[24.09.08] 06:30 Drogheda Rosslare - A 4 Car set

[KSW]

Originally Posted by roamling

Who is in charge putting these trains together? Whats the criteria?

[ThomasJ]

Originally Posted by roamling

Who is in charge putting these trains together? Whats the criteria?

Obviously Irish Rail seems to think a 4 car set is enough for commuters from Drogheda into town in the mornings. Or they just don't care (only after you complained long enough).

There is a 8 car set leaving Connolly at around 7.30am towards Maynooth. Its nearly empty all the time. Sure it will get more crowded later but I doubt there is that many people leaving town (in case I am wrong, please let me know). If IR is short of carriages they should at least try to make a fair use of them instead of pulling the joke on certain services all the time.

The 7.30 service towards Maynooth you refer to returns inwards as the 8:15am Maynooth Pearse (originally that set would run from Longford in the morning). a very busy service inwards.

Unlike Drogheda, there is no depot for Maynooth trains to sit overnight so they have to run outbound from connolly to run inbound. Don't know if you remember the whole hullabaloo over empty trains out this way and the lack of options for Maynooth University students.

Don't forget you have so many drogheda trains heading out to Bray and even onwards... how many extra services would you get if they terminated in connolly and ran back?

For the record I was on the 7:46 ex Maynooth this morning and it was packed to the rafters!

[Mark Hennessy]

Originally Posted by roamling

Who is in charge putting these trains together? Whats the criteria?

Hi roamling, we know who's in charge, but the mysteries in the planning are unknown to us, certainly no one is accountable for the service, we know that.

To my knowledge the person in charge is:

Myles McHugh
Service Planning Manager Mainline & Commuter
Heuston Station

[sublimity]

Originally Posted by ThomasJ

Don't forget you have so many drogheda trains heading out to Bray and even onwards... how many extra services would you get if they terminated in connolly and ran back?

Exactly. Why do we have drogheda trains going out to Bray? That's the whole point of the DART, you change at Connolly to get the DART to Bray. Its ridiculous.

For the future all commuter trains from Dundalk, Drogheda and Maynooth should terminate in Connolly or Pearse. Then we might have some extra services to these destinations.

[sublimity]

Originally Posted by Mark Hennessy

To my knowledge the person in charge is:

Myles McHugh
Service Planning Manager Mainline & Commuter
Heuston Station

Now if we just had his email... actually it's probably myles.mchugh@irishrail.ie or something like that.

[Thomas Ralph]

Originally Posted by sublimity

Exactly. Why do we have drogheda trains going out to Bray? That's the whole point of the DART, you change at Connolly to get the DART to Bray. Its ridiculous.

For the future all commuter trains from Dundalk, Drogheda and Maynooth should terminate in Connolly or Pearse. Then we might have some extra services to these destinations.

The reasoning behind this is that they need to have somewhere for the trains to go when they arrive into Pearse in the morning. The sidings and GCD platform 1 can hold three trains maximum. And getting them over there causes a blockage on the northbound DART.

[roamling]

Originally Posted by ThomasJ

The 7.30 service towards Maynooth you refer to returns inwards as the 8:15am Maynooth Pearse (originally that set would run from Longford in the morning). a very busy service inwards.

Thanks for clarifying that.

-----

Overall it seems to me that there is an increasing demand for trains but the IR network and fleet is not able to handle that demand in a sufficient way. Fair enough if there are 8-car sets running and they are still packed then we can talk about increasing the frequency. At the end of the day more customers for IR can only be a good thing, as long as these customers are satisfied with the service...

My point is that there is no justification just to send out a 4-car train on a busy service in the morning and cause all this tension. Just 2 extra cars will do the job! (by the way the train was 6-cars this morning, it just to unpredictable what will happen next week).

[sublimity]

Originally Posted by Thomas Ralph

The reasoning behind this is that they need to have somewhere for the trains to go when they arrive into Pearse in the morning. The sidings and GCD platform 1 can hold three trains maximum. And getting them over there causes a blockage on the northbound DART.

Well then most should terminate at Connolly then. These commuter trains going all the way out to Bray has to stop.

The only commuter trains going to Bray should be the ones going to Gorey.
This situation must be rectified in the new timetable.

[ThomasJ]

The problem is not the size of Intercity cars its the commuter service is running within the intercity part!

This applied for both the morning service from Drogheda and the afternoon service to Maynooth.

The key concept of intercity services is meant to be comfort you are meant to have a seat as it is a long distance journey. If the Rosslare service starts from Drogheda and arrives at connolly packed to the rafters then the intercity traveller has to stand for a period.

The new intercity railcars are designed for passenger comfort ie more seats its not designed for packed commuter services so the process of seperation between drogheda/maynooth from rosslare services is being planned and when this happens rosslare services should start from connolly! The intercity railcars are not suited to sardines-in-a-tin like services.

On a aside I think too many drogheda/dundalk services terminate in bray if one of the earlier services terminated in connolly, ran back to skerries or balbriggan to alleviate the pax boarding there it might help the overcrowding situation and might get an extra service over the loopline, maybe a DART!

[Mark Hennessy]

Lord knows when this will happen with the Govt finances in the merde but as far back as the 2001 timetable (completed by 2006!), Irish Rail were planning on resignalling the city centre to accomodate more trains and allow Drogheda and Maynooth trains to turn back at Grand Canal Dock.

They cannot do this currently and to stop them blocking the DART, services run out to Bray. Changing trains at Connolly would make sense if the DART actually ran at 5-7 min frequencies during the peak hours but given the hit or miss nature of that timetable, it might actually result in a worse service all round.

[sublimity]

Originally Posted by Mark Hennessy

Changing trains at Connolly would make sense if the DART actually ran at 5-7 min frequencies during the peak hours .

They probably would be able to run at 5-7 min frequencies if the commuter trains from drogheda/maynooth terminated at Connolly!!!

[ThomasJ]

Originally Posted by sublimity

They probably would be able to run at 5-7 min frequencies if the commuter trains from drogheda/maynooth terminated at Connolly!!!

Theres only so much you can park in Connolly! Furthermore having commuters from maynooth/drogheda to move onto DARTs is not enough sure DARTs coming from Howth/malahide are every 5 minutes at stages during the morning and come in stuffed to the gills! These DARTs tend to only clear out at pearse!

[sublimity]

Oh come on! don't give that excuse. The DART is an 8 coach at peak times.

There's also Grand Canal dock for the termination of the commuter trains so you have 3 stations for them to terminate; Connolly, Pearse and Grand Canal.

[roamling]

so we would have two options here:

1. Irish Rail gets more carriages to accommodate their current schedule without running out off stock when there is a car failure/repair

2. Irish Rail gets his commuter/dart network up to date to increase the frequency of travel to smooth out issues of overcrowding on services

well, in both cases there is an investment necessary but option 1 seems to me the best option in the short term. Of course long term both options are desired

[ThomasJ]

Originally Posted by sublimity

Oh come on! don't give that excuse. The DART is an 8 coach at peak times.

There's also Grand Canal dock for the termination of the commuter trains so you have 3 stations for them to terminate; Connolly, Pearse and Grand Canal.

Grand Canal Dock is not a terminus the tracks currently are not setup for it and if trains were to terminate in pearse they would have to switch/cross tracks to get to the resting point holding up northbound/citybound trains from gorey/rosslare in the process.

You might not notice but the 07:22 Maynooth and connolly and a morning service from dundalk both 4 piece trains get in at the same time and everyone goes for the next DART which is always stuffed and people are left behind to wait on the next DART. sure its mentioned here http://www.railusers.ie/forum/showthread.php?t=73

Why is it so packed between Connolly and Pearse in the morning
The section between Pearse and Connolly is the busiest section in the country carrying close to 25,000 per hour at peak time and is the the critical pinch point in the entire suburban rail system.

The 2006 timetable added two much needed extra services into Connolly station during the morning rush hour. These services, 7:45 ex Maynooth and 7:27 ex Drogheda both arrive into Connolly at 8:28 and as a result the 8:32 DART service from platform 5 is under severe pressure. This has not been helped by the fact the earlier 8:24 service to Bray is frequently only 6 coaches long.

There is very little anyone can do here but to ensure 8 coach DARTs are deployed appropriately. Walking time from Connolly to Pearse via the IFSC and new Docklands bridge is 10-15 minutes, the journey by train excluding waiting time is 5-6 minutes. The only solution is the provision of the interconnector tunnel between Spencer Dock and Heuston which will provide a totally integrated high capacity suburban rail system for Dublin,

The DARTs maybe longer but they're not making much difference!

[ThomasJ]

Originally Posted by roamling

so we would have two options here:

1. Irish Rail gets more carriages to accommodate their current schedule without running out off stock when there is a car failure/repair

2. Irish Rail gets his commuter/dart network up to date to increase the frequency of travel to smooth out issues of overcrowding on services

well, in both cases there is an investment necessary but option 1 seems to me the best option in the short term. Of course long term both options are desired

Well given that Irish rail are proceeding to electrify the Maynooth line, northern line, hazelhatch line it is pointless ordering diesel stock given their long term plans

[Mark Gleeson]

Odds are about 1 in 3 for a 4 coach train, there are 3 Rosslare sets which rotate in turn on the 6:30 (4 coach was on the morning Rosslare Dublin today)

There is a shortage of commuter trains a fact we have clearly identified and where able to prove Irish Rail's little story to be misleading

A curious problem arises, up in Drogheda they could have a 4 car 29k set and a 4 car 28k set available i.e. enough to make up a 6 car set, but due to laziness no one in Irish Rail has bothered to complete the paperwork to allow a 28k to couple to a 29k type train (They have done the 26/27 and 26/28 paperwork though)

Sadly its not possible for safety reasons to send a 8 coach train south of Greystones

[roamling]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

A curious problem arises, up in Drogheda they could have a 4 car 29k set and a 4 car 28k set available i.e. enough to make up a 6 car set, but due to laziness no one in Irish Rail has bothered to complete the paperwork to allow a 28k to couple to a 29k type train (They have done the 26/27 and 26/28 paperwork though)

so technically it would be possible to couple these sets? (sorry for asking, but I don't have the background knowledge on that issue ). So whats all the paperwork about? If its only filling out forms and approving procedures than laziness is the word of the day

[Mark Gleeson]

Paperwork is just a checklist drawn up by the engineers, couple train up test the doors, brakes and other safety systems work and then make a few trips back and forwards between Dundalk and Drogheda late morning early afternoon under the supervision of a senior member of staff

It would go some way to easing matters, only downside is part of the train won't be seeing the catering trolley

[sublimity]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

There is a shortage of commuter trains a fact we have clearly identified and where able to prove Irish Rail's little story to be misleading

Well they won't be ordering anymore with the future electrification of maynooth/drogheda.

I say bring back the Mk3 push/pulls onto the Drogheda line to make up for the shortage of commuter trains.