Four-Car DART in evening peak ?
The 1847 Pearse to Howth was a four-car unit this evening. Is this a once off or an economy measure ? The same set may well have formed the 1630 from Malahide to Greystones due to depart Pearse at 1701.
While there were a few standing on the northbound service, many of these were travelling from Pearse and Tara Street to Connolly in order to connect with other services. I got a seat without difficulty at Pearse. |
That service was 8 coach earlier in the week
However there has been the usual seasonal drop in peak commuters (no schools, universities and holidays) so numbers are down, but since you got a seat doesn't seem to be a problem with a 4 coach. |
Yeah, it passed southbound through Pearse about half 6 and pulled all the way up, awful lot of people walking up the length of the platform to get to it.
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And I was on a 4 carriage southbound Dart around 8.30am today. You usually only see these on a Sunday.
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I know that, and I don't have a problem with it at all, just that it can be very inconvenient and distressing for passengers(especially infrequent travellers like tourists) and leads to high loadings in the rear carriage as well as delays caused by waiting for people to reach the train(worsening the pedestrian timing of DART services).
The fact that it is easily solved with extra screens at a 4/6 car stop at strategic stations like Pearse which has all its amenities at one end, or just an extra line in the PIS, is just symptomatic of IE's don't-care attitude. |
The stopping location certainly seems to be random on services further out. For some reason, this has started happening recently on the evening train I use most of the time. It was perfectly fine to stop a 3 car 22k at the convenience place three weeks ago but now it has to go to the end of the platform leaving everybody with a nice long walk.
It is fine for most people but for elderly or disabled passengers this would be major inconvenience - particularly when you walk the length of the carpark to get out of the station. It is also not nice if it is lashing rain and you've forgotten to bring a coat. This kind on inconsistency and lack of consideration for passengers is pretty much typical from Irish Rail in my experience. While a lot of staff do their job well, there is a minority that give out the impression that their life would be a lot easier if there weren't any passengers and they appear to be able to get away with it. |
I think you might find that it has something to do with the fact that some Drivers can't be trusted to stop in an appropriate place on the platform consistent with the number of coaches they have behind them.
Some have been known to stop 'short' on a platform leaving a few coaches off the end of the platform and then release the doors to open - mind the fall or mind the gap comes to mind. There is also the problem with lack of enough CCTV's on the platforms. Automatic announcements should be made on the platform so that passengers know where the train is going to stop and so avoid the stampede when the train vanishes off to the other end of the platform. |
There are definitely at least two 4-car Japanese sets doing the rounds today, just saw them on two concurrent northbound services. The one I mentioned in the thread earlier was a 2x2 German set, so I guess there is a trend now. It is nice to see a tiny bit of operational flexibility by IE, just wish they would go the whole hog and not inconvenience passengers in the process.
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Four car DARTs were in evidence on Monday working amongst other services, the 0725 Bray/Howth, 0845 Howth/Bray, 1645 Howth/Bray.
Four car DARTs were again in evidence on Tuesday working amongst other services, the 1627 Bray/Howth and 1745 Howth/Bray. While none of these services were spectacularly overcrowded they were a bit full to the rear with a few seats available to the front. |
yesterday (27.06) there were at least three 8600 class DART sets running as 4 car sets instead of 8 and at least one 8100 running as 4 instead of 6. This latter was the 1627 Bray-Howth which was grossly overcrowded leaving Pearse
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Saw the 1627 Bray/Howth at Pearse yesterday (Thursday) and it was ahgain a four-car set. There were a few standing, nothing spectacular though !
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Well, if there were a few standing at Pearse, it must have been pretty jammed by the time it had picked up passengers at Tara St and Connolly.
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Irish Rail have put a scrolling message on the platform displays asking people to move past the midway point of platforms due to the possibility of 4 car trains.
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Iarnród Éireann rejects fears over fewer Dart carriages
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...321232898.html
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Are these punters for real ?
While there has clearly been a very significant drop in DART usage to the extent that many peak services can be handled by four-car sets, the management of DART sets is idiotic and illogical. Eight-car sets ramble around at night on services which could easily be covered by a two-car train with plenty of seating capacity to spare. Given the competition for slots to accommodate atill busy northern and western services it makes little sense to be running short formation DART trains at peak periods. Subject to maintaining a minimum frequency (15 minutes) the DART peak service should be culled to the point that full advantage is being taken of the expensively provisioned capability of running 8-car trains. Only when these are loaded to the same density as other commuter services should DART frequency be extended. While rationalisation of DART services would tend to reduce peak frequency on the Howth branch, this could be offset by running a shuttle service between Howth and Howth Junction to increase the number of service options available. |
Another piece of idiotic rolling stock management is the increasing use of 22ks at peak times. Yesterday morning I was crammed into the vestibule of a 3 car 22k on the 7:45 Maynooth Connolly along with 12 or so others, the aisles were full as well and I'm fairly sure we left people behind at Ashtown. The trains are completely unsuitable for commuter use.
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The 22ks are not unsuitable for commuter use, indeed the majority of the passengers they carry are commuters.
They are certainly unsuitable for inner suburban services (with the possible exception of the kightly used KRP). Don't see any problem using them to Portlaoise, Athlone, Carlow and Wexford as well as on limited stop services to Longford and Dundalk. Apart from being unsuitable for heavily loaded inner suburban services, usage on such services represents a lost opprtunity to improve longer distance commuter services, many of which have proven particularly vulnerable to fast and cheaper bus services. |
Yes, sorry, that is what I meant, inner suburban services.
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Whatever happened to the promise about all services long than 1 hour getting 22Ks? It is idiotic to see 29ks being used for Longford runs when they are using 22ks on Maynooth services.
The outer commuter services really need a bit of a re-think. Two of the three early Longford services are currently served by 29Ks as is a pointless 9PM positioning service. Currently these have to be 29Ks as they do double-duty as Maynooth services and stop everywhere. It would make the service from Longford and Mullingar a lot more attractive if they could find a way to run these as 22Ks and have them express between Maynooth and Drumcondra (Possibly with a stop at Clonsilla). The could also get away with shorter trains if they were to do this. The Longford service currently ties up 12 29k cars (plus 6 22Ks for the early morning Sligo train which is really a commuter service). They could probably get this down to 6 22k cars if they went with having the services express to/from Maynooth - although at a guess the later train would probably need 6 cars as a 7:30 express from Maynooth would probably be very popular with Maynooth commuters. |
That's certainly my feeling, anything going to or from west of Maynooth should skip out the inner stations that have a more frequent service, like Drogheda and Rosslare services skip out DART stations. The problem I'm sure is signalling and congestion, so this probably won't happen unless the DARTification of the Maynooth line goes ahead.
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It almost certainly wouldn't work in the evening as the timings on the Sligo line are too reliable in the evening. But in the morning, it should be relatively feasible to have a stopping train leave Maynooth 5 minutes after an express which would then just about catch the previous stopping train by the time it got as far as Drumcondra.
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http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...reaking49.html
Use of 4cars set to continue. I don't really have a problem with this, I saw plenty of them today in the peak and they looked busy, not crush-laden, but if this to become a permanent thing Irish Rail need to start looking at 'innovations' like stop markers to help speed up boarding at places like Tara St and Pearse southbound and Connolly p7 northbound. |
What's frustrating is having 6-cars in the evening (when presumably there's no-one to decouple the carriages) but 4-cars during the peak.
If they have to have smaller trains, at least exhaust the off-peak possibilities first. |
1800 southbound from Pearse to Greystones was a 4 carriage last night. OK, it wasn't quite Japanese levels of crush, but the Greystones trains always have a few extra people on them, I didn't get a seat until Bray.
Standing for 10-15 minutes is fine, 40 minutes is pushing it (and genuinely will persuade potential passengers to drive instead). Irish Rails solution to falling passenger numbers and revenue is to raise prices, reduce frequency and make the service less comfortable - I'd like to know which business school they attended. (& how much do they save by running shorter trains anyway?) |
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Incidentally there were two northbound commuter services formed by 8-car 2900s during this period, both of which had about 600 passngers departing Pearse. |
It's a bit of a catch 22 - if you avoid energy costs by right-sizing the train to the time of day you add the costs involved with pulling the trains into the yard and assembling/splitting the consists.
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Split operation takes no more than 3 minutes, if you allow for the walking and standing around
A join operation is 30 seconds. Unlike the UK Irish Rail's don't have go through crazy computer restarts to couple up, its more like couple and go |
I was on a peak hour 4-carriage dart this evening heading out of town. It was close to resembling a peak hour tube train in London.
Normally I'm lucky enough to be travelling in the opposite direction to the masses. One of the things that used to really appeal to me about Dublin was its lack of rush hour train crushes. Exactly what is the saving associated with reducing a dart by each set of two carriages per journey? |
Why are people still making such issues over this, Dublin Bus and Luas are always crammed during rush hour so why do people expect to have a seat on a dart or not have to stand for short period of time. People have to stand on Intercity services which should not happen but it does. You are traveling on a urban train they are meant to be packed. Any yes I use the Dart every 2 days during rush hour and I have to stand even though its not ideal its no different to the bus or luas.
Do people from Maynooth, Dundalk, Wexford, Kildare etc have constant rants about standing.... Inniskeen I also saw a few darts on Wednesday evening. A mix of 4,6,8 sets and TBH most were fine. The 4 car sets were a little cramped which is normal but in general everything seemed ok. Time for people to deal with it as its not going to change anytime soon so no point in ranting about it. |
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It just seems illogical to run 4 carriage rush hour DARTs and (as I observed last night on 10.30pm Pearse-Greystones DART) 8 carriage off peak DARTs if it is being hailed as a cost saving measure. |
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Irish rail spent a lot of (our) money buying new trains, refurbishing the old ones so they could run in 8 car sets, extending platforms etc.
I appreciate that passenger numbers may have dropped (though I'd debate by how much, many of the industries hit by the recession would not have contributed much to the DART numbers, & there's still plenty of students and schoolkids). I don't mind standing for a bit, and if they genuinely had no additional capacity available I'd accept it, but its a bit galling to find yourself jammed into someone's armpit for half an hour when you know they have carriages sitting around Fairview doing nothing. |
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Thousands leaving the cournty monthly. Many non Irish nationals have left and most only used public transport. Transport has being hit most during the downturn. Take avation Dublin Airport has lost 5 million passengers since the peak in 2008 why is because people are not travling and the same applies to trains, buse. I don't have any sort of figues but from what I saw on Wednesday I would like to know how 8 car sets were justified for so long. Quote:
And for people giving out about standing for 15-30 minutes then you need to use trains on Waterford line everymorning. Passengers standing for 60-70 minutes and there is lots of capacity that could be added but its not. |
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What's the basis of your point? There are still 8 carriage DARTs running off peak hours that have not been formed for the purpose of entering a scheduled peak service time. Originally Irishrail stated the 4 carriage DARTs were used for peak services during summer months when no colleges or schools were on. With the new school/college term initiated over a month ago, there has not been no response in terms of carriage numbers for peak hour services to the increased demand. Either Irishrail management are completely incompetent or there is something they are not telling us. |
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2011 - 15.9 million 2010 - 16.8 milliom 2009 - 17.5 million Has the above trend contuined into 2012? Quote:
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The problem with 4-car trains (and which would be worse again with 2-cars) is that people stand all over the platform and get no indication until the train pulls in of (a) where the train will stop or (b) how long it is. This means higher dwell time while the train waits for everyone to get on.
Over here the PIS tells you how many coaches there are and there are stop boards which tell you where a train of a given length will stop. |
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