Rolling Stock 160

Irish Railway Record Society

Rolling Stock

CAF Mainline Carriages The fifth set (4005) was delivered to Dublin Port on Monday 6 February. With the unloading facility near the Point Depot no longer available to IÉ, the carriages were unloaded at Ocean Pier and then delivered by lorry to Alexandra Road where there were put on the track. Individual carriages were stored in the former Asahi terminal before being transferred four carriages at a time to IÉs North Wall yard. Locomotive 187 pulled four carriages from the Asahi sidings and 142 coupled on the other end and hauled them along Alexandra Rd to the IÉ yard. The complete train was later hauled to Inchicore. The sixth set was delivered in early April.

Trials continued in the spring. In Easter week the fleet was stabled as follows: Heuston 1 set, Inchicore 2 sets, Limerick 1 set and Limerick Junction 2 sets including the sixth set.

On Wednesday 12 April, 172+141 hauled set 4003 from Heuston to Inchicore.

The Weekly Circular now designates these carriages as Mk IV.

Cravens With the entry into service of more 2900-class railcars a significant portion of the Cravens fleet was withdrawn in March. The vehicles were:

1504, 1511, 1513, 1515, 1528, 1531, 1533, 1535, 1536, 1540, 1542, 1543, 1545, 1547, 1548, 1550, 1551, 1554, 1555, 1556 and 1558.

This left four active sets — three sets of six Cravens for weekend services and the two-carriage Ballina Branch set. The latter was the only daily Cravens working. Withdrawn and stored vehicles were in Inchicore, Cork and in the Guinness sidings at Heuston. On Thursday 23 February, 177+185 + 6 Cravens + 3 BR GSVs worked 11:50 Inchicore-Cork for storage.

Additionally the RPSI have commenced acquiring a set of Cravens for use based in Dublin, with three vehicles acquired in March.

Generator-Steam-heating-Vans (GSV) GSV 3187 is undergoing conversion in Inchicore for use with the weed-spraying train. The boiler, generator and water tanks have been removed and new roof sections installed. It had been damaged by fire in Cork in 2005.

All ‘Dutch Vans’ had been withdrawn from heating and lighting duties by April and were only in use as guards-vans. There were only six BR vans in service. The following vans have been taken out-of-service: ‘Dutch Vans’ 3158, 3161, 3164, ‘BR Vans’ 3179, 3180, 3183, 3186 and 3188.

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