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16-11-2006, 14:15 | #1 |
Member
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Northern line
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[PQ] Overcrowding and Ventilation on the DART
2006
Overcrowding and Ventilation on the DART 10 October 2006 To ask the Minister for Transport the action he will take regarding the issue of overcrowding on the DART service and the ventilation systems on the carriages. - Finian McGrath For WRITTEN answer on Tuesday, 10th October, 2006. Ref No: 31951/06 Answered by the Minister for Transport - Martin Cullen Reply This Government is providing unprecedented levels of funding under the National Development Plan 2000-2006 and Transport 21 to ensure that Iarnród Éireann can fulfil its statutory duty to operate a safe railway and that the company can expand its services and increase capacity through the purchase of additional rolling stock. In particular, the DART service has seen significant improvements over the last six years. Since 2000 peak capacity on the service has been doubled following the introduction of an additional 78 cars to the fleet, the lengthening of platforms to accommodate 8-car trains, the renewing of overhead lines and the enhancement of the power supply along with the development of sidings to accommodate the expanded fleet. Despite this increase in capacity I understand that overcrowding occurs at peak times but that the issue is one of discomfort and inconvenience and does not give rise to safety concerns. An increase in the number of 8 car DART operating in the peak period is planned by Iarnród Eireann for implementation before the end of the year. I understand from Íarnród Éireann that the position in relation to ventilation is that 40 of the most modern DART cars are fitted with air conditioning, while the remaining cars in the fleet have the traditional hopper windows for ventilation. These matters are operational matters for Iarnród Eireann. |
16-11-2006, 14:48 | #2 |
Regular Poster
Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 199
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Sidings ?
Would these sidings be the ones in Clontarf that haven't been commissioned for something like a year now ?
Is is asking too much that there be a good valid reason for this ? Wild guess (I know it's not the real one, but it makes as much sense as anything else) would be that they discovered someone had secretly dug a big tunnel underneath it and the supports are only strong enough to take a single DART carriage at a time . . . you know, kinda like the port tunnel. z |
16-11-2006, 15:48 | #3 |
Technical Officer
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Coach C, Seat 33
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Its more to do with 20 coaches not being in the country
There is sufficent space to park the fleet up, Bray has a considerable amount of space |
17-11-2006, 10:03 | #4 |
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Join Date: Dec 2005
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Mark,
Are there twice as many dart coaches in service as in 2000 now? And with some of the paths taken with Maynoth and Drogheda trains is the capacity truely double what it was in 2000? |
17-11-2006, 10:48 | #5 |
Technical Officer
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Coach C, Seat 33
Posts: 12,669
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Total DART coaches available this morning 130, total in fleet on 1/1/2000 80. 16 in Liepzig, 4 in Fairview awaiting commissioning and 4 Alstom coaches stored Inchicore, actual bodyshifting capacity is up about 80% today
With all coaches available 154, not quite 100% in fleet terms you reach over 100% increase since the new coaches have a much greater standing capacity |
17-11-2006, 10:54 | #6 |
Really Regular Poster
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Posts: 826
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I'm going to start dealing with work like politicians do.
Colleague: Paul, the network is crawling due to congestion. Paul: Ah, but I am currently implementing a VOIP PBX. Once We have that I plan on buying some new switches and a bigger router than we have now. There are also some new test machines coming online soon and most staff are getting new PCs. All our new switches will be gigabit so there will be more bandwidth and then all will be rosey. I expect this to be complete by June 2007. See, that is no help but it sounds good for sound bites. |
17-11-2006, 11:20 | #7 | |
Chairman/Publicity
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: The Home of Hurling
Posts: 2,708
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Quote:
Yet again, we have the department, the minister and IE (where else can he get his info from) misleading the public on this issue. An increase can be as simple as two extra carraiges on on DART train. Perhaps this might happen, however, IE said to the SBP that their plans have been put back until next year. However, this above quote will be manna from heaven for the apologists for IE on this issue. |
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