Timetable consultation for DART/commuter 2016 now online

[Dublin13]

Originally Posted by Inniskeen

The 1654 from Connolly is almost never delayed by the Enterprise, it originates in Greystones and is frequently late departing from there. Like some other services originating in Greystones it is habitually late. This will probably be more of an issue with the 10 minute interval DART service as turn-around time in Greystones is reduced and the potential for congestion related delays greatly increased.

I have no idea what is delaying it, all I know is that my OH often says that the Enterprise at 16:50 often leaves Connolly a few minutes late, which backs up the 16:51 Commuter which has to wait for the enterprise to go out, which then in turn backs up the 16.54 DART. Normally the Commuter is going through Clontarf about 16:58 on the rare times I have seen it when I finished work early, when the DART is due so since it is only coming from Pearse, something is clearly holding it up.

Now I'm not saying that the DART hasn't already lost time by the time it gets to Connolly at Greystones, but it seems to lose a few minutes more because of the commuter ahead of it, which is clearly held up by something for a few minutes and with an Enterprise train 1 minute ahead of it, seems perfectly possible.

Likewise, if the Enterprise leaves bang on 16:50, the Commuter leaves bang on 16:51 the delay on that DART is normally a few minutes delay as opposed to nearly 10.

As for the 1758 Malahide service, it is obvious that the issue is that there is too much traffic for a four car train - either six or even eight cars need to be rostered. Given the DART fleet size and the amount of idle DART equipment this should not be an insurmountable issue to resolve. A lot of money and massive disruption was invested in lengthening platforms, moving signals and upgrading electrical equipment to facilitate 8 car DARTs and yet IR insist on running 4 car trains during the peak.

The most frustrating thing for me is that I can get on a train going to Malahide at 9pm an it has 8 cars with barely a soul on it. There is more capacity on the Malahide branch at weekends between 5pm to 7pm than there is during the week - all the trains are six cars!!!