DART is 25
 

It be the DART's 25 birthday on July 23rd

The curious folks in Irish Rail seem to want to cash in on this, coaches 8122 and 8322 have been repainted and carry a modified DART logo with 25 in a somewhat appropriate silver colour.

For those of us who can remember the late 1980's the DART was a thing of amazement, clean, punctual, frequent, no huge gaps in the timetable, all stations staffed. It even made a profit!

Irish Rail could do well to look at how it used to be, there is nothing really to celebrate

Seen DART No.8603

http://railsceneireland.fotopic.net/p58730563.html

Oh I just love this picture where just new logo is clean and the rest isn't

The DART 25 years old and still only 1 line.... yep well done indeed to all involved, especially those politicians in creating our city wide metro network :(

I saw a couple of them at Clontarf Road in the last few days. I agree that it looks poor to have gone to the trouble of getting the logo done up and applied to the cars but not to go the whole hog and actually clean the rest of the vehicle.

Having the 25 all claen and shiney only points out how dirty hte rest fo the train is. I know trains operate in a not-clean environment and we can't expect them to be shiney all the time but at least some of the time would be good.

It's 'sad' seeing trains coming through the wash in Clontarf Road & Connolly and the roof and under-body are are dirty as when they went in.

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I have to agree with you weehamster, we irish have a real haphazard way of organising things. the slight enhancements to the DART network at Malahide and Greystones have not helped much to make a proper Dublin Rail network

I was in holland over the last couple of days and took an intercity service from tiel to amsterdam (change at utrecht central). My first time ever taking a double-decker electric train and the speed of the service, the organisation (ie platform displays etc) and other things making it an enjoyable experience coupled with the success of park and ride and the large number of peak hour passengers travelling out of amsterdam. The trains were either single decker or carriages were decoupled like wales at off-peak times meaining resources weren't wasted. Most if not all of their rail network is electrified.

I have some great experiences of the DART over the years, the problem is that as their prime resource they have treated it shabby. Catering for the commuter passengers while failing to update the DART system to reflect this. Many people I have spoke to have always complemented the DART system but find that its getting more and more trimmed to the result that it is becoming noticable by the passengers how infrequent at times it is becoming.

Lets hope the clockface timetable (if ever introduced) will fix this!

Its classic Irish Rail mess, go for the PR but not to bother sorting out the problems with the system

The bulk of the fleet still carry the pre 2003 flat logo, some in horribly faded condition some carry the post 2003 swish logo. What was wrong with the original 1984 logo, simple logo with the Dublin Area Rapid Transit and CIE wheel, simple.

• Timetable is rubbish - yes I have fewer morning peak hour trains than 10 years ago and I'm on the southside!
  
• Journey times have increased
  
• Stations are unstaffed as a matter of routine
  
• The promised accessibility upgrade didn't really deliver

I find the peak times very strange. Going North in the AM, I know that (except for some gap around 0900) there will be a train along in 3-7 minutes. Coming South in the PM there are pretty regular 15 minute gaps. This seems crazy for a peak hour timetable.

Back in the 1980's and 1990's wasn't it essentially just the DART & InterCity trains?

Now the COMMUTER fleet has been added on the southside. Maybe this is why there are fewer Darts at peak times???:mad:

I used to have 8:00, 8:10, 8:17, 8:23, 8:30, 8:35

Now have 8:02, 8:12, 8:24, 8:33, 8:38

No Maynooth and Drogheda were always there. Not as we know it though.

Well in honesty IEs ignorance and failure to lsten to warning signs on the rapid increasing growth along these lines as far back as the 90s has left the dublin rail scene in a major state and failure to resolve this now is going to make things worse for the future.

Cutting out COMMUTER trains to Bray would be a start. Its defeating the purpose of the Dart!

You only need two COMMUTER trains each way to Gorey especially if the Rosslare InterCity is to increase to five trains a day!!!:mad:

More Darts and LESS commuter trains on the Southside please. Take note IE.

Integrating Maynooth to the DART and sending some of them to GCD/Dun Laoghaire platform 3/Bray would also help some of the holdups.

Would it go down badly if I were to propose that commuter trains should leave and arrive at Bray?

Would that improve things?

Well if you reckon DARTs can handle the influx of passengers off Commuter trains at connolly do that but in all fairness we all know they cant! The morning Maynooth and Drogheda to connolly trains which are only 4-carriages long are always leaving people behind from the DARTs at connolly.

The commuter trains go out to Bray in the morning peak primarily because there is nowhere else to put them.

Which raises the question why it will take 11 years before the 3rd platform in Grand Canal Dock sees a service train, equally the loss of the second terminus platform in Dun Laoghaire didn't help

Fundamentally its the fact the timetable hasn't had a overhaul since 1985

Yes that would go down badly! We have far enough to travel and it takes us long enough to get into the city as it is. As there are so few commuter trains I struggle to see how it would make that much of a difference plus the commuters from Greystones inwards are more than happy to hop on the trains when they're there and vice versa on the way back out in the evenings!

If, say, there are 3 sets that operate from the south east in the morning. Have the first service end at Greystones / Bray and return to, say, Arklow. This would mean 3 sets could run 4 services. And the same during the off-peak. You would be near guaranteed a seat at Greystones / Bray.

Is it just me or does the new "25" logo look like a graffiti artist has been at the train (at least from a distance)?

As I understand the reason for commuter trains going to Brey is the lack of room to store out of service trains in the city centre. Regardless, I don't see how removing them would allow more DARTs to run, as they would still have to fit between commuter trains on the northside.

The real solution is to electrify Maynooth and northern lines and build the Interconnector.

This Bray issue always comes up on the Gorey-Rosslare service.

Fact is, that Dun Laoghaire is a major Dublin suburb, where every single train has to stop at the station. Given how slow it is out of Sandycove, it may as well stop there anyway. It is the only station where a Rosslare-Connolly service has to stop en route from Pearse-Bray, so it's not a major inconvenience.

What would work and improve timings between stations is having commuter trains stopping at greystones(that are coming from the south) and at connolly (coming from the north). Maynooth should be electrified straight away and continue on to the southern line as it will when the interconnector is built.The howth line should terminat at docklands as soon as the luas is open.This would mean only intercity and Dart would run in the city centre and it would be another excuse to push the government to speed up the interconector.

It would really piss a lot of commuters of though.Having to get off at greystones/Connolly ony to get on a DART.

It would piss of me no doubt too. DART to Sheriff Street? No thanks.

I see where you are coming from though and I would imagine that instead of Docklands that Howth and Malahide DARTs could in theory be terminated in Connolly platforms 3, 4 or 5 while Maynooth to Greystones could use 6 and 7.

For those interested Capital D on RTE 1 tonight at 7pm is doing a special show for the 25th year