Rolling stock for Dart+ expansion

This is the first tranche. No orders have been placed yet. The tender was for up to 600 cars with a mix of electric and battery electric. Only 260 was intended to be purchased for the DART+ programme. The remainder is for future electrified lines in Dublin or elsewhere.

The existing DART carriages are around 21m long. A half length set is 4 cars. The winning design had slightly shorter cars so a half length is now 5 cars, a full length is 10 cars, the 600 cars became 750 cars and the 260 cars for DART+ became 325 just because each car was shorter.

The plan is to place an initial order of 13 half length BEMU sets (65 cars) to operate the Drogheda line and 6 half length EMU sets (30 cars) for the existing electrified line. So 19 sets which is 95 cars for the winning bid or 76 cars in old money.

This is from February so it assumes 4 car sets. Multiply by 1.25 for the new numbers.

What's happening now is that the preliminary business case for the entire DART+ project is finally ready to be brought to cabinet. Once it's approved in December, the order can be placed in the New Year and the railway order application for DART+ West can also be made next year.

I heard today that the 95 carriages are still on track to be operational in 2025.

It's reported to be a variant of the Alstom Xtrapolis.

Do you mean because of more gangway connections? I suppose but it shouldn't be that big of an issue with open gangways.