[PQ] Overcrowding and Ventilation on the DART

[Mark]

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.

[zag]

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

[Mark Gleeson]

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

[Colm Donoghue]

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?

[Mark Gleeson]

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

[PaulM]

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.

[Thomas J Stamp]

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.

For all of those people who thought that Platform11 acted over the top, childish, and were somehow emo all over the Sunday Business Post Article I point out the above quote, given by the minister in the Dail.

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.

[Dave]

Originally Posted by Thomas J Stamp

For all of those people who thought that Platform11 acted over the top, childish, and were somehow emo all over the Sunday Business Post Article I point out the above quote, given by the minister in the Dail.

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.

You should put that on boards because thats where all the criticism of P11 was on this issue.

[Thomas J Stamp]

No. I have formed an opinion regarding the t&c boards on boards and it is this, you can tell me if I'm right in this or just being silly.

When we were the subject of a thread of our won over there during the summer Mark, Derek and I all decided not to post there for a while, funny enought it wasnt anything we actually agreed upon, I think we just got sick of it all at once. The result was that railway related threads and rail passenger issues droppped off the radar altogether.

It became obvious that without P11 input, or without knowing that P11 will input, no-one bothered about the issues we are about.

It is also easy to spot who the people who take an anti-P11 stance are, and they are fairly small in number (3 I count) - its important to discount people who would be anti P11 because they are members of the NBRU or SIPTU, because during the strike in May there was a quite a divisive line. I am talking about a small number of people who have taken against P11 personally, from what I read of their posts, and sadly that includes a moderator on that board. They post snide remarks and we react to them, they then get what they want, more posts, more threads, more hits on their board. Sure Derek started the DART thread, fair enough, but I didnt expect the sort of rubbish that was posted as "debate" in response and which then kicked off a similar load of balls over on IRN.


If I was to post on this issue over on boards again we'd only be starting the same thing off again.

As we're very much into transparancy here on P11 I'm disclosing that I am a mod on boards (sort of) but I post on the C&T board as an ordinary poster and member of P11, a fact that I disclose in their Conflict of Interests Thread. It is a pity that the moderators dont insist that our critics do likewise.
Also, despite boards shouting on and on about how they have 75,000 registered people, the number online at any one time is only a small multiple of this site and we usually have more registered on our board than there is on the C&T board. Our policy really as an organisation is to ensure that factual innacuracies about P11 are corrected if they appear there, nothing else. IMHO the importance of the C&T board is greatly inflated in the minds of both its own Moderators and some of its regular posters.

That's my two cents anyway.

[Dave]

Originally Posted by Thomas J Stamp

No. I have formed an opinion regarding the t&c boards on boards and it is this, you can tell me if I'm right in this or just being silly.

You are dead right, there are some over there who for one reason or another have a bias against P11.

They post snide remarks and we react to them, they then get what they want, more posts, more threads, more hits on their board.

Is that their motive though - to get more posts/threads/hits on their board? I have my doubts. I think they just want to discredit P11 but every time they attempt this it fails as P11 members and supporters always get their two cents in.

Anyway sure as you pointed out a couple of individuals posting drivel on boards is irrelevant to what P11 are trying to do.