Enterprise fleet refurbishment
 

Any comments?

Am I right that the existing carriages don't have wheelchair accessible toilets?

Current toilet is accessible but does not meet current regs

I know I'm not sticking to the topic, but do Translink not realise that the Enterprise serves other stations besides Dublin? Twice in their statement they seem to be ignoring this fact:

"The Enterprise service has long been considered a relaxing way to go to Dublin whether you’re travelling on business or for leisure".

"last year (2013 – 2014) almost 840,000 people choose to travel to Dublin on the Enterprise".

The on-board magazine would also give you the impression that this train does not serve anywhere between Dublin and Belfast. It often features articles on events and attractions in the two cities, but I've never seen anything in it about Drogheda, Dundalk, Newry, Portadown or Lisburn.

Is there really much point in forward facing CCTV when the 201 won't have it.

Will the Mark IV's be the only rolling stock without some form of external CCTV after this?

There seems to be a lot of "repainting" rather that refurbishing of certain aspects. Something which may cost more long term.

Whats a Train Management System?

Mk4 DVT has a camera

At the moment Enterprise is old fashioned, so to change the AC settings or check a toilet you have to check each coach control panel. Train management system would show you the status of all systems across the train in one place.

Mk4 and 22k have this as standard

In theory it would allow maintenance to monitor the train in the field and react to issues.

Carriage down
 

For several days this week the enterprise seems to be one carriage down.
When it reaches Drogheda it's full with people standing between carriages.
Does anyone know if this has to do with the refurbishment?
As a result many of the commuters have needed to get the 8:35.

Missing a first class coach, one of the new sets will likely be back soon enough

A first class coach is missing. That said this should have no impact on crowding as you can only stand in first if you have a first class ticket.

Expect to see a C3K train on the 06:50 ex Belfast from late May

What happened to doing it one by one?

They have one full set out and around 5 coaches from a spare set, surly they can't have them all completed already?

6 x C3k on 0650, 1235 and 1805 from Belfast and 0935, 1520 and 2050 from Dublin commencing May 25th.

1900 will operate to an accelerated schedule from 1st of June arriving in Belfast from June 1st. From the same date the 2135 from Belfast is being advanced to 2115, will no longer serve Lisburn and is due to arrive in Dublin at 2312.

Inniskeen (and others):. I can see that Translink are showing restrictions or non-availability of First class accommodation in June. However Irish Rail's travel plannre is showing unchanged schedules and First class on all trains. So is this the usual Irish Rail dopey website performance?

Also why is there such a large disruption to what is the only reliable First class service left? Do they want it to go the way of the Cork line? I would have thought that a properly planned refurbishment would have provided a less disruptive and more even progression of the work.

I don't think the removal of the first class coach is a major issue but suspect that it may be down to increasing number commuting from Dundalk/Drogheda.

As for the website, the majority of passengers affected by CK3 change will be NI based bookings so either so either they have not informed IE yet or IE hasn't updated the information.

it looks like two Enterprise sets will be unavailable from June so the service will consist of one Belfast based Enterprise set; an IE 22000 with First (its actually ok) and an NIR C3 set with a trolley. We need more information as the service now lacks consistency. How long, for example? If another Enterprise set is unavailable why not roster another 22000 set even if it has to overnight in Belfast? I think NIR and IE need to give passengers a better explanation of the necessity for the downgrade of a consistent Enterprise offering.

IE cannot roster another set because they simply do not have the capacity combined with the fact NI based crew would require training. The 6 coach C3 will match the DD stock capacity better than IEs 5 coach 22s 402 over 304 seats.

I really cannot understand why they will take 2 full sets out and their own spare set at the same time. Are they trying to speed up the refurbishment process.

One would assume that the set being removed from service will be the set which is down a coach and the full DD set will move from the 06.50 to the 08.00 roster.

Well they actually do given the underutilisation of the Mark IV fleet where at least two sets languish out of use!

Won't make difference now that 5 Mark IV are back in use. 3/4 coach sets work a few others which wouldn't be enough for Belfast service. 5 at a minimum is required and IE really can't afford to let 2 (3 coach sets) go. Then Fridays/Saturdays/Sundays would be completely ruled out. Then there is the training, by the time it would be completed the first DD set will be back.

I believe that the refurbishment programme is running behind schedule.

To qualify for the EU grant, the project has to be completed by a certain date. What that date is I am not sure, but it's later this year.

In order to meet that date, the programme has to be accelerated and as a result more coaches than originally planned will have to be removed from service at the one time.

There is no way that IE 22k sets are going to be left overnight in Belfast.

NIR crews are not trained up on them, and it simply isn't practical to train them in the timeframe involved, so they have to return with their crew to Dublin, and also there are no spare sets.

By 31 December 2015 will mean they had 18 months approval by the EU yet it was at least 4 months before the first full DD was withdrawn...

While I agree it is unlikely that ICRs will overnight in Belfast in the short term, it is hard to believe that NIR drivers would face too steep a learning curve to become competent in the units. The current situation in relation to driver competence creates inflexibilities which have the potential to cause major operational difficulties should a driver be unable to continue driving mid-trip for one reason or another.