The city from the DART line

Thanks for that Darkman
any pictures would be fantastic!!:)

@paul h wrote:

Thanks for that Darkman
any pictures would be fantastic!!:)

Sorry mate, no pics. I have no camera atm unfortunatey but anyone who has taken the dart southside recenetly will know what I mean im sure:) It just looked deadful, it really did. It was boring really. Nothing made me say to myself – ‘WOW isnt that nice’ or ‘their making progress here’ you know. It was disappointing. I expected much more. To top it off there was an English guy not too far from me giving it loads about our infrastructure. I wanted to say something in defence but I couldnt because what can you say????

Darkman, that’s a pretty accurate account. Maybe you should do another one in 10 years time. Perhaps with one or two exceptions, it will be the same old boring Dublin…

excuse me about this but ive always been curious about the DART. Do normal orange iarnrod eireann trains run along the dart line aswell or Commuter trains or just Darts?

@holton wrote:

Darkman, that’s a pretty accurate account. Maybe you should do another one in 10 years time. Perhaps with one or two exceptions, it will be the same old boring Dublin…

Probrably. Whats really needed is the U2 tower, that would make a real difference IMO. Also the upgrading of Tara Street and Pearse Street Stations. That new Macken street bridge too would really add some character. Obviously the city looks different depending on the transport you take. Thats just my opinion on the DART and what I think visitors might think. It was a dull day too and I think that has actually quite a big effect on how Dublin looks in general. Having said that when I drive around Dublin in the car it dosnt look too bad at all.:)

@PoxyShamrok wrote:

excuse me about this but ive always been curious about the DART. Do normal orange iarnrod eireann trains run along the dart line aswell or Commuter trains or just Darts?

Yup all trains on the same line. 🙂

Yeah darkman there is a big difference between DARTline and driving..I remember seeing a website in 2002 and an American tourist had visited Dublin – he was travelling train lines. He got on at Howth Junction in Dublin, and his impression of what he could see of the Northside from his vantage point? “I wondered if I had made a mistake coming here..I was told that Ireland was recently a third world country..there was a HUGE difference when the train passed to the Southside..it was much more wealthy..maybe because of historical reasons, maybe the English settled here..” !! Thereby implying that anything good in Dublin was given to us by the English.. He also went on to praise Pearse St station.
I have to agree with darkman in many ways, however Dublin is anything but a dull, dreary place. We are in a period of transition – remember how poor it was..not third world but the eighties were horrible. When the U2 Tower, Point Village, Grand Canal Square, Lansdowne Road, Spencer Dock, Sam Beckett Bridge etc are all complete they’ll all be visible from the DART journey – in 5 years I should hope there arrival should bring a new perspective to this journey. As a footnore I should add that many tourists love coming here, they love Dublins low rise qualities (like Copenhagen), its greenery and its charm. I love it to bits too.

Oh dear…another thread about how awful Dublin is. We seem to be great at criticising it but not very good (collectively) at changing things. It is probably worth mentioning though that few cities look their best from railway lines. The urban landscape that faces railways just isnt designed to appeal to the senses (since you are generally zooming by)…that is still the function of streets.
Things arent all that bad darkman…. it may be over 15 years now but its still worth remembering how bad the city looked up until the 90s and just how much things have improved. There is no denying there is a long way to go…

@StephenC wrote:

Oh dear…another thread about how awful Dublin is. We seem to be great at criticising it but not very good (collectively) at changing things. It is probably worth mentioning though that few cities look their best from railway lines. The urban landscape that faces railways just isnt designed to appeal to the senses (since you are generally zooming by)…that is still the function of streets.
Things arent all that bad darkman…. it may be over 15 years now but its still worth remembering how bad the city looked up until the 90s and just how much things have improved. There is no denying there is a long way to go…

I agree absolutely with you. I remember the 80s very vaguely and it was a hard time. Things have most definatley improved and are continuing to improve. The city has never looked great from the railway line especially going into Connolly Station from the northside. I really hope these new developments like the U2 tower and the Point village go ahead. I think it would really change the perception of Dublin from the railway line. Another thing that was mooted 10 years ago was replacing the railway bridge across the liffey with a light structure that would at least give you a decent view from the train of the river. I dont know what happened to that proposal. I have to say that quote from the American tourist another poster was qouting was vey accurate. The Southside definatley looks better then the Northside from the dartline:)

I’ve been to London, Chicago, San Francisco, New York, Paris, Amsterdam, Rome, Edinburgh,.and I wouldn’t live in any of them over Dublin. Some days you might get frustrated at a late train or a bridge strike. The staff in the local shop may be ignorant and a soft drink may be €2.80 in city centre pubs. The house prices may be huge and the boardwalk may be littered with junkies. There might not be much hi-rise and it may rain a lot. Even Grift might be scrawling his name on every bare wall in town.
But I still wouldn’t swap it for any other city, whatever their problems or advantages may be.

Does the the gasworks building not look too immpresive in person??

Its a great idea and pictures look quite nice
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@paul h wrote:

Does the the gasworks building not look too immpresive in person??

Its a great idea and pictures look quite nice
[ATTACH]2665[/ATTACH]

Oh it does. I said it does. Great idea that. Unfortunatley the rest of the Gas Works development isnt so ambitious but I like that part:)

The gasworks, especially on a sunny day, looks incredible. Always causes DART users to crane their necks back as they pass.

yeah but the rest of it is muck!

I do that DART journey every day and while it is always good for the soul to see the sea it can be quite depressing seeing, once again, the pathethic shape that Irish architecture is in. All those pigeon-hole apartments around Connolly station and Grand Canal Dock. Is there no end to developers greed and architects willing to sell their souls for their 15% fee?

Shame on you all 😡

🙁

@The Denouncer wrote:

I’ve been to London, Chicago, San Francisco, New York, Paris, Amsterdam, Rome, Edinburgh,.and I wouldn’t live in any of them over Dublin. Some days you might get frustrated at a late train or a bridge strike. The staff in the local shop may be ignorant and a soft drink may be €2.80 in city centre pubs. The house prices may be huge and the boardwalk may be littered with junkies. There might not be much hi-rise and it may rain a lot. Even Grift might be scrawling his name on every bare wall in town.
But I still wouldn’t swap it for any other city, whatever their problems or advantages may be.

aaaaaaaaggghhhhh don’t remind me! i have to look at a house in Fairview tonight and i work in Citywest. Talk about mission impossible, do i really want to spend 2 hours in traffic? How else does one cross this city on less than 2 buses or one bus and one train and in less than 2 hours? No other way, is the answer.

Like all other the cities i’ve been to they have their advantages and disadvantages

For example i found Zurich alomst utopian until i noticed all the junkies jacking up in broad daylight!
Still though as a city i think we are getting less friendly compared to other places i have been recently (for example in England most people are really bloody nice and take time to talk to you instead of the ‘hey-you -thats-2-EURO-50-now-get-out’ attitude here 😮 )
anyway back to buildings…yeah its one thing we lack, in a no mans land between the romantic architecture of europe and the towering sleekness of America….

The DART trip is scenic compared to the Luas red line journey, though.
After taking in the delights of the still shoddy-looking streets of the city’s “legal quarter”, there’s a quick look across the river at Heuston before a not-quick-enough jaunt through the crumbling south inner city. At least Fatima Mansions are gone.
Avoid eye-contact with the junkies and winos travelling apparently for free between St James and Suir Road and from then on, the ride is no longer scary, just bleak and industrial.
Bluebell. Kylemore. Blackhorse. Mile after mile of shimmering DIY megastores and car dealers. Then you cross soulless M50 land at the Red Cow before you really enter no-man’s-land.
The cranes of the emerging downtown Tallaght on the horizon promise some sort of respite from the endless rows of suburbia, but when you’re finally dumped outside the Square it’s just a load of anonymous-looking blocks that as yet haven’t done anything to create a sense of a town centre.
This is straying from the thread, I know, but I suppose my point is the northside doesn’t have a monoploy on looking crap from public transport!

Darkman,
Did you fall asleep at Booterstown? What about the bits further on?
The Dublin-Kingstown railway was one of the first suburban railways in the world and largely responsible for the development of Dun Laoghaire as a town. At Blackrock it cut off Vances harbour and the lovely classical temple at Lord Cloncurry’s Maretimo, surely worth an architectural comment if only to tell us how they now look. Sadly Maretimo was replaced by a 1960’s block of flats; Frescati, another lovely nearby Georgian, was demolished to make way for Roches Stores. The Southside was helped later by the old Harcourt St Line, leading to the late 19c leafy stockbroker belt of Carrickmines/Foxrock. One of the best views in Dublin is when the train bursts out of the long dark tunnel into the sunlight of Killiney Bay. The “sham gallery” is worth a comment also, although it’s not accessible by DART or on even on foot, The new bridge at Killiney station is interesting but shite in its incongruity. What do the new apartments at the Court Hotel site look like? They must be finished by now?
PoxyShamrok – there are very few orange trains on the Dort line Southside – a couple a day to Rosslare – and I believe that goods trains have more or less stopped since IFI closed. The old trick in my student days was, when in funds, to take the Rosslare express departing Westland Row at 18.30 and have a drink at the bar, arriving in Dunlaoghaire 15 mins later.

Where is this “Pearse St” station??? I don’t know of any railway stations on Pearse St. Would it be anything to do with Pearse Station on Westland Row? 😉

THANK YOU.

😉

There are commuters who have used this station for nearly a decade, and for some bizarre reason still think it to be on Pearse Street.

@paul h wrote:

Does the the gasworks building not look too immpresive in person??

Its a great idea and pictures look quite nice
[ATTACH]2665[/ATTACH]

I must say its an absolutely gorgeous building now. The Glass really works well with the Iron. What were those gasworks things used for originally?

Originally posted by darkman
The Howth Junction station overpass looks like something you would see in a maximum security prison. Understandable probrably given the anti-social behaviour which is endemic in the area. Otherwise the stations remain bland and sore on the eyes.

Its looking a bit better now, the wonders of a lick of paint..when you saw it the station was in transition. Certainly better than the green horrible metal thing that was there previously. At least some funding is being pumped into the Northside stations, maybe 25% of that which goes into the Southside stations (like everything else), but funding nonetheless.
Malahide Station is a much better looking station, with flowers etc. Only the best for the more cultured and sophisticated Malahiders, who won’t treat their station with vandals contempt.