Different City, different commute, similar issues

In Dublin's fair city, where commuting is pretty

This was the view from my train journey into work on Monday:



Some of you may have been paying enough attention to my posts to realise that I've actually been in Dublin for the last three days. I flew over on Sunday and stayed with some friends so on Monday morning I had to get up early to travel to our Dublin offices and my friends said the quickest way was by DART (or the Dublin Area Rapid Transit), the railway line that runs around the coast of Dublin.

As you can see from the picture above and the one below it's a much better view than I normally get from my train window:



However, it was interesting to note the similarities with the London Underground. They still had those signs telling you to keep your feet off the seats:



They have their own copies of Metro left on the seats:



Still no one looks particularly cheerful (in spite of the wonderful views outside), no one looks at each other - and AMAZINGLY for the Irish, no one talks to each other either:



It's also good/sad to see they have the same issues about railway companies trying to justify the cost of repairs and the earnest insistance that there are no safety risks involved (this was about the LUAS though - a relatively new line for Dublin - which I also travelled on a few stops on Sunday):



Reading ads like that in the Dublin Metro it was hard to believe I wasn't on the Tube! But at least I wasn't reading about the latest discussions of train drivers or station staff striking or threatening to go on strike!

UPDATE - Fantastic - Ginny let me know that she has found a website which has "real-time DART maps with little Thomas the Tank engine graphics." It rocks.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Wednesday, January 18, 2006 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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