Twenty years ago today DART services began in Dublin. Their arrival marked the most significant investment in a 20-year period from the early 1970s to early 1990s in what was otherwise an underfunded railway network.
When the first revenue-earning DART train pulled out of Pearse Station in Dublin at 6.35 a.m. on Monday, July 23rd, 1984, few could have predicted the huge impact the service was to have on the commuting patterns of many in the capital.
It was a low-key start, and on board were a number of CIÉ officials, politicians, representatives from the media, members of the Irish Railway Record Society and a few early-bird commuters.
But within days - just like the Luas recently - the DART quickly earned the seal of approval from thousands of people.
On its first Sunday of operations a combination of the novelty effect, the warm weather and a special £2.50 family ticket swelled numbers considerably.
A CIÉ spokesman said that there were "record numbers, busier than any day since the line opened in 1834, with at least 45,000 travelling."
The popularity of the DART is reflected by the fact that each year it carries almost double the total number of people who use intercity services.
Last year more than 35 million passenger train journeys were made in Ireland, about 23 million of which were on the DART.
The outlook is for even more rapid growth in the years ahead, fuelled by a sustained economic growth, increased services and a real shift in government policy to promote public transport in the capital.
According to the Strategic Rail Review, the number of passengers being carried on the DART annually could more than double from the current level to more than 50 million by 2022, assuming an average economic growth level of 5 per cent.
For most of the 1970s and 1980s the railways were starved of investment.
The advancement of the DART project bucked the trend. Plans for an electrified suburban service in Dublin were first mooted in the early 1970s with a recommendation that lines link Howth, Bray, Tallaght and Blanchardstown to the city centre. In 1977 the board of CIÉ approved the first stage, from Bray to Howth.
Prior to the DART, most commuters along the line had to put up with a mixture of clapped-out push-pull railcar sets and old timber-framed carriages, some dating from 1955.
The latter's days were effectively doomed following the Buttevant rail crash in 1980 that claimed 18 lives. That disaster marked the end of the old wooden carriages.
In 1979, the estimated cost of the scheme was £58.9 million. The final figure ended up at over £97.8 million, with inflation, the depreciation of the IR£ and additional VAT charges being significant factors.