On Thursday Irish Rail has gone to tender to do the detail design of the DART expansion on the Coastal line from Drogheda to Greystones. For the first time this includes ‘increases to the capacity of the Bray to Greystones section’ .

‘I am delighted that this is now included in the DART upgrade plan. Originally this was not included and I wrote a paper, launched by Minister Simon Harris, on how it could be done in 2018 by partially double tracking it’.

The tender is to design the track, electrification and resignaling needed. It also includes comparing using Battery Operated Multiple trains instead of electrification of the northern line to Drogheda. Currently the best frequency on the single track around Bray Head is every 30 minutes. The plan should reduce this to every 20 minutes. From Dublin to Bray the frequency is now every 10 minutes and will probably reduce to every 6 minutes.