parallel, but that wasn't the reason.

Consonata · 28-01-2026 12:22AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124185766#Comment_124185766

Both Iarnrod Eireann, and the NTA both have said they were intended on being delivered together. If you want to page back where the Transport Committee hearing took place where the vice chair of the NTA detailed exactly that.

They made it perfectly clear its a funding issue. Even the Department is saying so as its saying its hoping to acquire the necessary funding by 2028.

Can we please stop providing cover for the governments poor decision making.

Consonata · 28-01-2026 12:23AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124185869#Comment_124185869

Can you please explain to us the negatives of quadtracking prior to the depot completion?

roadmaster · 28-01-2026 09:27AM

The D&B contract for Spencer Dock had the Tenders opened in October. How far off Contract award are they?

cgcsb · 28-01-2026 10:49AM

Saying the west has to be finished first is spin. It is correct to say that the DART+ SW tss, cannot be fully implemented without depot in place but it would not harm progress on west if it were finished first, indeed it would also bring immediate service improvements across the country even without a depot.

The reality is that transport funds were reallocated to the regions to support re election campaigns.

There is also pressure from a new source of capital expenditure, military spending is set to balloon over the coming years as new sonar, radar, new navy assets etc are bought, a new military airbase at shannon, a huge increase in recruitment and training and new fighter jets (possibly the autonomous Turkish model which ain't cheap). You're talking tens of billions on military capital expenditure over the next decade and then we'll be paying maintenance and upkeep.

Like everything in Ireland we're playing catchup after a century of no investment.

goingnowhere · 28-01-2026 01:27PM

Irish Rail cannot order any further fleet above the current position as there isn't enough depot space to maintain them. So to increase the fleet we need another depot

SW can increase capacity quickly as many trains are 3-4 coaches today so the cascade will increase this to 7 once DART+ fleet starts to arrive elsewhere.

The civil works are significant between Inchicore and Heuston, that does get you more capacity but lacking the train fleet to use it. You also loose a platform at Heuston as platform 1 is short so can't take full length trains.

The real capacity uplift is being able to access Spencer Dock, but that needs a good chunk of W done to fix up Connolly and Spencer Dock as well as signalling upgrades to provide ETCS L1.

Rolling stock availability is the biggest constraint and the DART+ fleet MUST have ETCS L1 fitted to all lines over which it runs

bk · 28-01-2026 02:40PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124186224#Comment_124186224

Simple, the government won’t give the go ahead to hundreds of millions to be spent to do it if there aren’t the extra trains that require it!

Obviously the current track arrangement works for the current number of trains using this route. The justification for quad tracking is the doubling the number of trains per hour using the route. But if you don’t have those extra trains then that justification falls away.

Otherwise they would have done this quad tracking years ago!

And I know what you will say, even without extra trains, quad tracking would still have some operational benefits, speeds increases, etc. and you are right it would. But not enough benefit to justify a CBA. It really needs the extra trains to make the high cost worth it.

To be clear, I hate all this, my heart wants this built ASAP, but my brain knows why the government aren’t excited about it and maybe want to delay it.

Irish Rail really messed up with the depot and they need to get the new depot plans submitted ASAP and then we have to cross our fingers that it gets through ACP and JR quickly.

specialbyte · 28-01-2026 02:58PM

@bk I'm surprised to see you constantly defending these poor government decisions TBH.

Perfect sequencing on multiple related but independent workstreams isn't always achievable without pushing out the construction programme. The government has clearly opted (I suspect without realising it) to push out the construction programme. We know we need to do the civils work for quad tracking. Crack on with it. If it sits under utilised for 9 months because the depot and trains aren't here that's fine.

The Kildare Four Tracking was done before the recession has been under utilised for 15 years. I'm not saying that was a good outcome but better we had that 4 tracking, with new bridges stations etc in place than we didn't. It has made planning for the delivery of Clonburris much easier.

If there are independent work streams we should crack on with them. Make some progress. Yes all of the work streams integrating together delivers the full benefits. The current big bang approach is problematic. DART+ as one big plan to fix Dublin's rail network. A more iterative approach would have seen benefits delivered already.

Doing CBAs on workstreams within an overall project is bunk. We shouldn't even be talking about CBAs for South West civils works. Independent workstreams enables better tendering and contracting options. It allows us to get a better price. Doing a CBA on a workstream is a pointless exercise. That would only make sense if the plan was to do the civils and then not progress to do the electricification, signalling work, new stations that are in the DART+ plan that has a good CBA. No one, including this feckless government, is proposing that.

You're justifying needless delay in progress (any progress) because it isn't the ideal sequence progression path for avoiding under-utilised work. It's perfect as the enemy of the good.

Avoiding under-utilised work is one way to sequence things. Finishing the entire programme in the shortest time might be another goal for a sequence of work. To finish everything the quickest you want to get started on things ASAP and in parallel. It's all trade offs. This government is making these decisions without understanding the trade-offs.

murphaph · 28-01-2026 03:16PM

I was going to say exactly the same thing about the Kildare Route Project quad tracking. It has been massively under utilised since it was completed all those years ago but thank God it is done and doesn't need to be done now on top of everything else. We should stop making mega projects out of everything when it is entirely possible to chop them up into smaller bites and just get on with them, even if they don't deliver a big bang improvement. That's the mindset we really need. We need these things to be a continuous process of improvement and not always a big photo-op for the government of the day.

There should be a master plan and anything that can be done to work towards that master plan should be done. It's going to be hard enough to find the staff to do everything in parallel. Small chunks, even if unused for years are entirely reasonable and actually it's quite a common strategy around the world.

bk · 28-01-2026 04:39PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124187354#Comment_124187354

To be clear, I'm defending this, I'm explaining the governments/politicians point of view, no matter how unpopular it is or how much I personally dislike it.

The issue here isn't a 9 months difference between depot and SW, if that all it was then of course it wouldn't be an issue. No the problem is that IR haven't even finished designing the depot plans yet, never mind submitting the railway order yet!

Lets look at a potential worst case scenario:

Depot plans don't get submitted until summer (already slipped from Q1 2026)
It ends up getting stuck in ACP for three years like Metrolink did.
Maybe ACP finds an issue again and we go back to square one.
Or maybe it gets the green light but ends up in JR for a year or more.

It could all easily slip to 2031 and now you are on the brink of risking the framework for ordering new trains with Alstom that runs out about then!

You could have years between the works complete and no new trains to run on it. You can absolutely be assured that the press would pick up on it and it would make front page news on hundreds of millions spent on it and no trains to run on it for years, it could easily end up children's hospital mark 2.

The politicians in government won't want to touch this **** show with a ten foot stick.

Frankly Irish Rail dropped the ball here. They completely screwed up on the original depot design, it was refused one and a half years ago and we still haven't heard a peep from Irish Rail on the new depot yet! Will there be a public consultation on it, how long will that take? When will they submit the railway order?

To be honest, the lack of depot is risking at least the Western sides of DART+. Fingers crossed to might still go ahead with the cheaper electrical works, but I can see why they might be nervous on signing off on the big budget civils works without the depot.

To be honest, saying all this won't be popular and I hate writing it down because I feel like I might manifest it into being by saying it. But I don't think the government will sign off on SW until at least the depot is in ACP, if not approved.

Let me be positive now, I hope Irish Rail can get their act together, get the depot design perfect and submitted to ACP ASAP and that it quickly sails through ACP and no JR.

Consonata · 28-01-2026 04:57PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124187677#Comment_124187677

You could have years between the works complete and no new trains to run on it. You can absolutely be assured that the press would pick up on it and it would make front page news on hundreds of millions spent on it and no trains to run on it for years, it could easily end up children's hospital mark 2.

This is infrastructure that will be here for >100 years if not more. The cheapest time to build it is now, the next cheapest was yesterday, etc. Imagine if we had to try and fit in the Kildare quadtracking today if it hadn't been done 15 years ago?

We should be building whatever has planning permission ASAP or it makes a farce out of the whole charade around trying to tighten up judicial reviews. If we collectively all agree that Dart+ in full, should be built, then if there is a 1-3 year delay to build one component, it shouldnt make any odds carrying on with the rest of it, rather than having idle construction hours.

As @specialbyte said, doing CBAs on individual workstreams, particularly *after we have already acquired permission for these workstreams* is an excercise in time wasting, and money wasting.

bk · 28-01-2026 05:02PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124187736#Comment_124187736

Sure, in an ideal world, but politically the politicians simply wont want to risk it. They would prefer to allocate that money to Metrolink, other parts of DART+ or maybe CACR, or maybe bring forward the approved BusConnects corridors. It isn't like we don't have loads of other projects to work on too.

I know that is very disappointing for "fans" of DART+ specifically, me too, but that is how it looks to the politicians. Currently it looks like a risky project and Irish Rail needs to sort that ASAP.

As
@specialbyte
said, doing CBAs on individual workstreams, particularly *after we have already acquired permission for these workstreams* is an excercise in time wasting, and money wasting.

I'm afraid this isn't correct. First of all tenders haven't gone out for this work yet, rightfully or wrongfully the government have to approve if this moves forward to the tender stage and make the funds available.

And just to be clear the major civils works for D+SW are part of an individual PQQ, not part of the overall frameworks.

Consonata · 28-01-2026 05:08PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124187757#Comment_124187757

Currently however we are funding plenty of applications for projects which may never get off the ground to begin with though! Hence the issue.

WRC, several roads projects across the west to name but a few.

As has been reiterated many times here before, restricting funding from projects which have planning permission and are shovel ready, in order to fund projects which aren't even at planning application stage yet, is rank madness. From a transport perspective, and from an economic perspective.

I appreciate that you are accepting that this is a funding issue, not a sequence-of-works issue.

bk · 28-01-2026 05:25PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124187770#Comment_124187770

No I'm not, this really isn't a shovel ready project! I have no idea how you think this!

This project simply won't be approved unless the depot is sorted. Of course there is a funding element to it, but not the way that you are suggesting, the funding won't be made available if they don't think the project will be a success and it can't be a success without the depot (and new trains). They are all tied together.

That is why the depot was originally part of D+West. Because D+W and the depot need to be built at least a little ahead of D+SW, D+SW simply doesn't work without both of those.

Frankly Irish Rail screwed up here with the depot. It seems like they have been trying to push forward the other elements regardless, but I suspect behind closed doors DoT etc. are seriously concerned about the project and the lack of progress on the depot.

IR need to sort the depot ASAP.

DART+ (DART Expansion)

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