PUBLIC TRANSPORT

All Photographs Supplied By William Murphy

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MacBRIDE RAILWAY STATION

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DROGHEDA 16 OCTOBER 2023

DROGHEDA 16 OCTOBER 2023

I decided to visit Drogheda this week and I booked a seat on the Enterprise and it took less than 40 minutes to travel from Connolly in Dublin to Drogheda. Unfortunately the return journey was not at all pleasant – even though I had reserved a seat the train was packed to the extent that it was close to impossible to board the train and of course it was impossible to get to my seat. I had to stand in the area between two carriages as did many many others. Apparently an earlier train had broken down and unfortunately this is not an infrequent event [over a period of about three years I have twice been on Enterprise trains that have failed].

Enterprise is the cross-border inter-city train service between Dublin Connolly in Ireland and Belfast Lanyon Place in Northern Ireland, jointly operated by Iarnród Éireann (IE) and NI Railways (NIR). It operates on the Belfast–Dublin railway line.

Each push-pull trainset consists of seven coaches and a 201 Class locomotive. The 28 carriages were delivered as four sets of seven but entered service as three sets of eight, with two locomotives from each operator. The coaches were manufactured by De Dietrich Ferroviaire, while the locomotives are from GM-EMD; ownership of the rolling stock is shared between both operators, with carriage maintenance by NIR and locomotives maintained by IE. The coaching stock is based on the Class 373 EMU stock used by Eurostar, with the interiors identical. The EMU stock is articulated and permanently coupled, but the Enterprise is ordinary coaching stock.

The service had suffered from a lack of reliability of the locomotives, which provide head end power to the train. Unlike CIÉ’s Dublin-Cork services, which operate with the locomotive operating with a generator control car that provides power for lighting and heating the train, the Enterprise fleet was only equipped with an ordinary control car, which had no power generating capability. This meant that the locomotive had to provide all the power for the train, both motive and generating. Extended operation in this mode caused damage, so four further locomotives were allocated to Enterprise from the CIÉ fleet. However, this still required locomotives to be used in HEP mode, so in May 2009 the Minister for Regional Development in Northern Ireland requested an estimate for the provision of generator functions for the existing rolling stock so that head-end power mode would no longer be needed.

In order to avoid further problems, a modified Mark 3 Generator van, formerly 7604, was introduced on Monday 10 September 2012. Three further such generator vans have since entered service.

The original Drogheda station, on the Dublin and Drogheda Railway line, opened on 26 May 1844. It was originally located about a quarter mile southeast of the current station. The passenger station was relocated when the first temporary Boyne Viaduct opened on 11 May 1853.

The former GNR(I) branch to Oldcastle (opened to Navan in 1850; throughout 1863) diverges from the Dublin-Belfast mainline immediately south of the station. This serves Irish Cement at Drogheda and Tara Mine near Navan.

The present station is located on a sharp curve on the southern approach to the Boyne Viaduct. Formerly there were three lines through the station between the ‘up’ and ‘down’ platforms, but when the station was refurbished in 1997, the up platform line was removed and the platform widened.

It was given the name MacBride on Sunday 10 April 1966 in commemoration of John MacBride, one of the executed leaders of the Easter Rising of 1916.

THE BEST STATION IF YOU PLAN THE VISIT DUN LAOGHAIRE WEST PIER

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SALTHILL AND MONKSTOWN

Salthill and Monkstown railway station is a DART station in Dún Laoghaire. It is situated between Seapoint and Dún Laoghaire DART stations. The station has a car park, ticket office, automated ticket and vending machines, and is wheelchair accessible.

The original Salthill station opened in May 1837, built by the Dublin and Kingstown Railway. It closed in 1960 and was electrified and reopened in 1984 with the arrival of DART services.

SANDYMOUNT LUAS TRAM STOP

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25 SEPTEMBER 2023

When I was young I had a few friends who lived in Sandyford which was in the country rather than the city. It was often the case that they could not come to school because of snow.

Sandyford is a suburb of Dublin, located in Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, Ireland.

Sandyford Business District makes up much of the suburb and encompasses 4 business parks: Sandyford Business Park, Stillorgan Business Park, Central Park and South County Business Park. Some of the multinational companies based in the area include Google, Facebook, Microsoft and AIB.

The Luas Green Line was built through the Business District and the Kilmacud, Stillorgan, Sandyford and Central Park stops serve the area, the middle two lying along the eastern edge of the original district. All four of these stops are in the Sandyford Business District. Sandyford was the Green Line terminus until the extension to Cherrywood opened in October 2010. The depot for the Green Line is located on the eastern edge of the Business District.

Sandyford House, a pub in the centre of the village, has been an inn and coach house since the 1690s. For 200 years it was a stopping place for travellers en route to Enniskerry. From 1803 onwards, the Chatham Street to Enniskerry mail coach (a two-hour journey) stopped and deposited the region’s mail at the inn, which acted as the local post office.

Sandyford Business District spans one of the biggest business parks in Ireland, consisting of over 1,000 companies employing approximately 26,000 people. It was officially opened in June 1967 on a site of 120 acres and for 50 years was known as the “Sandyford Industrial Estate”; 85 acres allocated to light industry and the rest to offices.

The area includes several separate business parks and sites, including Sandyford Business Park, Stillorgan Business Park, Central Park, and South County Business Park.

A proposal to establish a Sandyford Business District area, to include the core Sandyford Business Park as well as the other areas, resulted in the establishment of the Sandyford Business Improvement District Company (SBID) in January 2017. The area has capacity for 17,500 more employees, 350,000 sq m of commercial floor space and 1,000 residential units.

Companies in the business district include American Airlines, Barclaycard, Canon, Microsoft, Novell, and Vodafone Ireland. The Irish Management Institute also has its headquarters in northern Sandyford. The Irish Mint, a division of the Central Bank of Ireland, is located in Sandyford, west of the M50 and north of the village.

ALL BIKES HAVE BEEN CHECKED OUT

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DUBLINBIKES DOCKING STATION 28 AT MOUNTJOY SQUARE

There are usually plenty of bicycles available at this popular docking station at Mountjoy Square but today there was not one available … maybe they were being used by the students at the nearby schools.

Mountjoy Square is a Georgian garden square in Dublin, Ireland, on the north side of the city just under a kilometre from the River Liffey. One of five Georgian squares in Dublin, it was planned and developed in the late 18th century by Luke Gardiner, 1st Viscount Mountjoy. It was surrounded on all sides by terraced, red-brick Georgian houses. Construction began in the early 1790s and the work was completed in 1818.

Over the centuries, the square has been home to many of Dublin’s most prominent people: lawyers, churchmen, politicians, writers and visual artists. The writer James Joyce lived around the square during some of his formative years, playwright Seán O’Casey wrote and set some of his most famous plays on the square while living there, W.B. Yeats stayed there with his friend John O’Leary, and more recently, much of the Oscar-winning film Once was made in the square. Historic meetings have taken place there, including planning for the Easter Rising and some of the earliest Dáil meetings. Prominent Irish Unionists and Republicans have shared the square.

Mountjoy can boast being Dublin’s only true Georgian square, each of its sides being exactly 140 metres in length. While the North, East and West sides each have 18 houses, the South has 19, reflecting some variation in plot sizes.Though each side was originally numbered individually,the houses are now numbered continuously clockwise from no. 1 in the north-west corner. While its North and South sides are continuous from corner to corner, the East and West sides are in three terraces, interrupted by two side streets, Grenville Street and Gardiner Place to the West and Fitzgibbon and North Great Charles Street to the East. Gardiner Street passes through the West side of the square, while Belvedere Place and Gardiner Lane run off the North- and South-East corners.

Although some of the original buildings fell to ruin over the 20th century and were eventually demolished, the new infill buildings were fronted with reproduction façades, so each side of the square maintains its appearance as a consistent Georgian terrace.

DART TRAINS COMING AND GOING WHILE THE RUGBY FANS ARREAR TO BE CONFUSED

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TARA STREET STATION IN DUBLIN

The station was unusually busy for a Saturday as there was a Rugby Match at Lansdowne. As soon as I arrived there was a special train and that reduced the pressure on the southbound service however because of the crowding I abandoned my plan to visit Greystones and travelled North to Howth instead.

The Dublin Area Rapid Transit system (stylised as DART) is an electrified commuter rail railway network serving the coastline and city of Dublin, Ireland. The service makes up the core of Dublin’s suburban railway network, stretching from Greystones, County Wicklow, in the south to Howth and Malahide in north County Dublin. The DART serves 31 stations and consists of 53 route kilometres of electrified railway (46 km (29 mi) double track, 7 km (4.3 mi) single), and carries in the region of 20 million passengers per year. In a similar manner to the Berlin S-Bahn, the DART blends elements of a commuter rail service and a rapid transit system.

The DART system was established by Córas Iompair Éireann in 1984 to replace an ageing fleet of diesel-powered locomotives. It was, and still is, the only electric mainline railway in Ireland, and one of two currently operating electric railways, the other being the Luas tram which opened in 2004. Since 1987, the service is operated by Iarnród Éireann, Ireland’s national rail operator. Contemporary rolling stock on the DART network is powered by 1,500 V DC overhead lines and uses the 5 ft 3 in (1,600 mm) Irish gauge.

All trains in the Dublin suburban area, including DART services, are monitored and regulated by a Central Traffic Control (CTC) facility located in Connolly Station, known as Suburban CTC. This facility has been extensively automated and requires a staff of five; two signallers, one with responsibility for level crossings, an electrical control officer, who supervises the electrical power supply equipment and an overall supervisor. The main CTC is staffed at all times however, there are also backup local control rooms which allow services to continue in the event of serious technical problems.

A single driver is responsible for the management of each train from the cab in the leading carriage. Automatic doors are controlled by the driver and are armed upon arrival at stations. Real-time passenger information displays on station platforms offer passengers updates on the next train arrival times, service updates and outages. Automatic PA announcements are made in case of service disruptions and are tailored to each station.

The majority of stations on the network have been renovated to include automatic barriers which require passengers to submit their tickets for verification before they can set foot on the platform. A ticket is required in advance of boarding DART services and can be purchased at stations from staffed kiosks and automated machines. Passengers can also avail of the option of using a Leap Card, Dublin’s integrated ticketing scheme. Leap cards are offered as contactless cards onto which passengers can load set ticket options or a cash balance. Leap fares are typically cheaper than paying in cash for a journey. On the DART network, users tag on at their point of entry and tag off at their exit point. Irish Rail, along with Dublin’s other public transport operators operated its own smart card system which was phased out to coincide with the Leap Card’s introduction. Revenue protection officers check passengers’ tickets to ensure validity both onboard trains and on station platforms at random intervals.

Several proposals have been made to expand the DART network beyond the coastal mainline and provide service to the north and west of the city. These expansion plans included a proposed tunnel linking the Docklands Station at Spencer Dock in the city’s quays and Heuston Station. This proposed DART Underground project, first posited in 1972, included plans for services from Celbridge/Hazelhatch to the Docklands via St. Stephen’s Green. The DART Underground project was put on hold in September 2015. While included in the Greater Dublin Transport Strategy 2016-2035 (published in 2016), the DART Underground proposal was not included in the Greater Dublin Area Strategy 2022-2042 (published in 2021).

In 2017, IÉ announced plans to procure a new fleet of trains with the intention of extending DART services from 2023 onwards. An initial purchase of 100 vehicles was proposed to allow replacement of the existing fleet; this proposed purchase would include bi-mode units to allow services to run beyond the existing electrified network.

In December 2021, IÉ announced that Alstom had been selected as the provider of up to 750 new vehicles, with 325 planned as part of the DART+ plan. Part of Alstom’s X’Trapolis family, an initial purchase of 95 vehicles is to be undertaken, formed into 19 5-car units. A total of 13 of these are due to be fitted both with pantographs to operate using the 1,500 V DC OHLE on the main DART network, and batteries to allow operation on non-electrified routes. The battery operation is planned to allow the extension of DART services as far as Drogheda. The remaining units in the initial batch are expected to also be 5-car, fitted with pantograph only.[23]

In 2023, Alstom revealed prototypes of the new DART trains. The prototype plans include 4 bike spaces per car, space to charge e-bikes and scooters, dedicated wheelchair areas, and automatic ramps for passenger accessibility. In April 2023, TD Fergus O’Dowd suggested that the first set of trains were due to be delivered by 2025, enabling expansion of DART services to Drogheda along the DART+ Coastal North route.