P11 News Item. "DART Fiasco"

[Mark Gleeson]

Originally Posted by hhf8

is their reason why there's two,(they look BRAND new) Alsthom coaches sitting outside fairview?

They have been there since late November, and have now been vandalised.

Originally Posted by hhf8

the 12 coach,was 3 4 sets?

2 6 coach, one came to rescue the other

[Mark Gleeson]

Just to bump this

The 4th deadline IE have given for the return to service of the first refurbished DART will not be met.

The first set returned still hasn't had its seats fitted, though at least its allowed to be left switched on with other trains around it moving so they have got the EMC certification done

[hhf8]

has the first one entered service yet? saw they had used barrels in one of them, barrels are replacement for people..:>

[Mark Gleeson]

Only one spotted moving under its own power is 8107/8307, it has the barrels

Tests are still done very early in the morning, northside at the moment

Since Siemens screwed up the refurbishment a whole lot of extra tests are now required

[Mark Gleeson]

We keep a close eye on the refurbished DART game

There are no seats fitted just the water barrels

Note after 40 million euro they couldn't be even arsed to have the correct logo on the front and sides

[Derek Wheeler]

Thank you for that Mark.

It now looks like the entire refurbishment project is going to take longer than it took to build the original DART project in the first place. Back then we were a poverty striken little nation. Apparently we are filthy rich and brilliant now. You wouldn't think that if you study the crazy IE rolling stock situation. Clapped out MK4s. 23 year old DART coaches that should've been refurbed by now. 8 coach DARTs that are a rarity. Commuter railcars on intercity journies....still!

Can they honestly blame "decades of under investment" on any of this? The cravens only went after a well known journo got shafted on one. Nice one Willie!

IE can only be made accountable by exposure and embarrassing exposure at that. Roll on P11TV!

[Mark Gleeson]

Contracts where signed for the DART coaches in January 1981. The first coaches arrived Dublin February 14th 1983. Bare in mind the technology that powered it (3 stage fixed frequency GTO) wasn't invented at the time of contract signing and 25 months later it was here. Ok it had some design issues but still. It took Siemens 23 months and all they had to do was take it apart and put it back together again

For the record even with over 1 million euro spent on the two coaches above it still makes a awful racket while parked up, IE didn't bother to replace the compressor or motor alternator

[hhf8]

hoe many have returned?,I''ve seen at least 2 in fairview,also one did have the new logo on the side

[Mark Gleeson]

4 sets now back
8107/8307
8113/8313
8123/8323
8131/8331

Sets 8107/8307 + 8113/8313 has seats fitted, the blue barrels are gone and the no smoking and so on stickers have appeared

[MrX]

Why does it have the old DART logo though?

That makes absolutely no sense at all..

[robdrysdale]

I noticed this morning that all the refurbished darts were gone from Fairview and 6 old carriages were parked up at the North end of the depot. Have the refurbished units gone back into service?

[Mark Gleeson]

If it was after 10am they are most likely out on test or could be inside the shed.

They are not back in service to our knowledge, that said it will take little more than an hour to confirm

Its easy tell if the coaches outside are being sent abroad. They would have no seats fitted and the pantographs (mechanical assembly which makes contact with the overhead wire) would be missing, thats easy spot

Is the refurbished one parked on its own on the East Wall side gone?

[robdrysdale]

It was at about 8:50. The sheds were empty, I could see inside. It looked to me like the old units were about to be taken inside to have the work you mentioned done. Given that there were 6 old units parked up and 4 Alstrom units parked up also, I figured they would be short on carriages.

[Mark Gleeson]

Well the updated list

6 sets now back
8107/8307
8113/8313
8123/8323
8131/8331
8138/8338
8139/8339

First 4 on the list are running as a 8 coach train on driver training during the morning/afternoon. We continue to keep an eye on this, the first set was to be back in service in June 2005, 22 months on still not one in service.

[zag]

The 8 car set stopped at the northbound platform in Clontarf Road some day last week while I was waiting for a southbound train.

For some reason (hopefully not crossed wires) the trackside doors opened instead of the platform side ones.

The thing was there was a train about to pull in to my platform, so *if* there was anyone on the test train and *if* they weren't paying attention, it would have been extremely bad news for them if they stepped off the wrong side with a DART rolling (thundering down the tracks is not a phrase I associate with the DART) towards them.

z

[Mark Gleeson]

It actually makes total sense, they are shaking the train down by driving it as if it was in service making all the stops. Opening the doors on the wrong side means they can do the full test without accidentally picking up any passengers

I've seen them stop in the past on the bridge at the back of TCD and run the doors through before moving off

[zag]

Yes, but if I was testing the system I would at least wait until the inbound train had either stopped or departed.

If anything goes wrong, the least-worst case would be some loose material falling out the door into the path of the oncoming train, and the most-worst case would be the guy (who the driver didn't know was in the train) leaning against the (normally safe) door falls out under the incoming train.

Wait until the train goes by and the most-worst case becomes the guy falling on the track and learning not to lean against doors again.

z

[Mark Gleeson]

Ahh but on any non passenger service all staff onboard must make there presence known to the driver, typically they travel with the driver

And it does have door opening and closing buzzers

[essoII]

Saw the eight set of re-furbished darts coming home from school on wednesday at Bray. Around 3.00 i think. I dont know if anyone else noticed but there are now side LCD displays in the middle window showing the train destination. Don't think they're on any of the newer DARTs. Seems like a good idea though, like the side displays on commuters.

[Mark Gleeson]

Noticed that, they filled in one of the window opening spaces. It one of the requirements of new accessibilty rules. All the 851x and 852x Japanese coaches have them (52 in total), of course will it work is the big question

Its hard to spot