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DART: Iarnród Éireann has insisted overcrowding on Dublin's DART and Suburban services is not a safety issue.
The majority of the DART fleet carries less than 200 people per carriage, even at peak times, the company said, in response to criticism from the Opposition Spokesman on Public Enterprise, Mr Jim Higgins. Mr Higgins called on the Minister for Public Enterprise to make an order limiting the number of people who can legally be carried on a train. In many cases, he claimed passengers on commuter trains were unable to get standing room in the carriages and had "no option but to stand in the passage-ways between the carriages."
However according to Irish Rail spokesman, Mr Barry Kenny, while peak-time DARTS may appear overcrowded, they are operating within the numbers recommended by the DART manufacturers. The situation with other suburban services was essentially the same, as "standing in trains is a comfort issue rather than a safety issue, particularly on suburban trains and limiting the number of people in carriages is to force people out onto the roads".
A spokesman for the Department of Public Enterprise said the Minister, Mrs O'Rourke, was committed to rail safety and would shortly be publishing legislation for the establishment of a Rail Safety Inspectorate and a Rail Safety and a Railway Safety Board.(Irish Times 15/11/01)
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Nice, 200 people in one carriage, right? This is on vehicles with only two exit doors per side (most New York Subway carriages have four per side). Well, since the other CIE subsidiary Dublin Bus continues to contract all the bus services to vital areas (memories of route 8 re-surface), the only other option for DART will be to both lengthen platforms and lengthen trains. If Dublin Bus keeps squeezing passengers onto this ONE TRAIN LINE, then trains of ten carriages or more in length will become a necessity...which, of course, will off-set all the savings that the Dublin Bus end have incurred as a result of their route service cut-backs. You can't eat with a slit throat, you know...