any thoughts on the new draft timetable?

[sean]

will the M3-Connolly trains serve Drumcondra?

[Mark Gleeson]

Originally Posted by sean

will the M3-Connolly trains serve Drumcondra?

Yes

[sean]

In that case I think I'll be leaving the car on-street as much as I do now.

Basically here's my interest in this:
I live in Drumcondra and about once a week I take a late morning / early afternoon train into the city to change to a DART to go Southside. Return that afternoon or very early in the rush hour.

Trains run inbound approx. every 40 minutes or so, take it to Pearse (indoor waiting area) to wait for next DART. Not exactly turn-up-and-go frequency but acceptable. Going home, I take the DART to Connolly, as in addition to trains running (not so frequently) from Pearse to Maynooth, there is as often as not a Maynooth bound train waiting in the sheds. Never had to wait more than ~22 minutes for this connection.

But certainly a train every 30 minutes will definitely be an improvement, i.e. if I can use M3 trains as well as Maynooth ones.

Okay clonsilla had a huge number of departures but they were bunched together and most going to docklands and non-stop. The new timetable is a massive improvement now that they are spread out.

The "bunching" AFAIK was to allow passenger to use Clonsilla as a transfer station, i.e. passengers going between the M3 line and Pearse/Drumcondra. I once did this going to - and from - Dunboyne.

[ThomasJ]

All off peak m3 parkway trains will call a drumcondra.

M3 parkway services To Connolly (10-3 weekdays) and to pearse (all weekend services) will all call at drmcondra

[europhile]

Is there a link to the proposed timetable somewhere?

[James Howard]

There is a link to the PDF file on the comments page here:
http://irishrail.ie/contact_us/conno...e_comments.asp

I wouldn't get too excited though. I used to have a great sense of expectation every year coming up to the new timetable because I had some kind of misguided notion that in return for millions of euro for track renewal, new rolling stock, resignalling and level-crossing automation that they might manage to shave 5 or 10 minutes of the Longford - Dublin running time.

Now, in fairness we do have more services so I suppose that is progress and they took 10 minutes of the 7ish AM Longford departure by making it an express, but that is the only progress I have seen in 7 years of commuting. Oh, and I can plug my laptop in now and sometimes I even get power.

Somebody once told me that they had seen a Sligo line timetable from 1906 and the running time for an express was within 5 minutes of the current value - I think it might have been 2 or 3 minutes quicker back then.

[Mark Gleeson]

Draft timetable is here http://www.irishrail.ie/contact_us/c...e_comments.asp

As Irish Rail have been known to change the timetable best not link directly to the pdf

The average Dublin Sligo time today is less than the best time in 1973 (a significant year in terms of timetabling following the McKinsey report of 1971) which was achieved with fewer stops and on a single train only. I'd be guessing the 1900's era would have been at least an hour longer, the line was double track most of the way back then

Its easy poke fun at the journey times but the average times have come down significantly over the last 10 years and that is the really important measure. The problem currently is clearly the waits at stations to pass other trains

[Colm Moore]

Originally Posted by James Howard

Somebody once told me that they had seen a Sligo line timetable from 1906 and the running time for an express was within 5 minutes of the current value - I think it might have been 2 or 3 minutes quicker back then.

But may not necessarily have been as safe or comfortable and would have been less disrupted by level crossings.