[Article] Train hits vehicle at level crossing - Birdhill

[Destructix]

:O it actually had passengers on it.

[doherty jack]

Originally Posted by Destructix

:O it actually had passengers on it.

why wouldnt people be on it?

[dowlingm]

So that was what - 104-106 empty seats?

[Inniskeen]

Thousands (maybe tens of thousands) of empty seats on DART every day. There are eight car trains running around off peak with hundreds of spare seats, - loads on the busier DART trains (in the city centre) after 1930 are frequently well less than 100 and could be easily accommodated in a two car formations. Many of these DART trains would have barely a handful of passengers closer to the end of their journeys.

Easy to play the empty seats game ! If Irish Rail are looking for economies it might make sense to reduce off-peak formations before messing around with peak service formations.

[Mark Gleeson]

Average number of passengers who travel per DART service is of the order of 400. 65,000 per day, 154 services per day. Seating capacity per 6 coach set 384.

Nenagh carries in a week little more than what a single average DART service carries.

Those are the hard facts, Nenagh is in serious trouble simply because the population density isn't there and the arrival of the M7 has made rail in any format uncompetitive, the location of Limerick station doesn't help

Athenry Galway is the opposite, chronic traffic congestion and roundabout hell, but a centrally located station and very quick rail journey

[comcor]

If it was heading towards Limerick, it was near the end of its run. Seeing that the main business on that train should be taking people from Dublin to Nenagh and Roscrea, it's not numbers around Birdhill that should be a concern.

[Inniskeen]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

Average number of passengers who travel per DART service is of the order of 400. 65,000 per day, 154 services per day. Seating capacity per 6 coach set 384.

Nenagh carries in a week little more than what a single average DART service carries.

Those are the hard facts, Nenagh is in serious trouble simply because the population density isn't there and the arrival of the M7 has made rail in any format uncompetitive, the location of Limerick station doesn't help

Athenry Galway is the opposite, chronic traffic congestion and roundabout hell, but a centrally located station and very quick rail journey

About 16 million passenger journeys were undertaken on the DART system in 2011 with approximately 53,600 scheduled trips. Works out at about 300 passenger journeys per trip. Given that most DART workings are in effect two services (Greystones/Bray to City Centre and City Centre to Howth/Malahide or v.v) the average loading over the busiest sector is not likely to be much more than about 150 especially given that the average DART journey length is about 9km.

There are generally plenty of seats and loads of spare capacity on off peak DART services with ample opportunity for reduced off peak formations especially after 1930.

[dowlingm]

Comparing the DART and the Branch is the height of ludicrousness. Boards.ie has been hopping this week about 4-car DARTs being used and them jammed to the rafters. Obviously providing that capacity means offpeak and so on there will be some light loads but at least the train is packed to the gills at some parts of the day. The Nenagh branch needs there to be an All Ireland championship game in Croke Park involving Tipp about five times a week to make money.

[Thomas J Stamp]

Originally Posted by dowlingm

So that was what - 104-106 empty seats?

as it was past nenagh its not important really, i was surprised that there were still 5-7 people on board (figure would include the conductor i imagine).