Easter Weekend - no trains/DART Dublin Northside

[watty]

No Dublin to Belfast trains or northside DARTS to run during Easter weekend

There will be no Dublin to Belfast trains or northside DARTs running during the Easter bank holiday weekend due line improvement works.

Irish Rail confirmed that due to engineering works between Clontarf Road and Lisburn on Saturday 19th, Sunday 20th and Monday 21st April, there will be no train service between Dublin Connolly and Belfast. The Enterprise Service will operate as bus transfer between Dublin Connolly, Drogheda, Dundalk, Newry and Belfast.

Due to the same engineering works between Clontarf Road and Lisburn, there will be no DART service between Dublin Connolly and Malahide/Howth. DART services will operate between Dublin Connolly and Bray/Greystones only.  Malahide, Portmarnock, Clongriffin, Howth, Sutton, Bayside, Howth Junction & Donaghmede, Kilbarrack, Raheny, Harmonstown, Killester and Clontarf Road stations will be closed. Northern commuter services will also be affected, with no Irish Rail services running between Dublin Connolly and Drogheda.

Drogheda, Laytown, Gormonstown, Balbriggan, Skerries, Rush & Lusk and Donabate stations will be closed. A limited bus transfer will operate between Drogheda, Balbriggan, Donabate, Dublin Connolly and between Skerries, Rush and Lusk (via M1/Port Tunnell) and Dublin Connolly.

Could be a bit of extra work around the DART stations that weekend?

Maybe a customer will give you a Cabury's Creme Egg as a token of appreciation?

Or even more fanciful, maybe an EV taxi will get a once-in-a-lifetime Dublin - Belfast run and have to decline because their battery is too low? 

[Rat Catcher]

I wouldn't be too bothered by the odd isolated country run. I'm told 30 mins on a charger would get you back in an ID4, probably similar for other models?

What's started to trouble me to some small extent is the occasional good day I get working passively. Invariably a decent day involves mostly motorway driving where EVs are at their least efficient. For example, yesterday I went to Monaghan and back as far as Drogheda for my next job before lunch with runs to DAP and up above to Dublin city after lunch. A couple of MG drivers (in particular) have suggested that they wouldn't be up to that much motorway / dual carriageway driving on a single charge. While I guess the aforementioned option to jump on a charger for 30 mins somewhere along the way doesn't seem overly inconvenient, in practice it'd probably knock you out of your stride... in my case I'd probably be more inclined to close up shop at dinner hour and park it on the trickle charger. The problem with that is such days are few and far between so you don't wanna disrupt them when they appear!

[mercenary for hire]

Got flagged on Moleworth street the other day by a chap wanting to go to Belfast airport....only the second country job street hail in 15 years.

I thought about it and even with 368km of range I declined it.I just didn't want the hassle of looking for chargers and I don't like country work.Last time I done Belfast international on Uber I got feck all back as expected but at least it was on the Sunday rate.I was miserable coming back in the noisy Prius.

It's always in the back of me mind if someone gets out without paying there's very little we can do once we cross the border.

[watty]

@RC:  If the majority of your work was motorways and inter-county work, then a diesel is better than an EV.  There's no argument there.  But, as MfH points out, he's only gotten an inter-city job twice in his career.  I'm the same.  My average speed is 30 km/hr and I do <150km/day in the city.  Swords is out-of-town for me!  In my 15+ years, I think the longest I've gotten was Navan or Balbriggan.  These long inter-city jobs just don't happen often enough to factor into my thinking.

And the taxi regs say you can't refuse a job below 30km which would imply the NTA don't consider 30km+ important enough to regulate.  And the NTA regulate a paper notebook in your boot so they can be petty enough when they want to be!

[Rat Catcher]

Realistically there's not a lot we can do this side of the border either, MfH, but I can count the number of runners I've had in 30 years on my fingers and I spent a lot of that time serving the working class suburbs on the Northside of Dublin city... and most of it before we had apps or cards. With Uber the fare is guaranteed, I guess.

I remember taking a chance on a job going up to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the depot in Swords one Monday evening many years ago. A young lad who'd lost his group while at one of the festivals. The place he directed me too was like the old Darndale layout (before they turned the gaffs back to front) but with a Union flag on every lamppost and King Billy on every wall... and he says I'm just down that lane bag mon, I'll leave my bag with you while I get the cash and will you drop me back down to the chipper... Being a younger, fitter version of myself I says I don't want your dirty laundry, I'll come with you! Anywaysanall, there was no bother he got the cash, paid me and (presumably in the interests of cross-community relations) offered to buy me a burger and chips!

However, I digress. One of the lads I know with an MG suggested you can half whatever the range says once you go on a motorway... probably exaggerating a bit or maybe he has a particularly heavy right foot. Others have suggested keeping them under 101 kilos/hour?

I had a bit of range anxiety myself yesterday. Short story long... on the way up the app took that road that dips in and out of South Armagh so I'd eyeballed a couple of filling stations with competitive prices in Euros so thought I'd fill up in one on the way back... however, it took a different route coming back and I got distracted on a telephone call (hands free) and only noticed my range was down to zero as I turned onto the M1 north of Dunleer.... so I had to take the next exit and divert through Monasterboice for a drop of diesel. On the plus side, if diesel hadn't become an issue I probably woulda stayed on the motorway, paid another €2.30 toll and missed out on a couple of local jobs in Drogheda.

[Rat Catcher]

With my new passive methodology (until I get bored with it) I could spend one day constantly going up and down the motorway and spend the next day ferrying lazy fuckers a few hundred yards to the beach for pennies (relatively specking)... and spend the next day or days with barely a beep from either of the apps I use! There's no consistency. However, I won't need to work as much once I change the car, I guess.

[mercenary for hire]

I know one chap who got a lady going up to a Belfast hospital in a hurry as a relative was very unwell.She left him with an expensive Brown Thomas bag with a dress in as a holding deposit and she went into the hospital.Never returned.I don't think the dress was worth much.

I've gotten caught a few times over the years but never anything over a score.Hardly worth getting annoyed over.

[watty]

However, I digress. One of the lads I know with an MG suggested you can half whatever the range says once you go on a motorway... probably exaggerating a bit or maybe he has a particularly heavy right foot. Others have suggested keeping them under 101 kilos/hour?

(I'm told) the relationship between speed and fuel efficiency is a logarithmic/non-linear one.  So if you increase your speed by 10%, the fuel efficiency drops 20% or something like that.  "The Internet" reckons c. 100 km/hr is the sweet spot on motorways for EV's.  Personally I use cruise control when I can on the motorway.  Unlike a diesel, an EV engine is quiet and the noise doesn't increase the faster you go.  So at the beginning of ownership, it was extremely easy to drift up to 150+ km/hr on the motorway without realising it 

[Rat Catcher]

Makes sense, I guess... although it wouldn't be unreasonable of clients to expect us to drive close to the speed limit on an empty road but we could certainly slow down a little on the return legs.

[watty]

Maybe just tell them you've a pacemaker fitted and the excitement of doing 120 km/hr could trigger heart failure?  But you'd be willing to risk it if they really wanted to get there 6 mins faster

[Rat Catcher]

That would be perfectly plausible given that, despite our cars being subject to test after test after test after test and some being subject to rather random age restrictions, the fitness of the men operating said machinery is subject to no scrutiny whatsoever.

[Octavia1]

That would be perfectly plausible given that, despite our cars being subject to test after test after test after test and some being subject to rather random age restrictions, the fitness of the men operating said machinery is subject to no scrutiny whatsoever.

Me shrink asked me why I change shrinks so often ... I said cause I dint want them to end up in the looney bin ..." thank heavens " he said ... " I taut yu wer a phychopath " ... then he said
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