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Unread 03-12-2015, 19:31   #51
James Howard
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Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Sligo Line
Posts: 1,115
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I agree that a significant improvement to Malahide capacity is really necessary but the problem with this timetable is that it takes a lot from everyone else in order to deliver a very minor improvement in overall point-to-point journey times involving DART. The impact on the trains serving the 9 - 5:30 worker on the Longford commuter service is 21 minutes a day. The benefit to the DART commuter is 4 or 5 minutes a day at best and less for the person who is organised enough to know the timetable. Indeed if you consider that the average wait time is reduced by 2.5 minutes and the average running time is increased by 3, the point-to-point time is actually worse statistically.

The Maynooth line timetable really needs a far more radical recast. It would massively speed things up going towards Maynooth if every train stopped at Broombridge allowing transfers between Docklands and Connolly trains. Then the Dunboyne trains could serve stations between Broombridge and Clonsilla allowing 5 to 10 minutes to be cut off the Maynooth run. Maybe this wouldn't work for every station and every train and perhaps it would be best to leave this until after Luas BXD opens which would then give people the option of a simple connection to the south city centre and points further.

Does anybody know precisely why it now takes 9 minutes longer to get from Pearse to Bray than it did in 1985? Is there some form of continental drift involved? Every timetable, Irish Rail seem to add a minute or three onto journey times to improve reliability and robustness yet nothing ever changes. The Sligo line timetable is so robust that trains spend 10 minutes waiting at crossing points.
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