Rolling Stock 168

Irish Railway Record Society

JOURNAL 168 ROLLING STOCK

DART

8100-Class LHB The popular two-car sets continue to give good service following their refurbishment by Siemens. All have now returned to traffic: set 8127 on 15 September, set 8104 on 15 October, set 8122 on 22 October and set 8116 on 10 December.

8200-Class Alstom The small fleet of 5 two-car sets continues to have mixed reliability and in autumn they were formed into a single train of either 6 or 8 cars. Sets 8201 + 8202 + 8203 failed in Kilbarrack at 06:30 on Monday 22 September, resulting in extensive disruption to all northside services. Single line operation was set up between Howth Junction and Killester until about 08:15 using the down line. 177 hauled sets 8201 + 8202 to Inchicore Works on Wednesday 24 September, but they were subsequently returned to Fairview Shed.

Sets 8202 + 01 + 03 returned to service on Saturday 8 November and remained in service as a single train. Sets 8204 and 8205 remained out of service in Fairview.

ROLLING STOCK

Mk III In October, IÉ placed an advertisement for the refurbishment of ‘up to 48’ Mk III vehicles. ‘The vehicles are approx. 20 years old and we will require complete refurbishment including elements of heavy engineering’.

Further withdrawals have taken place as more services are converted to railcars. On Saturday 29 November, 077 hauled an EGV + 7 Mk III / Mk III push-pull carriages from Inchicore to Waterford for storage. It crossed the 07:50 Waterford-Ballina empty timber, 082 + 12 bogies, at Kildare.

By mid-December, 50 Mk III, IIIa and III Push-Pulls were stored:

Inchicore: 6103, 6202, 7117, 7136, 7145, 7150, 7155, 7161, 7162, 7408, 7606

North Wall: 6201, 6203, 6204, 6205, 6206, 6207, 6208, 6401

Dundalk: 6301, 6305, 6306, 6308, 6313, 7101, 7131, 7141, 7153, 7154, 7156, 7159, 7170, 7401, 7601, 7612

Waterford: 6310, 6315, 6316, 7108, 7126, 7152, 7165, 7611

Heuston: 7107, 7110, 7124, 7127, 7134, 7403, 7409

By early January, 7606, 7117, 7155, 7134, 7124, 7127, 7403 and 7110 had been transferred to Waterford.

The graffiti attack on Mk IIIa carriages stored in North Wall referred to in JOURNAL 167 was in fact confined to a single vehicle, which has also had its windows broken.

The remainder of this article appears in IRRS Journal number 168, published February 2009.