Honestly, this reminded me of the South Shore Line from Chicago to Michigan City(or South Bend), except that the seats gave you a teeny tiny bit more legroom, are cloth seats(a la the CTA subway in Chicago, which OTOH theirs doesn't have any padding), and have padding to them(a la Metra commuter rail in the Chicago area). And also, all the stops are high platforms above track level, and that none of them are still low level platforms, a la most South Shore stops(except Dune Park) between Gary Chicago Airport/Clark Road and Hudson Lake. I kinda wish there were more shops and places to eat at Connolly Station, since that's one of those things that Randolph St/Millennium Station beats Connolly Station at, oddly enough.
Those comparisons aside, we took the train to Howth, and it was a fine train ride out there. Aside from the fact the scenery was kind of a little depressing for the first few stops north of Connolly Station, till you got a little south of where both branches of DART split off(one to Malahide, the other to Howth which I and my family took). One of the north stops before the Malahide and Howth branches split off had a mural painted on that platform I could see from the train, that was interesting. Tried to get a pic of that, but it didn't come out. The scenery really did catch my interest between Sutton(2nd to last stop) and Howth, including the homes you could see off the train route that looked very nice. And the trains running every 30 minutes apart at off peak times till 11:55pm(from Howth only to Connolly Station by that late, though an hour earlier and you could take it to the stations south of Connolly) isn't bad. Though we headed back before then.
The LUAS(tram system) has some trams ending their eastbound runs at Connolly instead of the regular eastern end(don't remember that station's name) of that line. And I thought that was nice they make it easy to transfer between LUAS and trains going to/from this station. I didn't feel threatened, but I agree there probably are occasional sketchy people you should watch around for when you enter or leave this station. No worse than at Randolph St/Millennium Station for Metra and South Shore, though. On the platform I didn't have any issues, since you go through a turnstyle where you insert your train ticket before entering. I'd use DART again if I ever return, whether that was to go to Malahide or any of the stations south of Connolly Station. read more