Quote:
Originally Posted by lostcarpark
The current commuter cars have almost no insulation between the engine and the passengers, so if that's your only experience of DMUs, that's a fairly understandable viewpoint.
I've been on DMUs where you'd be hard pressed to tell there was an engine under the floor. The C3Ks aren't bad in this regard. Hopefully the 22Ks will be better.
The German locos may be quiet, but that's because of they have wires overhead, not because they are loco hauled per say. If they were IC EMUs, I'm sure they'd be just as quiet.
On that note, there would be a pretty strong argument for electrifying Dublin-Belfast. Not only is it a fairly modest distance, but there is commuter potential along the whole length of the line, with commuters into Belfast ant the northern end, local traffic between Newry, Dundalk and Drogheda which have been very local about stronger economic ties lately, and commuter traffic into Dublin.
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There is practically no local traffic between these places. Newry customers are 90% going to dublin or belfast based on experience. Also, the station is so far out of town and not served by buses as to be nigh on worthless for those without cars. That coupled with the lack of non-enterprise services to belfast (4 a day ffs, though they are at perfect times for commuters) hardly makes electrification worthwhile, not to mention NIR's massive new expenditure in non-electric trains. Maybe an argument as far as dundalk, but traffic levels between dundalk and portadown hardly justify it, unless NIR expand their Portadown-Lurgan-Lisburn-Belfast-Bangor service to Newry, but given the need for quite a few extra sets to maintain frequency, i don't think that's a possibility. In short... i can't see electrification making sense until NIR need to renew rolling stock... in thirty years.