There are fears the much publicised proposed new DART+ service to Drogheda will not mean extra trains between the town and Dublin.
Concerns have been expressed by the Drogheda City Group which has raised the issue on social media and the feedback from Irish Rail sources in the North-East is that the existing tracks can not take much more traffic.
There are currently 48 train services from Drogheda to the capital and back every day including the Enterprise service.
But senior Irish Rail sources this is unlikely to increase because there is no room on the tracks and the current service is running at full capacity.
The Drogheda City Status Group is hoping the new DART + can deliver additional capacity for the fifteen thousand commuters who use the train station every day but there is no clear indication how many extra trains a day there will be, if any.
An irish Rail source said:” The car park is full, the trains are full, the tracks are full, unless we get a third track between Drogheda and Dublin I don’t see how we can run many more trains every day.
” What Drogheda will be getting is a hybrid DART service which means new battery operated trains with no toilets but not necessarily more trains on the route every day.
” The fact is there are just two tracks on the Dublin-Belfast line and there is no more room.
” We really are full to capacity in Drogheda and the idea that a DART train would be turning up every 10 to fifteen minutes like you see around Dublin, just won’t happen. We haven’t got the capacity and the only solution is a third track.”
There is also no progress yet about building a bridge over the railway tracks for the new Northern Cross route while nothing is being done about a second train station on the northside of Drogheda.with no land reportedly available for the project.
Over 20,000 new homes are to be built along the Northern Cross Route in the coming years with no educational, retail or sporting infrastructure being constructed at the moment to support the growing population.
