Kildare route stretches from Le Fanu Rd to Hazelhatch, originally it went from Inchicore to Straffan, there was no benefit to having the Inchicore bit really, there wasn't much of a case to go to Straffan either once you do the math, 4 track to Newbridge was never on the table, there was talk of Sallins at one time. For those you know their geography will note Hazelhatch station is on the Dublin/Kildare boundary.
The key thing is to understand how the service is structured, Kildare is the outer suburban boundary, Hazelhatch is the inner suburban boundary. The Kildare commuter service was conceived to run between Heuston and Kildare, Kildare was chosen as it was on the outer rim of the commuter boundary and also the first possible terminus (as it was in 1994) as well as a good connection point. Problem is simple Irish Rail can't even be bothered to provide the current timetable to even a decent level, adding an extra service is going to make it even worse and the large base of users in Kildare/Newbridge/Sallins/Hazelhatch are unwilling to accept any further reduction in the service quality, its frankly rubbish currently its only going to get worse the more trains in the system. Thats an undeniable fact.
Despite no additional rolling stock resources in the rush hours there are more trains this year compared to last that has lead to serious reliability problems resulting in cancelations since 1960's era coaches have been retained in service for one more year (its been one more year every year since 1998). Things got very very bad this year as a result
We simply cannot condone trying to run any additional services until Irish Rail get there act together, they have an awful lot to do and they have publicly committed to a lot of what is needed at public meetings we await to see if they deliver if they do there might be a window of opportunity to increase services but that is still dependent on finding more trains
Monesterevin has 3 morning rush hour services, spaced 30 minutes apart all arriving Dublin before 9am, that is an extremely respectable level of service for a town of its size, its a lot better than some others say Mullingar which has only one arrival before 9 (second is 9:03), thats not going to change. Evening is less impressive but two quite fast direct services and a third requiring a change again is quite respectable
There is no off peak service since the coaches used for the morning rush hour are actually pinched from the intercity division and are required for mid morning intercity services. There is no infinite supply of resources, you want more trains but don't want the 1960's era coaches you are stuck in a no win scenario.
What we know is happening is a separation of services, the Hazelhatch Heuston service will operate separately to the regional services to Athy/Port Laois/Athlone, as a result the peak hour service through Monesterevin will remain at no more than 2 trains per hour but at least an hourly off peak service could be provided. The timetabling situation will be very simple after the 4 tracks go in
|