[30/11-01/12/2013] Pearse-Dún Laoghaire bus transfers
 

Anyone know what they are doing?

Bridge works at Lansdowne Road, I believe.

Can't see this going down to well with the public and business coming up to Christmas.

Why the need to stop the Rosslare trains at Bray when the line is open to Dun Laoghaire?

Possibly easier to turn around trains at Bray.

As Colm says - there is far more space in Bray to store trains than Dun Laoghaire.

When is a good time?

There is never a good time to do engineering works as someone will be upset.

Some times are better than others - the middle of January or February is likely to be somewhat quieter than the run up to Christmas !

Not necessarily as you have Heineken Cup matches and the Six Nations.

Every weekend in January/February ?

No, but I fail to see the issue here. It's 4 weekends before Christmas, it's still November. The main rush is in December - the three weekends before Christmas.

Presumably the engineers have good reason to do the work.

The peak weekend for Christmas shopping, I believe, tends to be the first weekend in December. The 30th November/1st of December is uncomfortably close to that.

Its not the end of the world, the numbers travelling on DART at weekends these days is fairly modest in any event although I would expect next weekend to be busier than many of the alternatives in January/February.

It could be Irish Rail have some money to spend which won't be available next year. It could be that they need to deal urgently with defective infrastructure.

Guessing as the majority of works happen in the last 4 months of the year its a case how have the first 8 months of the year gone and we can spare x amount of money to carry out some works.

Not saying its the worst time of year as they could of picked weekends closer but they would of know about this for a while unless it was emergency works.

if DASH 2 was fully operational could GCD have been kept open?

Grand Canal Dock could be kept open in exactly the same manner as Dun Laoghaire is being kept open, e.g terminating DART serves the normal platform, drops it's passengers and continues forward and reverses into the opposite platform. City Centre resignalling should allow additional flexibility at Grand Canal Dock such as terminating/routing in any direction on any of the three platforms, maybe sometime in the next two to five years ? (officially 2015, I think). This, and additional capacity on the loop line is the basis for the proposed service through the Phoenix Park tunnel.

It will vary, but a lot of work is done in the summer, due to the additional daylight available - it means two works shifts per day in daylight instead of one.

Points at south of Pearse/ north of Grand Canal Dock are marked to be be cut up lifted and replaced would expect that to happen during closure so Grand Canal Dock

Some minor tweaks are required at that point for the signalling project

As far as I am aware all pointwork between Grand Canal Dock and Pearse Street has been renewed in the last few years and is not likely to be altered. The carriage yard between Pearse and Grand Canal Dock has also already been altered.

I imagine that once the track-work at the south end of Grand Canal Dock has been altered (pending for about twelve years), the city bound platform and the currently unused 3rd platform will be extended in a southerly direction - in other words the west side of the station will move south and the points at the Pearse end will remain as they are.

I don't therefore expect any engineering activity at Grand Canal Dock this weekend. The station could therefore remain open while works take place on the west side of the Doodder bridge at Lansdowne Road.

None of the points at Grand Canal Dock have been replaced in the last 10 years, the Pearse end is original 1983 and is life expired, those immediately adjacent to Pearse were replaced about 3 years ago

As I said the points have acquired markings which suggest the points are to be cut up for lifting.

During the commissioning of the Dublin Northside signalling a pair of crossovers at Connolly was replaced