Dublin Pearse Railway Station
Dublin Pearse is a railway station on Westland Row on the Southside of Dublin, Ireland. It is Ireland’s busiest commuter station and second busiest station overall (behind Dublin Connolly railway station) with 9 million passenger journeys through the station in 2016.
Services
It is the terminus of the Northern Commuter to Balbriggan/Dundalk and Western Commuter to Maynooth/Longford. DART, South Eastern Commuter (Dublin Connolly to Gorey) and South Western Commuter (Grand Canal Dock to Newbridge) services also serve the station. As do InterCity services from Dublin Connolly to Rosslare Europort.
Facilities
The station has two through platforms, 1 and 2. Until 2007, terminal Platform 3 was occasionally used for special services. A fourth platform also existed, but was unsuitable for modern trains and was used as a siding. This platform (and platform 5, which had been closed for some years and later converted into a car park) has been used as a set for movies including Michael Collins, Angela’s Ashes, Nora and the 2005 remake Lassie. In summer 2008, Platform 3 was filled in as part of the station’s full renovation while the disused Platform 4 was shortened.
The ticket office is open from 07:30 AM to 21:50 PM, Monday to Sunday.
The station also has a café on the southbound platform. This was closed during autumn 2006, and reopened as SoBo Café in February 2007. A Spar convenience store, which had been operational in the station for many years, closed in February 2008.
There are public lavatories at the station.
It is the headquarters of Iarnród Éireann’s DART/Commuter sector.
Station Renovation
Major renovation commenced in 2007 with publicity erected in the station for this in March 2008. As part of phase 1, automatic ticket validation machines were installed on platforms 1 and 2. The front entrance of the station was changed. The former Spar shop was completely taken out of the station and the old ticket barriers were removed. Platforms 3, 4 and 5 were removed. New signage and CCTV cameras were added on both active platforms and, on Platform 2, a larger waiting area for passengers was provided.
A new southbound entrance (Pearse Street and Trinity Bio Science) was opened 9 April 2013. The new entrance to the station is open from 07.00hrs to 19.30hrs daily from Monday to Friday, and on Saturdays from 09.00hrs to 18.00hrs, and is in addition to the main entrance on Westland Row. It is envisaged that this second entrance will connect with the DART underground system when funding becomes available.
History
The station opened on 17 December 1834 as Westland Row Station, the city terminus of the Dublin & Kingstown Railway, the first ‘commuter’ line in the world. The station was extensively rebuilt for the opening of the City of Dublin Junction Railway in 1891. During this process, the station was converted into a through station, although it retained three terminus platforms.
The station was renamed in 1966 after the Pearse Family, notably brothers Patrick and Willie as part of the Easter Rising celebrations when many Irish railway stations were renamed. Because of its proximity to Pearse St, many Dubliners refer to the station as “Pearse Street Station” – in December 2004 Iarnród Éireann even posted a list of station departures headed with that name – though that is not its name or its geographic location. A number of intercity routes operated out of the station in the past, these included services to Sligo, Westport and Galway over the Midland and Great Western Route via Mullingar, which were transferred to Pearse (then Westland Row) in 1934 with the closure of Broadstone Station on the north side of the Liffey. Some, later all, trains on the ex-Dublin and South Eastern Railway route to Wicklow, Arklow, Wexford and Rosslare also operated out of Westland Row, though the principal terminus for that route was, for many years Harcourt Street station. The upgrading of the Portarlington to Athlone branch in the mid-1970s saw Westport and Galway trains transferred to Heuston station, whilst Sligo and Rosslare trains were retimed to originate and terminate at Connolly.
City Centre Resignalling Project
The completion of the Irish Rail City Centre re-signalling project has seen an
- Increase in the number of Northern and Maynooth line suburban trains stopping
- Trains from Newbridge also serving Pearse station.
This has been made possible by increasing the ability of the signalling system in the city centre to operate 20 trains per hour in both directions instead of 8.
The project began in March 2015 and was commissioned on 17 July 2016.
Future
New Roof
The roof structure comprises two main areas – the main station area roof has 40 barrelled roof trusses, each spanning 28 metres, over 38 bays, with additional gable end structures at both ends. Adjacent to the main station roof there is a second similar roof, which covers a car park and station infrastructure area. This is smaller, and comprises 19 trusses over 18 bays.
These roofs will be replaced in a €10m roof replacement project starting in August 2018 and finishing in June 2020.
Pearse Station will be closed for 13 weekends over the two years to facilitate the replacement project. During these weekends, northside Dart, Maynooth and Drogheda services will operate to and from Connolly Station, with southside Dart and Rosslare services operating from Grand Canal Dock.
Underground station
The National Transport Authority planned an DART Underground connecting Heuston Station to the northern DART network via the new Docklands railway station in Spencer Dock. As part of this project, an underground station with two additional platforms would have been constructed beneath the present Pearse station as a stop on the DART Underground route. This would have made Pearse station the key exchange point between the new (underground) and old (overground) DART lines. The DART Underground project was cancelled on 22 September 2015.
