[Article] DART partly closed at WEEKENDS for 18 months

...and the train that fell through the bridge earlier :eek: news

What a bunch of selfish moaning gits.
How dare IE try to improve the dart service if it inconveniences any of you at all. I suppose it has to be the unions fault, why should those drivers be paid at all, they should be grateful for the opportunity to ferry all of you about.

Temporary closures are the only way to get major engineering work done, every railway company in the world has to do this, not just Irish Rail. Here is a list of UK rail disruptions, note the amount of weekend closures http://www.serco-online.com/html/engineering/engineering_ext.htm

Weekends are the best option as there is a much lower demand and more availability of replacement resources.

Dublin Bus will double the number of buses operating on routes adjacent to the DART in south Dublin, including routes 7, 45, 46A, 59 and 84.

Anyone who suggests that the idea of increasing train lengths is a strange IE concept is just wrong, commuter trains in most european cities are between 8 and 16 car trains, it is more efficent to run longer trains than more trains. (less of those horrible unionised drivers to pay for a start)

Power upgrades required for longer trains would also be needed for more trains. 10 4car trains use the same amount of power as 5 8car trains.

Running diesel trains instead is not an option as that would require the lines and stations to be kept clear, a bit of a problem when they are working on them

Outrageous!

There is no lack of foreign examples, where companies do things properly.

In Switzerland, a 13.5km 3rd track is being built between Geneva and Coppet (on the Lausanne mainline, handling 230 trains a day) causing only minimal disruption: the last regio train is replaced by a bus on certain nights. Work includes enlargement of the trackbed, lengthening of the platforms, extension of the underpasses, rebuilding of the stations, and of course the application of the railway fittings such as signalling..

Originally posted by ixoy
How often do you use the DART? Seriously? Does this impact on your life? Because if you did I'd imagine you'd sing a different tune. If you had to increase your journey time by about an hour each journey now, would you be so accomodating?

In order; At least 6 return journeys per week. Yes. Yes. No I am not singing a different tune, it will take me at least 40mins longer to get into the city centre during this disruption. Not using the DART means that I will have to get 2 buses just to get in and out of the city centre. I also have to use the service in the weekday rush and I am very accomodating of this inconvenience if it means less overcrowding for the future.
I am far less accomodating to the selfish fukkers who clog the entire city every day with their cars, without these mostly unnecessary car journeys the bus service wouldn't be such a lousy alternative to the DART.

As for the drivers - you're missing the damn point. People are wondering if they're going to be paid for all those hours that they can't drive. They're not working, so why should they be paid? It'd never happen in the private sector. [/B]

No I am not missing the damn point, the only point made was you using this as an excuse to have a go at public sector unions, you have shown no evidence of plans to pay drivers not to work.


And before you ask, no i do not, nor have I ever worked for Irish Rail, the unions or any public sector organisation.

Originally posted by MadsL
Do you honestly think that the unions will allow drivers to be out pocket or even inconvenienced by these plans. Notice the unions are yet to make any statement or complaint.

According to yer wan from IE talking on Newstalk 106 yesterday afternoon all staff will complete their currently rostered hours during the upgrade. She didnt say doing what when pressed. Just said that any staff rostered to work weekends will work weekends.

I take work to mean they will clock in. sit around drinking tea and reading the news paper cause they're unionised and god forbid that they do anything else except sit on their arse and drive trains of sit on their arse and sell\check tickets. Clock out.

Did ye get those flyers that they are hading out today? how nice of them. 3 days before the start of the work. Such knobs.

I for one wont be too inconvienced, theres a 7 and 45 bus stop just 10 mins walk away. If however i have to work weekends i'll have to get a taxi cause i work in Dalkey and the bus service to there is basically non existant since they got rid of the number 8.

I cant beleive they are so stupid that they havent put on bus services from the stations to town. Taking dalkey for example, there is one bus (7d) into town at 7:35 and one out again at 17:40. Even quadroupling this will mean only 4 buses a day to make up for the 50+ darts that stop there. Other than that there is the 59 bus service that goes to\from Dun laoghaire once an hour where you'd have to get another bus.
I'm sure its the same story up and down the dart line.

Ridiculous.

From Breakingnews.ie

DART work is put on hold
08/10/2003 - 1:43:11 pm

The Taoiseach has confirmed that work on the upgrading of the DART line between Dublin and Greystones will be put on hold during the month of December.

Bertie Ahern told the Dáil that Transport Minister Seamus Brennan discussed the matter with the chairman of CIE, arising out of public anger, after it was announced that works on the line would get underway this weekend.

The Taoiseach said work would resume after Christmas, when passenger numbers are low.

I understand that this arrangement (called a blockade, closing the lines completely for a number of weekends) is becoming more common in the UK, but the usual practice is that

1. there is about 22 weeks of notice given to passengers (it takes this long to plan rail works of this magnitude anyway).

2. three months is about as long as they usually do it for. 9 months is definitely a pretty long period to have a blockade in place.

3. there is some consultation with rail users. There are pretty influential user groups around the South-East of the UK in particular. There is no reason why there wouldn't be the same on the DART. Some of the richest and most powerful people in the country live along the line and a surprising number of them use it to travel to/from work.

It is hard to understand why they need to close for such a long time. Could a lot of the works not be carried out in-tandem, rather than sequentially? It would be different if there was major rail renewal being done, and specialised teams and equipment were needed, but a lot of the work (for example extending platforms and modifying station layouts) is just general building work. The overhead cables are being replaced, granted, but surely this doesn't require 145 days' work to get finished? Wouldn't it be possible to have some of the inner stations open, even if the outer stations stay closed?

Also, the rail and sleepers are going to have to be renewed at some stage, sooner or later. If it takes 18 months just to replace the cables, how long will it take to do this job?

Originally posted by Borzoi
Ignoring the random insults..


To hold up the Brits as been a good example of rail management is ludicrous. Or in a smaller word just for you: mad.

The UK rail industry has many big problems, all due to chronic underfunding and ridiculous management structures imposed by various governments over the last half century. Now that they have been forced to invest in large scale infrastrucure upgrading work they are using large-scale weekend line posessions to get the work done, just as IE are now doing. In some cases they have had to resort to complete closures for several months to get the work done


Taken from above link:

11 July 2004 - continuously until 05 September 2004
Anglia Railways
First Great Eastern
Manningtree - Ipswich

Harwich International - Ipswich
London Liverpool Street - Ipswich - Norwich
Ipswich - Harwich International
Ipswich rail tunnel closed for rebuilding the railway track
The railway will be closed completely through Ipswich Tunnel . No direct trains between Ipswich and London
Some direct services between London and Norwich will be provided via an alternative route during weekday peak periods

Secondly, most of the closures mentioned are short term, the longest I saw was three months, but there are more where the work is happening at night.

Of course there will be many short term closures for relatively minor work, that is hardly the point. 3 months including partial weekday posessions is hardly short term (the first item on that page). Long term closures are necessary anywhere large scale work has to be carried out, that is just a fact of railway engineering.

Thirdly, most closures mentioned are rural, where bus tranfers will work using motorways. The urban closures that I saw were for London underground, which has redundancy built in to much of its route structure, ie they'll still get you quite near to wheere you want to go, even if one line is partly closed. I used to live there, I know this. Not something you can say here..

If you lived in the UK then you should be aware of how congested the motorways from Yorkshire all the way to the south coast are. Out of that entire page only a handful of the closures are on lines that could be classed as rural, others are on some of the most intensively used inter-city lines in Europe where even minor diversions causes hours of delays to tens of thousands of passengers each day.
Redundancy in London Underground, you must be joking, it is one of the most overcrowded metro systems in the world All central London stations have crowd control procedures where they restrict the numbers of passengers entering stations in the event of minor delays. When complete sections have had to be closed there has been huge transport problems throughout London as a result.

Forthly, bus tranfers, the idea that doubling the number of 46As from Dun Laoghire will compensate for the DART is a joke. The 46A take about 1:10min from DL to town, again I used for years going to and forth from college. The Dart, about 22 mins - so the difference is about an hour, each way, twice a day, 4 hours each weekend gone. More if you live further away. Have you ever used the 84?

1. the 46a has a frequency of approx 10 mins so double that will be 5mins. on a Saturday you can easily wait over 20 mins before getting on a DART.

2. On a Saturday or Sunday I would expect the 46a overall journey time to be a little less than 1 hour.

3. If you travelled for years between Dun Laoghaire and town, did you ever notice how the 46a is not the most direct route? How much time would you have saved by using the 7? FYI Dun Laoghaire - City Centre by 7 on Saturday approx 30-45 mins depending on time of day.

4. Yes I have used the 84, it takes longer than the train, I never said it didn't. Lots of people use these bus services every day and their lives aren't ruined by it. People will have to make alternative arrangements for a while, their journeys will take longer. There are frequent bus services operating a short walk away from all southside DART stations, with the exception of Killiney where the roads are too narrow for busses. Most people in Dublin do not have any rail service to use at any time, the only public transport available being bus services that are crippled by the traffic congestion in the city.

Fifthly, IE is a public transport company, it's job is to provide a service to the public. The priority should be that, the €176 million to do the works comes from the tax payer, so that gives us (well me, I'm a taxpayer, I don't know about you) a vested interest in seeing it used right. I would not begrudge extra money being used to make sure that the work was done with less disruption.

By the way I don't use the DART anymore, I don't live that side of the city these days.

Nice points MadsL, if only!

Yawn, Yawn, Yawn. The good old I am a taxpayer rant, bring it out (along with the personal insults) when you run out of relevant points to make. Earlier in your post you inferred that I am too stupid to understand words with more than three letters. Now you suggest, albeit unintentionally that I am a genius, that I can do the impossible and live in Ireland without paying any tax. Which is it? I will answer that one myself, it is the latter. Yes I am the only person in Ireland who has never paid a cent (or penny) in tax, anyone who wants to know my secret just send me a blank cheque in the post and I will sort you out, I promise;)

http://home.eircom.net/content/irelandcom/topstories/1635612?view=Eircomnet

DART to run an extra weekend as Brennan intervenes
From:ireland.com
Thursday, 9th October, 2003

Iarnród Éireann made further concessions in its plans for weekend closure of Dublin's DART service in the run up to Christmas.

The changes which follow the intervention of the Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, yesterday, will now mean that DART will operate fully for the three weekends preceding Christmas.

Iarnród Éireann's spokesman Mr Barry Kenny said yesterday that suspending the work during the busy Christmas shopping period could leave the company open to cost overruns and delays.

The Department of Transport announced last night that it did "not expect there to be any excess in the €170 million budget and fully expects the three weekends out of the 75 weekend contract period can be made up in the valley period after Christmas."

In a strongly worded statement the Department said the full extent of the proposed closures had only been brought to the Minister's attention on Monday evening when he was personally briefed on them by the chairman of CIÉ, Dr John Lynch who is also the chairman of Iarnród Éireann.

Mr Brennan expressed concern for the Christmas shopping period which is one of the busiest periods of the year for DART but he was also sharply critical of Iarnród's Éireann's "failure to communicate either the closure or the fairly good alternative transport arrangements to its customers", the Minister's spokesman said last night.

The new arrangements follow a day of tough talking between Iarnród Éireann and the Department with an initial offer from Dr Lynch to keep just two weekends operational in the December run up to Christmas, rejected as unacceptable by the Minister.

Iarnród Éireann had planned from the beginning of this year to close DART stations between Grand Canal Basin and Greystones from this coming weekend until the middle of next year to allow a major modernisation programme to go ahead.

The modernisation programme includes lengthening platforms, improving footbridges, working on power lines and new sidings for extra DART trains.

The company spokesman Mr Kenny said yesterday that while the disruption was regrettable the public had spent much of the summer listening to cost overruns and delays with other infrastructure projects and they did not want to hear this of DART.

He said work would go on at night as well as at weekends, and the company had a good record on bringing in projects on time and under budget.

Mr Kenny said the Department had known for months of the plans to begin work in the autumn, while the Sunday Tribune took advertisement space in this newspaper yesterday to point out it had reported on the planned closures on September 7th.

The Department spokesman said the Minister was "firmly of the view" that the company had failed to advise its customers of the detail and extent of the closures and added that the Minister was looking forward to a new public information campaign.

Originally posted by Syth
On the continent they had the intelligence to make all of their platforms dead straight.

Let me see, because Pearse - Dun Laoghaire (Old) was the first commuter railway in the world .... E\/4R!!!!11!!!!1

Originally posted by kamobe
If they can do it, why can't we? We'll sit here and bark about it, yet on Saturday those lazy sh1theads are still gonna screw over half the city on weekends.

"half the city" - I presume you mean the posh half?

Last time I checked DART only serves part of the city, so closing half of the DART does not "screw over half the city on weekends".

And think of it this way, the number 7 or 46A will get you closer to Grafton Street, where you can hang out with your posh mates.