South Dublin and Wicklow residents face months of commuter disruption with the announcement that there will be no weekend DART services south of Pearse St station until the middle of next year.
Iarnród Éireann said last night the lines are being closed to allow for the first phase of the €176 million track and station upgrading designed to increase the capacity of DART services by 30 per cent.
The weekend service suspension begins this Saturday and the upgrading work will take place every weekend between Grand Canal Dock and Greystones until "mid-2004".
The company said improvements were needed in order "to allow DART capacity keep pace with our growing city".
Under the second phase of the work, some weekend services will be disrupted for up to 18 months. As well as the DART, the Dublin Connolly to Arklow/Rosslare service will also be affected under phase one. Extra buses will be provided to cater for commuters on all cancelled services.
Dublin Bus will double the number of buses operating on routes adjacent to the DART in south Dublin, including routes 7, 45, 46A, 59 and 84. Under the first phase of the upgrading, the maximum capacity on the DART every hour in each direction will be increased to 16,000, from 11,800 currently.
Platforms will be lengthened to facilitate eight-carriage DARTS, instead of the six-carriage trains currently in use.
The power supply network will also be upgraded in order to facilitate the bigger trains, and stations will be enlarged in order to accommodate higher passenger numbers.
All stations will have full wheelchair accessibility and a new turn-back facility will also be built at Dún Laoghaire to accommodate the larger eight-carriage trains.
Mr Peter Cuffe, DART upgrade programmer manager, said Iarnród Éireann had planned the works for weekends in order to avoid disruption to those travelling on weekdays. "We will move into the stations late on Friday nights after the last DART has gone and work around the clock through to early Monday morning so we can do a full week's work in a weekend, which is off-peak time for our DART and commuter services," he said.
The second phase of upgrading is to be completed by October 2005. An additional 40 new DART carriages are on order to coincide with the DART upgrade project, entering service in 2005. Iarnród Éireann has also ordered 80 new commuter rail cars, costing €115 million. They will service the greater Dublin area.
A €43 million rail car servicing centre to maintain this fleet is being constructed in Drogheda, and will be completed shortly.
A €117 million redevelopment of Heuston Station in Dublin is also nearing completion.
