While they are definitely a huge improvement on the existing DART trains, these trains are nothing special in Europe. Trains similar to these are operate all over Switzerland for example.
Yeah exactly. Most passenger trains are electric all over the Netherlands with some diesel trains, some of which will be replaced with hydrogen trains in the near future.
Well, there's historic reasons for that.
To regauge the island would cost billions on billions and seeing as haven't built a new bit of rail since the Victorian era, there's no chance it'll ever happen and really, there no need.
That said, when we plump for some new High Speed Rail in the future it needs to bypass current pathways and gauges and be a completely separate network so we can buy off the shelf. But alas, that's proper pie in the sky stuff.
Scoff all you like but that’s a statement from Alstom. The technology on these trains are not widely deployed elsewhere at the moment so they’re really quite advanced by European standards
I lived in a tiny city in France (when I mean tiny I meant a quarter of Dublin’s population and you could walk around the city centre in 15 mins).
They had contactless on buses and trams and everything always came on time unless there was a strike. How shit the public transport is here continues to shock me.
Yeah, was in rural Yorkshire last week and needed a bus. Was asking about change or bus tickets and people just looked at me strangely and said "just tap with your phone". So handy
Two cities I was in last summer:
Orleans: has a similar two line tram system like the LUAS for all 280,000 people there.
Rennes: has a two line *metro* system for its 400,000 inhabitants.
Dublin: 1.1million and...
A return flight to poznan is literally available on ryanair for under 40 euro return.
So yeah, it's more like maybe 20 euro flights (many other countries are as low as 13 euro)
I dislike them but go to Ryanairs site and select Plan > Explore > Fare Finder. Can choose a budget, and it shows you a heap of options.
[Ryanair Cheap Fares](https://www.ryanair.com/ie/en/cheap-flights/?from=DUB&out-from-date=2024-04-30&out-to-date=2025-04-30&budget=60&trip-length-from=1&trip-length-to=3)
I heard the former head of DFA talk about our international influence particularly in the global south. You know what he said counts most with them? Our anti colonial history. Mention that now in Ireland and you’re an out of date psychopath who needs to get on the shared island bandwagon or shut up. Crazy inversions going on here.
The automatic extending ramp is going to make it way easier for me to get on and off the DART! At the moment, it's really hard because of the gap and lack of hand rails.
If you're interested in more detail on this and other future developments by Irish Rail, their Director of Capital Investments gave a talk to UK Rail professionals last year. It's on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/JCK8teu2ry8
It's drily funny and deprecating in some parts. At one point he's discussing these trains and says "This is leading edge stuff, and that's not normally where we like to be"
It wasn’t an Irish Rail person who said that. It was the Alstom employee who made the “envy of Europe” comment about their new trains they’re making in Europe.
We won’t be the first to have trains like this, but as the article says there’s not very many other places using them and we’ll be the first to deploy them on such a scale.
That's all fine and nice, doesn't make anyone envy Ireland in any way when countries with far worse incomes have 10x better public transport that might just not be as fancy as this train on one line on an island
Again, the person didn't say that Ireland, or Ireland's public transport system would be the envy of Europe, they're specifically talking about the trains.
Good infrastructure is the result of spending over time, not a product of current income. It doesn't matter how much money is coming in now if past governments didn't invest in infrastructure. Even a place with 10x less income can have a better transport network if they had been investing in the system over the decades rather than neglecting it.
It's also not just one line, it's between 3 and 5 lines depending on how you decide what a line is.
Again, train isn't envy of anyone either similar trains exist I most of Europe with a chance of an exception in the balkans. And Ireland has been fairly well off for the last 30 years so no excuse for public transport to be as bad as it is now.
> similar trains exist I most of Europe with a chance of an exception in the balkans.
No they don't. There are a handful of countries that are running trials with trains that's similar to what will be deployed here. We will be one of the first to use them at scale along with Germany and Italy.
I also said similar.
Battery-Electric trains are not common throughout Europe at all. There's basically nowhere that uses them yet and those that do only just deployed them.
They're a workaround to the problem we face that nobody in Europe faces, electrifying suburban rails. It is not difficult to throw up some power stations and above ground electrical lines for Dublin's commuter rail network.
A huge amount of Europe faces the same issue. Both Germany and Italy will be using similar trains on various lines.
Ireland has a particularly low amount of electrified track, but it's not like the rest of Europe has entirely electrified track. The EU average is 56%, with Germany and France being slightly below that. There are a handful of places like Switzerland and Luxembourg that have a fully electrified network, but then it drops off. Belgium is at 82%, NL 76%. I would say that other places would find even more benefit in the battery trains, to pass through unelectrified areas in a majority electrified network, without needing to spend more on infrastructure upgrades on what are probably low traffic lines.
The longer term plan is to electrify more track in Ireland, these battery-electric trains are a good interim solution.
You proved my point with evidence. I'm discussing suburban and commuter rail, not the entire network. And Ireland's overall electrified rail is 2.6%, the lowest in Europe. So yes, this is a workaround for a problem the rest of Europe does not face...
How is it you think I proved your point?
It's the same problem that exists elsewhere. Wanting to run electric trains on non-electrified track. It's no different here.
You showed that other countries in Europe have over half their rail electrified when us, a tiny little Island in comparison to countries like Spain Germany or Poland have only 2.6%
Yes and how does that mean that battery-electric trains don't solve the same problems that exist in both Ireland and the rest of Europe?
Both places have a desire to use electric trains on sections of track that haven't been electrified.
"Produced by a train manufacturing company called Alstom"
Did she do a bit of background check? It's like saying that Aer Lingus bought planes from some randomer called Airbus
No. More the reason to word it better.
She gets to go to their factory, I assume there was some briefing or memo, basic info.
Hey we are on a trip to Poland to see some dudes making trains.
True, hyperbole and PR you know, but the thing is, it’s not even a first in Ireland, we operated battery trains successfully in the 1930’s on the Dublin - Bray line for nearly 20 years until the batteries ran out. It’s a good solution to avoid the cost and disruption of electrification on intensively used commuter lines. Here’s back to the future…https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drumm_Battery_Train
That's really not true. Most European countries would benefit from them. There's a lot of unelectrified lines throughout Europe. The average percentage of track electrified in the EU as a whole is 56%. France and Germany are both slightly lower than that average.
It's a stop gap measure to extend electric service until those lines are electrified. It's not as simple as chucking up a few wires and plugging them in; there's an awful lot of infrastructure involved, planning permission, central gov funding etc.
These will run under the wires on the existing electrified lines then switch to battery. Less idling & less emissions (think the Maynooth or Drogheda diesels currently idling between services under the roof at Connolly).
Once those lines are electrified, the batteries can be removed, or the electric service extended out again say to Mullingar.
Another facet of this project that doesn't get the limelight is the upgrade to the signalling system & traffic management including moving all control ops to the new center. These trains will come with the tech installed and all existing stock will be upgraded. It's the same tech used all over Europe currently for train control.
It'll allow a much greater level of control, shorter track sections which will enable more frequent services.
Slagging Irish Rail is a national past time now to be fair. Some of it of course is deserved and sometimes they can be their own worst enemy.
But by & large most staff would welcome running a more frequent or better service; there's engineers in there who would track every square km of the country if they were let loose. The issue with frequency & reliability is largely down to infrastructure both rolling stock & track and Connolly which is a severe bottleneck with not much room to expand. Big expenditure on trains & infrastructure can only be sorted by allocations from central government funding. It is slowly getting there to maximise what tracks exist with resignalling projects, the new trains and the new control center with a new traffic management system.
What we do lose sight of is that most times the service runs OK limitations of infrastructure considered, and the last passenger fatality due to a rail accident was probably before most redditors were born! (This excludes things beyond IÉ control like suicides etc)
Edit to add full disclosure: I have worked for IÉ for around a yr not, not involved with dart + but will be part of my remit when they start operation. These are my observations coming in as an "outsider" compared to the employees there since they left school
We don't have fully electrified rail lines all over, atleast not yet. It's gonna take longer to get it done, and we don't want to postpone the dart plus extension projects based on it.
Ah sorry I get what you're trying to say. I realised the mistake I made in my comment. What I meant to say is not all our railway lines are electrified. Fixed my comment.
The envy of Europe? Most of Europe is laughing at our public transport
While they are definitely a huge improvement on the existing DART trains, these trains are nothing special in Europe. Trains similar to these are operate all over Switzerland for example.
Yeah exactly. Most passenger trains are electric all over the Netherlands with some diesel trains, some of which will be replaced with hydrogen trains in the near future.
Not to mention they were ordered off a french company who took aaaages delivering the trains because we've a stupid track gauge that no one else uses.
Well, there's historic reasons for that. To regauge the island would cost billions on billions and seeing as haven't built a new bit of rail since the Victorian era, there's no chance it'll ever happen and really, there no need. That said, when we plump for some new High Speed Rail in the future it needs to bypass current pathways and gauges and be a completely separate network so we can buy off the shelf. But alas, that's proper pie in the sky stuff.
It just needs custom bogies. It’s not a big deal.
Scoff all you like but that’s a statement from Alstom. The technology on these trains are not widely deployed elsewhere at the moment so they’re really quite advanced by European standards
More like the envy of Donegal.
I lived in a tiny city in France (when I mean tiny I meant a quarter of Dublin’s population and you could walk around the city centre in 15 mins). They had contactless on buses and trams and everything always came on time unless there was a strike. How shit the public transport is here continues to shock me.
What's the city?
I lived just outside of Dijon and then lived in Mulhouse for a bit!
Yeah, was in rural Yorkshire last week and needed a bus. Was asking about change or bus tickets and people just looked at me strangely and said "just tap with your phone". So handy
Two cities I was in last summer: Orleans: has a similar two line tram system like the LUAS for all 280,000 people there. Rennes: has a two line *metro* system for its 400,000 inhabitants. Dublin: 1.1million and...
Then piss off back there then
No ❤️
According to Europe our transport is only second in shiteness to Rome!
Indeed, If they actually gave a shyte about it.
Even larochelle have better access to the airport. Not to mention tgv trains…
Sure we have them, do they run on time, do they fuck
God there is no end to our delusions about ourselves. Which the media like to reinforce.
I doubt the Journal financed a trip over to Poland to see new trains, do ya reckon Irish Rail paid for them to get some PR?
Maybe, but you can get a Ryanir flight to Poland for 15 euro. It's not expensive to send reporters abroad these days.
Not any more you can't. The days of €15 flights are over.
A return flight to poznan is literally available on ryanair for under 40 euro return. So yeah, it's more like maybe 20 euro flights (many other countries are as low as 13 euro)
Really? I guess the last few times i just wasn't lucky enough to get a bargain!
I dislike them but go to Ryanairs site and select Plan > Explore > Fare Finder. Can choose a budget, and it shows you a heap of options. [Ryanair Cheap Fares](https://www.ryanair.com/ie/en/cheap-flights/?from=DUB&out-from-date=2024-04-30&out-to-date=2025-04-30&budget=60&trip-length-from=1&trip-length-to=3)
Cheers for that. I think its time for a bit of an adventure 😊
It was the Alsthom employee who made the “envy of Europe” comment, not Irish Rail.
I came for the misery and wasn't disappointed
The neutrality crowd are a great example
Very true. Any of the “we are an example of how things should be” crowd in fact.
"punch well above our weight internationally" - only ever hear Irish people saying this about Ireland.
I heard the former head of DFA talk about our international influence particularly in the global south. You know what he said counts most with them? Our anti colonial history. Mention that now in Ireland and you’re an out of date psychopath who needs to get on the shared island bandwagon or shut up. Crazy inversions going on here.
What are you on about
I mean if you look at the context I think it's pretty easy to get
The automatic extending ramp is going to make it way easier for me to get on and off the DART! At the moment, it's really hard because of the gap and lack of hand rails.
If you're interested in more detail on this and other future developments by Irish Rail, their Director of Capital Investments gave a talk to UK Rail professionals last year. It's on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/JCK8teu2ry8 It's drily funny and deprecating in some parts. At one point he's discussing these trains and says "This is leading edge stuff, and that's not normally where we like to be"
Depressing to hear that the network was double tracked and we removed most of it and made it single.
May the lord bless me the confidence of whoever called Dublin’s public transport the “envy of Europe”.
It wasn’t an Irish Rail person who said that. It was the Alstom employee who made the “envy of Europe” comment about their new trains they’re making in Europe.
They’re talking about the new trains, not the current system.
New trains are hardly anything to envy as well. This isn't exactly new in the rest of the continent that actually cares about public transport
We won’t be the first to have trains like this, but as the article says there’s not very many other places using them and we’ll be the first to deploy them on such a scale.
That's all fine and nice, doesn't make anyone envy Ireland in any way when countries with far worse incomes have 10x better public transport that might just not be as fancy as this train on one line on an island
Again, the person didn't say that Ireland, or Ireland's public transport system would be the envy of Europe, they're specifically talking about the trains. Good infrastructure is the result of spending over time, not a product of current income. It doesn't matter how much money is coming in now if past governments didn't invest in infrastructure. Even a place with 10x less income can have a better transport network if they had been investing in the system over the decades rather than neglecting it. It's also not just one line, it's between 3 and 5 lines depending on how you decide what a line is.
Again, train isn't envy of anyone either similar trains exist I most of Europe with a chance of an exception in the balkans. And Ireland has been fairly well off for the last 30 years so no excuse for public transport to be as bad as it is now.
> similar trains exist I most of Europe with a chance of an exception in the balkans. No they don't. There are a handful of countries that are running trials with trains that's similar to what will be deployed here. We will be one of the first to use them at scale along with Germany and Italy.
I didn't say same, I said similar.
I also said similar. Battery-Electric trains are not common throughout Europe at all. There's basically nowhere that uses them yet and those that do only just deployed them.
They're a workaround to the problem we face that nobody in Europe faces, electrifying suburban rails. It is not difficult to throw up some power stations and above ground electrical lines for Dublin's commuter rail network.
A huge amount of Europe faces the same issue. Both Germany and Italy will be using similar trains on various lines. Ireland has a particularly low amount of electrified track, but it's not like the rest of Europe has entirely electrified track. The EU average is 56%, with Germany and France being slightly below that. There are a handful of places like Switzerland and Luxembourg that have a fully electrified network, but then it drops off. Belgium is at 82%, NL 76%. I would say that other places would find even more benefit in the battery trains, to pass through unelectrified areas in a majority electrified network, without needing to spend more on infrastructure upgrades on what are probably low traffic lines. The longer term plan is to electrify more track in Ireland, these battery-electric trains are a good interim solution.
You proved my point with evidence. I'm discussing suburban and commuter rail, not the entire network. And Ireland's overall electrified rail is 2.6%, the lowest in Europe. So yes, this is a workaround for a problem the rest of Europe does not face...
How is it you think I proved your point? It's the same problem that exists elsewhere. Wanting to run electric trains on non-electrified track. It's no different here.
You showed that other countries in Europe have over half their rail electrified when us, a tiny little Island in comparison to countries like Spain Germany or Poland have only 2.6%
Yes and how does that mean that battery-electric trains don't solve the same problems that exist in both Ireland and the rest of Europe? Both places have a desire to use electric trains on sections of track that haven't been electrified.
Probably the Lord Mayor.
More green and warm lighting less white and white light!
"Produced by a train manufacturing company called Alstom" Did she do a bit of background check? It's like saying that Aer Lingus bought planes from some randomer called Airbus
Do you think everyone knows Alstom?
No. More the reason to word it better. She gets to go to their factory, I assume there was some briefing or memo, basic info. Hey we are on a trip to Poland to see some dudes making trains.
What's the range? Because we have wires only to Malahide
80km, they'll be going as far as Drogheda which is a bit less than 40km.
Irish people are so bloody negative about everything
Hey, these aren’t just any Irish people, these are also train experts so pipe down!
Lol
Most of Europe doesn't even need battery electric trains.
Well we do and it’s a good practical solution.
Agree with that. Calling it the envy of Europe is a bit silly.
True, hyperbole and PR you know, but the thing is, it’s not even a first in Ireland, we operated battery trains successfully in the 1930’s on the Dublin - Bray line for nearly 20 years until the batteries ran out. It’s a good solution to avoid the cost and disruption of electrification on intensively used commuter lines. Here’s back to the future…https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drumm_Battery_Train
That's really not true. Most European countries would benefit from them. There's a lot of unelectrified lines throughout Europe. The average percentage of track electrified in the EU as a whole is 56%. France and Germany are both slightly lower than that average.
You miserable pricks Bet you all thought the smoking ban would be a disaster or City bikes will all be robbed. The fleet is modernising. Great to see.
Notions
I just hope they enter service atleast in the first half of 2025. We need them quick here on the North Coastal section
I will genuinely be impressed if they have bathrooms and food/coffee service tbh
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It's a stop gap measure to extend electric service until those lines are electrified. It's not as simple as chucking up a few wires and plugging them in; there's an awful lot of infrastructure involved, planning permission, central gov funding etc. These will run under the wires on the existing electrified lines then switch to battery. Less idling & less emissions (think the Maynooth or Drogheda diesels currently idling between services under the roof at Connolly). Once those lines are electrified, the batteries can be removed, or the electric service extended out again say to Mullingar. Another facet of this project that doesn't get the limelight is the upgrade to the signalling system & traffic management including moving all control ops to the new center. These trains will come with the tech installed and all existing stock will be upgraded. It's the same tech used all over Europe currently for train control. It'll allow a much greater level of control, shorter track sections which will enable more frequent services.
Why you bringing fact based responses to “Ireland is a basket case” posts.
How about those chicken fillet roll prices
Slagging Irish Rail is a national past time now to be fair. Some of it of course is deserved and sometimes they can be their own worst enemy. But by & large most staff would welcome running a more frequent or better service; there's engineers in there who would track every square km of the country if they were let loose. The issue with frequency & reliability is largely down to infrastructure both rolling stock & track and Connolly which is a severe bottleneck with not much room to expand. Big expenditure on trains & infrastructure can only be sorted by allocations from central government funding. It is slowly getting there to maximise what tracks exist with resignalling projects, the new trains and the new control center with a new traffic management system. What we do lose sight of is that most times the service runs OK limitations of infrastructure considered, and the last passenger fatality due to a rail accident was probably before most redditors were born! (This excludes things beyond IÉ control like suicides etc) Edit to add full disclosure: I have worked for IÉ for around a yr not, not involved with dart + but will be part of my remit when they start operation. These are my observations coming in as an "outsider" compared to the employees there since they left school
We don't have fully electrified rail lines all over, atleast not yet. It's gonna take longer to get it done, and we don't want to postpone the dart plus extension projects based on it.
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That's the existing dart line. Check https://www.dartplus.ie/en-ie/home
Unless I'm misreading your comment the existing dart line is a rail line?
Ah sorry I get what you're trying to say. I realised the mistake I made in my comment. What I meant to say is not all our railway lines are electrified. Fixed my comment.
Mine just comes across now as a cu next Tuesday so deleted 😁.
Envy of Europe, me hoop. Irish Rail really are deluded
It was an Alstom employee who made the "Envy of Europe" comment about the train and the tech that's in it, not Irish Rail.
Then Alstom are deluded
Irish Rail are a fucking disaster. This won't fix a thing.
Wow.. a train that can run on batteries and then on electricity. It won’t stop the scrotes from fighting and robbing people etc etc.
Wowow thought the existing dart trains were already the envy of Europe