Rolling Stock

Irish Railway Record Society

Rolling Stock

Mk III Push-Pull In addition to the set dedicated to the Dublin-Waterford service, several other Mk III push-pull carriages now feature the Intercity markings and have had tables installed. These include 6104, which is now the regular driving trailer on the Dublin-Waterford set. Driving trailer 6105 is now on the regular Limerick-Limerick Junction set.

Maintenance One of the consequences of the development work at Heuston is a change in carriage maintenance methods. With reduced facilities available in Heuston, a road in the ‘Railcar Shed’, adjacent to the Running Shed in Inchicore, has been taken over for the carriage examination. Carriages are now examined in complete sets rather than as individual vehicles.

To facilitate this a complete set is taken out of service from Monday to Thursday, with the consequential cancellation of the 14.00 Heuston-Limerick and 17.45 Limerick-Heuston (except Fridays) as noted in JOURNAL 148. Consequently, from late July one of the two Mk III sets on the Dublin-Westport line has been replaced by a Mk IId set. On Thursday 5 September, both the 12.55 Dublin-Westport and the 13.15 Westport-Dublin were Mk IId sets, but the 18.00 Dublin-Westport reverted to Mk III carriages.

Scrapping In May, two ex-BR GSVs, 3165 and 3174, were scrapped along with two Mk IIab standards, 4107 and 4113.

DIESEL RAILCARS

2700-class All toilets have now been replaced with a new vacuum type. Inflatable front door seals are now being fitted to the class. A modification is being made to improve passenger-door reliability and to allow a vehicle with defective doors to be isolated.

Future Railcar Services At a meeting with a committee of Sligo County Council in June, the Managing Director of IÉ, Mr. Joe Meagher, said that the company hopes to replace locomotive hauled trains on the Sligo line with railcars and that these would reduce the inconvenience of a locomotive failure on the single track. No timescale was reported for their introduction.

Railcar Enquiry In July, IÉ advertised for suitably qualified contractors who may subsequently be selected to bid or negotiate contracts for the supply of diesel railcars for the period up to 31 December 2006. This was a general advertisement only and did not specify any particular number or types of vehicles that may be sought in that period.

DART

8200-class Both Alstom manufactured 8200-class EMUs and 2700-class diesel railcars were delivered from Spain with red LED destination indicators on the front of each train. However, due to possible confusion with red signals, the displays were never turned on. DART set 8203/8403 was observed in service in July fitted with new white LEDs illuminated.

8510-Class The three 4-car trains are fully integrated into DART links. However, unlike the 8500-class, they have not yet been cleared to operate in multiple with other types.

New Order IÉ has ordered a further sixteen 8510-class DART carriages in the form of four 4-car trains from Mitsui in Japan. This order includes four carriages to replace the two 2-car 8100-class sets destroyed by the fire in Fairview Depot in July 2001 (See JOURNAL 146). When these are delivered the DART fleet will consist of 38 two-car 8100-class Linke-Hoffman-Busch sets, 5 two-car 8200-class Alstom sets, 4 four-car 8500-class Mitsui sets and 7 four-car 8510-class Mitsui sets. The total fleet will then be 130 carriages.

LOCOMOTIVES

Cab re-building and other refurbishment has been completed on locomotive 134 and it re-entered service in August. On 16 August, it worked the 12.10 Dublin-Waterford Norfolk liner in multiple with 165. It worked the 3-piece 11.15 Limerick-Limerick Junction push-pull (DT 6105) on 23 August, having temporarily taken over from regular locomotive 124 that morning. This train was extended to Dublin Heuston. Loco-motives 123, 124 and 134 have now all been refurbished, although 123 has been the regular Inchicore works pilot recently. Locomotive 131 was undergoing overhaul in Diesel No. 1, with 128 in ‘The Ramps’ in September.

Locomotive 230, painted in Enterprise livery, worked its first Enterprise train on 23 June on the 10.00 Dublin-Belfast. The 201-class locomotives are now approaching 1 million miles run since they entered service. Drivers’ seats are being replaced with the type used on 071-class locomotives.

Thursday 23 May marked the twenty-fifth year in service of 082, the first of the 071-class to enter traffic. On its anniversary, it worked the 16.13 Dublin Connolly-Maynooth and 18.50 Dublin Pearse-Mullingar.

It is now common to see 071-class locomotives on Ballina branch trains on weekdays as well as Saturdays (See JOURNAL 147). Locomotive 087 has spent most of the summer on branch trains.

Locomotive 076, which received a GM 12-645E engine from TJOG in Sweden, entered service in June (See JOURNAL 146). All IÉ 071-class (and NIR 111-class) were originally delivered with the 645E engine and turbo-charger. The other IÉ 071-class locomotives have now been rebuilt to the 645E3C specific-ation including turbocharger and 076 is now unique. On 4 June, it worked the 20.45 Dublin North Wall-Ballina liner. The following days saw it operate the Ballina branch passenger trains. It had failed by 9 June and was observed on the 17.10 Cork-Tralee on 17 June.