Services to resume through closed rail section at 1pm, Iarnród Éireann says
Train services through a closed section in north Dublin are to resume from 1pm, Iarnród Éireann has said.
It comes after “major disruption” threatened to impact up to 20,000 commuters on Wednesday morning after an overhead line was damaged near Raheny.
Iarnród Éireann said the works to repair the damage had impacted Northside Dart, Northern Commuter and Enterprise Services to and from Belfast.
As a result, Dart services were operating between Clontarf and Bray/Greystones but not from Howth/Malahide for a time on Wednesday.
There were also no Northern Commuter services between Howth Junction and Connolly.
Iarnród Éireann spokesman Barry Kenny said the operator was “very confident” services would be resolved before a concert in Malahide on Wednesday evening, adding: “We are hoping to be back around lunchtime.”
Iarnród Éireann later said works were estimated to be complete by “early afternoon” and advised services were expected to resume between Clontarf Road/Howth Junction at 1pm.
Mr Kenny had said there would be bus transfers between Connolly and Drogheda for impacted Enterprise/Belfast services, while Leap cards are also valid on other Transport for Ireland services for impacted Dart customers.
He said: “We apologise to everybody who is affected by this.”
Asked on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland if there would be enough buses to bring people to their destinations or whether commuters should make other arrangements, Mr Kenny said: “I think people who can make alternative arrangements would be advised to do.
“Obviously, potentially as the morning continues, this would affect between 15-20,000 commuters and that’s obviously a hugely significant volume of people potentially deferring to other modes.
“As I say, it does arise from overhead line damage and our crews are working on site to repair but we do expect that this was the entirety of the morning we will have this disruption.”
Mr Kenny explained that the incident happened before 8.30pm on Tuesday, but Iarnród Éireann deferred repairs into the early hours of the morning as there were 20,000 people at a gig in Malahide.
He said: “I think it was the right decision to defer the start of the repair works, which would have shut the entire line.
“So we had one track open to get those people home from Malahide.
“I think potentially we would have had public safety issues if we weren’t able to clear and help move thousands of people from Malahide after the concert last night.”
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