Locomotives 160

Irish Railway Record Society

Locomotives

LOCOMOTIVES

121-Class

Nos. 124 & 134 continued to work freight trains in multiple with 141/181-class. Both were hauling beet trains in early January.

141/181-Class

Locomotives 148, 159 and 186 remain out of service at Inchicore. Locomotive 147 has received bogies from 182.

DIESEL RAILCARS

New order On 3 January, the Minister for Transport Martin Cullen TD and CIÉ and IÉ Chairman Dr John Lynch announced that IÉ is to purchase 30 more new InterCity railcar carriages, at a cost of €62 million, to complete the transformation of the InterCity fleet. The contract has been awarded to Mitsui of Japan, in partnership with Rotem of the Republic of Korea and Tokyu Car Corporation of Japan and is an add-on to the existing order for 120 vehicles. The ten 3-car trains are for the Dublin-Sligo and Dublin-Rosslare routes where they will replace commuter trains now used on these routes. They will begin entering service in 2007.

CIÉ and IÉ Chairman Dr John Lynch said ‘the Sligo and Rosslare lines now represent the transformation of our network. Our track has been totally upgraded on both, as it has throughout the network. Our signalling has been computerised on the Sligo-Dublin line, with the Rosslare-Dublin line re-signalling underway. Now, most importantly for our customers, brand new dedicated InterCity trains are on order for both lines, to the same high standard as those ordered for the rest of our network. There is no more 'two-tier railway': we now have the highest standard network for all of our customers, and the highest standard trains on the way’.

2600-class This class has returned to Dundalk/Drogheda commuter services with the commencement of the new timetable on 11 December. The 07:27 Drogheda-Pearse link, which includes the 18:15 Pearse-Dundalk is rostered for an 8-car 2600-class but had initially been formed by a six-car 2600-class and a 2-car 2800-class. However, performance was relatively poor and timekeeping suffered in comparison with the 29000-class.

Two 2-car sets are allocated to Cork, generally for Cork-Cobh services, but they have also been observed on Cork-Tralee services.

2700-class (Alstom) All are now based in Cork and Limerick. Cork performs weekly and monthly maintenance examinations on six 2-car sets and Limerick on four 2-car sets and two single cars. They go to Drogheda for heavier maintenance work. They work Limerick-Ennis, Limerick-Limerick Junction, Limerick Junction-Waterford-Rosslare, Nenagh branch, Cork-Mallow, Mallow-Tralee and Cork-Cobh services. The class started to appear on Cork-Tralee services in early December.

2800-class (Tokyu) Dublin-Rosslare and Dublin-Gorey services reverted to 2800-class operation with the commencement of the new timetable. Three 6-car sets are provided, although standing was common on popular trains in the lead up to Christmas. On most days, all ten two-car sets are regularly in service. There are now no 2800-class sets based in Cork. All are now painted in the green/blue ‘Commuter’ livery.

29000-class (CAF) Further sets have been delivered to Drogheda depot. Set 29123 was delivered on Tuesday 4 October and entered service on Monday 21 November. Sets 29124 and 29125 were delivered on Monday 14 November. The ship was the MV Flinterdeens and locomotive 184 hauled the trains from the quay. Set 29125 entered service on Monday 12 December and set 29124 entered service on Tuesday 20 December. Sets 29126 and 29127 were delivered on Wednesday 21 December with 168 hauling them to Drogheda for static testing. They arrived in Inchicore under their own power on 23 December. The remaining sets 29128 and 29129 were expected to be delivered in late January.

Two four-car sets work Heuston-Kildare services from 11 December instead of a mixture of 2800-class and 2600-class.

IÉ has sought a contractor to carry out routine servicing and adjustment on the MAN D2876 LUH 01 traction engines of the first batch of

Route Clearance The Mallow-Tralee line has been cleared for operation by 2600-class, 2700-class and 2800-class railcars.

Other A contract for ‘the provision of build quality audits’ for the IÉ railcar fleet has been awarded to Halcrow Group Limited of Derby.

The remainder of this article appears in IRRS Journal number 160, published June 2006.