[06-12-06] Missing DART at Blackrock 7pm
 

Being the naive fool that I am, checked the 'real time' system at 18:48 last night for northbound from Blackrock, shows trains due in 4 (Howth), 9 (Howth), and 22 mins (Malahide).
Due in town by 19:30, so the last one is cutting it fine. Leave a minute later for the middle one.

Arrive at the station 5 minutes later, board is showing next train 16 mins to Malahide. Confused people milling around. Go in to the desk but of course there's no one there. A DART then goes straight through, out of service. No explanation given.

Off to the bus stop, where I wait ten minutes, back to the DART station. Which is now full of people, many of whom are waiting at the still unattended ticket desk. And to top it off, the platform display is now turned off so no-one has any idea when the next train is due.

Hang on until the 15 minutes from my first visit is up to see if the Malahide train turns up, just walking out to get a taxi when it eventually arrives.

The bloody real-time system should be taken down, it's worse than useless if it's just sticking to the timetable. And they may as well get rid of whoever's 'manning' Blackrock station, as he's not there half the time I go through.

[edit] I've just checked the timetable and it doesn't show any northbound DART between 18:52 and 19:10. So apart from only showing the timetable times, the real time system system is now inserting non existent services, which makes it even worse