Following claims by two local politicians to the contrary, Irish Rail has clarified that new Dart trains planned to enter service on the Northern Line between Drogheda and Dublin, starting in Q2 2027 will add passenger capacity.The claims that the new trains will not add capacity were made by North County Dublin-based TD Grace Bolard (Fine Gael) and a Donabate-based councillor, Cllr Corina Johnston (Labour).At the Oireachtas transport committe last week, Deputy Bolard said The rail carriages that have been ordered are to replace the existing rail carriages, so, albeit, there will be some additional capacity on the train set once deployed, and obviously theyre not going to be deployed until 2027, there has been no increase in the service and there is no proposed increase in the service.Then yesterday Cllr Corina Johnston said: The Dart+ replacement carriages which will begin coming into service next year on this line will not provide any significant capacity increases. According to replies received from Irish Rail, the capacity will increase from 1,258 (currently on 8-car commuter trains) to 1,272 on the new hybrid Dart 10-car trains, an increase in capacity of 14.But not all the current trains are 8-car commuter trains, with Irish Rail confirming to this website that four peak services inbound on the Northern Line are shorter trains. In a Facebook post, Cllr Johnston added: This at a time when planning permissions have already been granted for 1000s of much needed homes along this line with an inadequate public transport system to support our growing communities. Today, Barry Kenny, a spokesperson for Irish Rail, said: Our new Dart trains have been designed based on customer feedback to have a mix of seating and standing capacity as is typical of commuter services.Open gangways on the new Darts, as opposed to interconnecting doors, will assist in capacity. Most significantly, a number of services will see a large increase in capacity, which are currently operated either by four-carriage Commuter railcar trains or seven-carriage Intercity trains, he told this website. He said that the current Northern Line rail service is not running 8-car Commuter trains. In the current morning peak, there are 4-car trains in use 6am Drogheda to Pearse and 9am Drogheda to Connolly, and 7-car Intercity trains are used on the 6.40am Drogheda to Pearse and 6.58am Dundalk to Connolly All of these services will have longer trains mostly replaced by the new Dart trains, and, with the Dundalk train, Kenny explained: While the new Darts wont operate to/from Dundalk, we envisage an 8-carriage Commuter being moved on to this service, as it is far more suited to peak Commuter services, and has much greater capacity.Once the new, longer trains are put in place, the existing trains will also be relocated to other lines. IMAGE: As well as having open gangways in other words, no doors between carriages the overhead displays on the trains will show how crowded each carriage is. Kenny said: On other routes, as 8-carriage Commuter trains currently on Drogheda services are replaced by 10-carriage Darks, we will be able to deploy those on other Commuter routes to increase capacity, and the cascade of Intercity services will enable us to add capacity on Intercity routes also.He also said that the 30 electric-only trains from the first Dart train order will allow Irish Rail to make all Dart services full-length.He added: Thereafter, as infrastructure is delivered under the Dart+ Programme, we will be able to operate more services, and at maximum capacity.Running extra trains on the line will require major infrastructure works under the Dart+ programme. Some works on Dart Coastal North, on the Northern Line, are planned for 2028, but the main works are not planned until 2030. These works will allow for Irish Rail to run extra trains on the Northern Line.Works on Dart+ West, including the Maynooth line, and Dart+ South West, on the Kildare line, are expected to get underway before 2030, with the former advancing first.