Quote:
Originally Posted by MrX
I cannot understand why Irish Rail are not making use of tilting trains. The logical choice for the Cork-Dublin line would have been a fleet of fast tilting DMUs along the line of the Pendolino which is gaining a lot of popularity around Europe.
CIE have purchased coaches that are pretty much just modern versions of what they already had........ OK, they do have the advantage of being upgradable to full 125mph operation, but that hasn't even been done!
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The existing Mk3 carraiges are 125 capable, so that cannot be the reason, its simply that they look nice and modern, and they have a few bells and whistles. We're tired pointing out theres nothing new at all about these carraiges, nothing.
DART just had to be done, the existing commuter rail stsock at the time was apparently very close to self destruction.
IE was throwing the baby out with the bathwater with the Mk3s, yes get rid of all slam door carraiges, they are not acceptable, but faced with a choice of shiny new kit or refurbishing the existing kit they went for the new kit.
There arent enough Mk3 to do the whole country, fine, once the others go. They will keep the citygold sets for Enterprise (proably refurbish them to match) and may sell off the rest, when they could keep them for, example, Limerick or Galway as a dedicated branded service.
IE seem to be in a big rush to get rid of all Loco hauled services, that appears to be the line of thought and it appears to be faddish to say the least - they have a stock of over 30 locos which are only ten years old. Whilst some of them will be needed for Enterprise and Cork services the rest will not (not to mention the abaondonment of the other types of Locos as well) and in the medium term even these face being got rid of (power cars on Cork, possible HST2 on Enterprise).
Now, we been havign this debate for years hear about this trend, the only way we'll know if it is good or not is when the Intercity DMU's come in this year. However, one thing is clear, freight will be gone (not that there is much there anyway) as there will be nothing to operate it.
What is also clear is that IE are, kit wise, in an unenviable position. They got the 201s in mid 90's as a final Loco order for a period of 30 years, and at the time the service was on its last lets and there were genuine concerns that IE was going to the wall intercity wise anyway. Perhaps they would have chosen a DMU solution then (that was also the time when the 2700's were bought) and it seems that now there is a bit of money around they are trying to replace everything whilst the going is good and hope that it'll last 30-40 years and try to recoup some money by selling the locos they can off now with some residual value left.