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Originally Posted by James Shields
@Dublin13... there are other options from Clontarf Road in the period you mention.
For example, you could catch the 18:13 Howth bound DART as far as Howth, and pick up the 18:32 Dundalk train there (8 min wait at HJ).
Or the 18:31 and 18:57 (that one has a 14 min wait at HJ, so not ideal).
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I leave work at 5.30 and can be at Clontarf for about 5.45 without any issue. My morning commute takes me 23 minutes from leaving my house to getting into the office, any of those options is going to add severe time on to the journey, to the point where it takes me at least 3x longer to get home at night to when I leave in the morning. It then becomes much easier to take the care than get the train.
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However, I think the timetable could be much better designed so that Commutters don't end up chugging all the way to Malahide behind a DART (and there are several other points where a small change to the order of trains would allow Malahide branch passengers to use Howth DART and Commuter combinations, and also avoid delays for Northern line passengers.
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The Howth line is ridiculously over-served. The frequency it gets bears no resplendence to the amount of passengers who actually use it in evening peak, almost all the pax are only going between Kilester and Howth Junction The easy solution is to remove one of the Howth Trains and add the 4 cars to the Malahide train that is overcrowded, freeing up paths and increasing capacity where needed.
Last night there was almost 70-80 people standing per carriage on the 17:54 from Connolly in the four car dart train, the Howth's just before and just after had barely a soul standing and past experience has shown they are almost empty by the time they reach Howth Junction whereas the Malahide ones are full. It's not unknown for passengers going to Malahide via HOWTH Darts alighting at Howth Junction to not be able ot even board at Howth Junction, that is how bad it is.
The 16.02 to Dundalk was stuck behind the 17:54 Malahide DART last night because of the chroni dwell times that DART suffers from because of intense overcrowding because of the fact it should never be a four car. If Irish rail adjusted capacity to demand everyone would get home quicker, but they don't so there are delays a plenty with knock on effect for trains behind.
Don't blame us Malahide passengers, we get a damn raw deal as well, the only people who are getting vastly overserved is Howth, so if there is going to be any fall guy in this it should be them as they have the most slack to give. Both commuter passengers and Malahide branch passengers are being shafted, I totally agree with that, but believe me, if your blaming the Malahide DARTs for running late, you're looking at a symptom of the overall issue rather than the direct cause.
All Irish rail have to do is stick the appropriate number of cars on the Malahide services and you will find the 18:02 commuter would be much more reliable. But they won't andd the Malahide guys who are at DART only station don't have a whole lot of other decent choices that doesn't increase there commute by several times over. The 17:54 Malahide gets later and later by the month as the overcrowding becomes worse and more often
In any case, unless Irish Rail do something in the next few weeks I won't be renewing my annual pass, I'd rather drive than deal with the crazy pantomime in the evening that Irish Rail know about and continue to allow carriages sit idle, despite people passing out in the summer and other trains carrying sweet fresh air.