THERE IS SOME bad news for commuters in Dublin this morning: DARTs are running with fewer than the usual number of carriages, leading to packed trains around the city.

Most DARTs are running as 4-carriage trains, rather than the usual 6 or 8-carriage trains following a dispute with drivers. A small number of DARTs are operating as 2-carriage trains.

Irish Rail said that the issue arose after drivers refused to carry out a necessary check on DART trains before the carriages left the depot to enter service to ensure that multiple DART carriages are safely connected together.

Passengers have been tweeting about the difficulties on the DART this morning, with one telling Irish Rail: “I couldent [sic] even get off at my stop it was that packed.”

Irish Rail said that drivers had been carrying out the check since it was introduced last month after a number of incidents in which drivers received false indications that doors were interlocked.

“However, following SIPTU indicating, outside of agreed procedures, that it would no longer cooperate with this check, they are not being carried out by drivers today resulting in shorter trains,” Irish Rail said in a statement this morning.

Have you been affected by the reduction in the number of carriages this morning? Let us know in the comments…

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