Cu na Mara lighting
 

I was on the Cork-Dublin train at 15:30 yesterday and there was a "Cu na Mara" coach mixed into a standard IE Mark 3 set.

While the Cu na Mara / international coach was indeed a bit more spacious it suffered from extremely poor lighting. The interior of the coach was so dim that it was difficult to read a newspaper. All of the lights seemed to be working so I can only assume that it is some kind of a design flaw or that IE had a dimmer activated!

Overall, I didn't like the coach much at all. The windows are *WAY* too heavily tinted for Irish weather, the interior seemed dull and grey and dead compared to the MK3s. The automatic carriage end doors were very narrow and difficult to move luggage through. The luggage racks were tiny.

The toilets cubicals were darkly coloured and generally not very nice.

It also seemed to have features from the older MK2 fleet. i.e. the lighting arrangement looked similar, the air conditioners seemed to be at either end of the luggage racks etc.. Ugly riviting / screws all around the windows etc

To top that off the automatic door at one end of the coach wasn't working and the heating was pretty ineffective. There was a noticable draft all the time and compared to the MK3 coaches the temprature was way lower on board.

I can see why this coach type wasn't really the huge international sucess that BREL intended. Sometimes I think that British rail enthusiasts can get a bit carried away with going on about how amazing some of BREL's designs were.

I would reckon that the normal IE Mark 3 stock is vastly superior from a customer experience point of view. They're actually quite pleasant on board and the interior finish and panels are far more "finished" looking. The International/Cu na Mara coach seemed a bit more "screwed together".

mixing them up
 

I've noticed that since last summer there have been the odd Cu na mara coahes mixed in with standard mark threes on the cork line and also they're mixing the odd refurbished mark 2d with older ones on the Limerick trains. So does this mean that at these times the cu na mara set goes off to galway one carriage short, ditto the mark2d refurbished, or are they spares?

And I agree that they are nowhere near as good in the winter. Howver, must be the glass, they are better than mark 3's in the summer!!!

They could be spares replacing a MK3 coach that's being maintained or something. I suppose, they are MK3's closest cousin anyway even if they're not technically MK3 at all.

Also, I'd say the MK3 fleet's a bit more stretched than usual thesedays as the Cork-Dublin service is now entirely MK3 and some of the older stuff is also disappearing on other lines. The new CAF CDE fleet is also running a little late which is probabally tieing up a fair few MK3s that could have been released from the Cork-Dublin service.

I'd say you'll see more of the Cork-Dublin MK3s on the Galway and other lines in the new year as the CDE starts to replace them.

Its the rouge Cu Na Mara coach 6208, its always been used as a standard MK3 coach, it was the 10th, bought some time after the first 9. Its a standard MK3 in most respects as the suspension was lifted from a fire damaged MK3

Plans currently indicate the 2 citygold sets are destined for Dublin Belfast, the rest are going on Limerick, Waterford and Galway, one set each would make a significant difference they also would be shorter trains so might get a 4th set

The CityGold sets could easily be used to enhance the enterprise service. It seems like the logical place to put them given that it is the only other route with a business class service.

The ex Cork MK3 standard coaches will be a great advantage on any other routes too though particularly while we're waiting for these Mitsui DMUs to arrive.

Do the other 9 Cu na Mara coaches also ride ok with the non MK3 suspension?

The other 8 ride is pretty good an full speed and very nice on the Galway Portarlington section, its the same as used by the defunct Channel Tunnel Nightstock so its UK spec. The 9th didn't make it

Its all nice on paper but the Cu Na Mara isn't very good inside and the rebuilt is only half done. Last trip a lighting strip cover popped off and hung from the celing reeks of poor quaility

I suppose that's why it was a prototype/demonstrator. It wasn't really a finished working model in the first place.

But we bought it anyway.:D