[PR] Irish Rail fuel efficency
 

This came in on the grapevine this morning. Nothing new to RUI members as the 4 coach ICR fleet has been known about for several months

That said from a passenger point of view shorter trains are not exactly always a good thing

2-car DARTs will badly slow down the service unless they install stop boards.

They have, and from what I saw today(the two car DARTs are already in use from today) the boards seem to be being used properly. Will take a while for passengers to adapt though.

nothing wrong with cutting capacity off peak but IR should be able to respond when demand is high.

Yesterday 4 carriage DARTs were not sufficient for the crowds pre and post the All Ireland Final.

they need to up their game for football in a fortnight and hurling replay which is on a saturday which is obviously a busier day than a sunday

As you say, no big surprise as this has been in the offing for at least two years. Would expect many Heuston sets to reduce to 4 car and for 4 car sets to replace most of the remaining mark 4 services. Would also expect some shrinkage on the Sligo line, 1600 to Sligo or 1805 to Longford hardly need to be 6 cars. Same probably applies to the 1905 Sligo.

It will be interesting to see how they work it out. Ideally full benefit won't be seen until the 2014 timetable as dropping capacity on some intercity services out of Heuston in the evenings will result in problems for commuter stops, it could well result in another 18.35 Waterford service unless they are carful how they introduce it.

The 2 car DART's are a welcome for off peak services.

Can anybody confirm if 4 car trains are in service, almost certain The 15.05 from Galway was a 4 car and there was a 7 car set arriving in Heuston as I passed.

4 car has been certified for operation

A 9 carriage 22k set, how is this configured, 3x3 carraige sets together?

and the 7 carriage set?

Any danger of the 0800 ex Dublin weekday service being upped to a 4 carriage set, given previously a 3 carriage set was operating the 0700 and a 6 carriage set operating the 0900 - which were amalgamated to form the now 0800 service

The now 0800 is a reasonably busy service and, this is the first westbound after Maynooth in the mornings.

Likely a 6+3.

4+3

Any combination is possible up to a max of 9 in service. But you cannot couple two A2 cars together. Thats unlikely to happen as A2 is the first class coach. But a train can have two A2 cars provided they are not nose to nose

Emergency allows for a monster 18 coach train, but obviously you loose seat reservations, and the in cab CCTV system will be confused if you do that.

Currently a 9 pce set can operate either as 6 + 3 or 3 x 3.

Once the reconfiguration happens there will be no 6pce sets left so your possible configurations will be:

3pce
4pce
6pce - 2 x 3pce
7pce - 4 + 3
8pce - 2 x 4pce
9pce - 3 x 3pce

8pce or 9pce sets can realistically only operate from Dublin to Cork or Dundalk, or to Galway excluding Clara.

The reconfiguration has not started yet (other than for testing), and will take quite some time to complete when it does start.

Tullamore is out as well

Dublin Dundalk is only good for Connolly P2/4, Howth Junction (northbound), Drogheda (P1/2) and Dundalk. So basically no good

3 car set being used to operate 16.00 Heuston-Cork today.

Near capacity leaving Heuston and has just departed Port Laoise where over 100 passengers were waiting to board from Ploughing Chships

The cattle at the ploughing are going home in less cramped conditions - disgraceful overcrowding with large numbers standing

No forward planning !

That train is supposed to be a 2 x 3 pce - there must have been a failure or some other issue that meant it was shortened.

The 16.00 is always very busy and that's why cheapest online ticket is €33 to push people to other services. Might be better pushing it to €44.

Possibly given the Ploughing is on, maybe 6 car could of being used.

Only Fridays and Saturdays, not during the week.

At the entrance to Dun Laoghaire station there is a sign that says something like: "For your convenience on shorter Dart Services, we have installed a '2/3/4 Car Stop' point that tells you where the train will stop so you don't have to walk so far."

Where do they locate this Stop Point for North bound Darts? 80% of the way down the platform. It would be difficult to locate it much further away from the ticket office if they tried. Just a guess, but I doubt Dun Laoghaire is unique in this regard.

And my second point relates particularly to 2 carriage Darts. Why would you have 2 carriage Darts followed 15 minutes later by much longer ones? If the aim is to save money - and don't get me wrong - it's good that we now know that the cost of running a Dart is proportional to its length - but it would surely make logical sense for Dart sizes to be increased at peak periods and reduced in the offpeaks, but without the variability that seems present at the minute. Once traffic only warrants a 2 carriage Dart at 6.30pm for example, then, sporting or music events excepting, all Darts after this time should be such.

Perhaps that longer set could be swapped at Connolly rather than Bray for example, as it is needed in Fairview for the following morning or for an exam. You are always going to have a certain amount of positioning moves with any transport operation.

Any idea Mark (or anyone else for that matter) if IR will be using the 4 carriage 22000 trains on the Rosslare line? I have e-mailed and written to IR so many times in the past asking them to replace the 29000 trains with the 22000s, but they always say they are using the 29000s because the 3 car 22000s are too small for the busy times (and most of the stations are too short for a 6 car 22000). So does any one know if they'll replace the 2 or 3 29000s we have with the 4 car 22000s when they're ready? Personally I'm getting sick of the 29000s on this line!

P.S. I'm new to the Forum so don't murder me if this has already been discussed somewhere

You may well see 4 car sets on Rosslare, I would imagine it is rather likely.

The 29k sets have to be used on certain trains due to the higher loadings at present. As to whether they will all be replaced, I wouldn't imagine that this will necessarily happen. Some may be replaced but I'd imagine the commuter services will stay 29k operated.

Remember that there are no additional units arising from this reconfiguration, but if certain trains are shortened from 2 x 3pce to 1 x 4pce additional sets may become available.

Until they actually plan this out and start the reconfigurations, we'll have to wait and see.