Reports of DART+WEST upgrade
In light of the proposal to extend the DART to Kilcock and construct a depot for the entire Greater Dublin Area DART stock, I have updated the Gazetteer with the addition of an inset map to the Kilcock Inset Map, to show the high level proposals.
These proposals are at the very early stage of the process and are likely to be subject to change, with a Railway Order being many years away. If and when updates are required, they will be added here.
It is now official – Irish Rail has announced plans for the extension of DART to Kilcock.
The background to this was the DART+WEST plan to extend the DART to Maynooth. When planning this, Irish Rail had originally planned to build a depot between Maynooth and Kilcock albeit closer to the latter than the former (I cynically suggested in a Letter to the Editor of the Liffey Champion that the townland where the depot was to be located under this plan be renamed “OneMileShort” as the depot (and associated overhead electrification) was 1 mile short of Kilcock).
An Bord Pleannala, as the relevant planning authority, approved the extension of DART to Maynooth but not the depot due its location on a flood plain. This effectively put the plan to extend the DART to Maynooth in abeyance as without a depot to store the new rolling stock, no service could operate.
When the ABP decision was announced, I suspected that the outcome would have to be a depot west of Kilcock as any location east of Kilcock/Maynooth would, if such existed, already have been selected by Irish Rail when planning DART+WEST. In addition, the further west you go, in theory, the cheaper the land should get.
The new proposals, which are now out for public consultation, include double tracking the line from Maynooth to the new depot site immediately adjacent to the Musgraves depot. It will also include retaining the existing town station but extending the existing platform towards Maynooth and adding a second platform. This will, however, see the canoe club building on the canal relocated.
Due to the presence of the architecturally significant 5 arch Jacksons Bridge, it is proposed to build a new section of line to the south of the existing railway to allow for electrification (the track here was originally double – spacing for double track is not the issue, which is insufficient clearance for overhead electrification).
An upgrade initiated by Irish Rail, in advance of DART+WEST kicking off, is the replacement of the footbridge at Maynooth with a new, lift accessible footbridge immediately adjacent. Recent media updates noted the official opening of the new footbridge on 11 December.
When passing through the station last night, I noticed crews hovering around the old footbridge and when passing through the station today, the old footbridge is gone.
RTE (and others) are reporting that the High Court objections to DART+WEST to Maynooth have been dropped and the project can now proceed.
Having said that, the lack of a depot stymies the plan and Irish Rail need to progress this latter urgently. I remain of the view that the appropriate location of this is west of Kilcock (adjacent to the Musgraves depot) with a Park & Ride site and new station on the Sligo side of the old N4 road overbridge.
I would also suggest another station to the east of the present one, opposite Millerstown with a footbridge over the Royal Canal to facilitate greater access to same. This would allow for the closure of the current town station, facilitating track realignment on an easier curve than presently permitted at this location, as well as overcoming the difficulty of having 2 platforms at the current station site.
I am often asked by friends and acquaintances why I dislike Irish Rail despite being a railway enthusiast. The answer is that when faced with the possibility of doing things correctly, they will screw it up and deliver a sub-standard outcome.
If Irish Rail was a privately financed entity operating in a competitive environment, that would be on its owners. However, Irish Rail is a loss making State owned monopoly. As such, its failures effect society as a whole.
Take Enfield, Co. Meath as an example. Historically Enfield had two platforms – in fact, it still has, but only one is in use. As a practice, this actually makes sense, especially in the era of disability access, having only one platform makes it easier to provide services and eliminates the need for lifts with their associated maintenance.
The problem at Enfield arises in that when the line was resignalled for mini CTC, the opportunity to change the layout to relocate the passing loop to east or west of the station was not taken. As a result, the passing loop here is effectively useless (Enfield is not the only such station – Irish Rail have specialised in replicating this situation nationwide).
Whilst this is not evident most of the time due to the paucity of trains on the Sligo Line, there is a morning service from Dublin to Sligo that cannot serve Enfield due to the present track layout. This train uses the loop on the Up side, running alongside the disused platform (in grey), whilst the Dublin bound train it is passing uses the mainline and serves the platform in use (in purple).
A better layout would have been to place the passing loop on the Dublin side of the station.
Such a layout would allow a train heading to Dublin to serve the platform whilst the train to Sligo sat in the loop (in brown). After the former had passed the Enfield end of the loop fully, the Sligo bound train could emerge from the loop and serve the station before continuing west.
The other thing I don’t like about Irish Rail is no forward planning nor obvious co-operation with local authority planners to co-ordinate housing developments alongside their railway (unless CIE owns the land, in which case CIE’s status as a property development company with the inconvenience of a public transport network attached comes into play). This would also require some future proofing when it came to railway layouts. In this regard, Enfield would have a future as a two platform station, but with the currently disused Up platform re-purposed as a turnback siding.
In this example, in addition to the passing loop on the Dublin side of the station, a turnback siding would continue on on the site of the existing loop but terminating on the Dublin side of the road overbridge at the Sligo end of the station. This would allow trains to run from Dublin to Enfield and return and also not block the running line for Sligo trains.
The first post in what will be many about the extension of DART to Maynooth.
At some point between 10th August and 23rd August, the footbridge at Maynooth station was altered such that the steps on Platform 1 (the Up platform) were moved from the Sligo side of the bridge to the Dublin side.
This has the effect of making a staggered footbridge with the steps on platform 2 (down platform) facing Sligo.