Railcars 169

Irish Railway Record Society

JOURNAL 169 DIESEL RAILCARS

DIESEL RAILCARS

New Railcars IÉ has placed an order for a further 51 railcar vehicles valued €140m with Mitsui of Japan. They are expected to enter service in ‘the second half of 2011’. The vehicles will be aimed at long distance commuter traffic such as Dundalk, Longford and Kildare to Dublin, but will have more seating than existing commuter trains.

22000-Class ICR 6-car ICRs in the 22031-40 series fitted with premier class seating took over working the 07:30 Dublin Heuston-Waterford, 14:45 Waterford-Dublin, 15:05 Dublin-Waterford and 18:25 Waterford-Dublin on Monday 2 February. The set is scheduled to work empty from Laois Traincare Depot at 06:00 and return empty at 21:40. Set 22036 entered service on the 15:05 that day.

3-car ICRs took over working the 04:10 Dublin-Gorey empty, 06:00 Gorey-Dublin Connolly, 09:05 Dublin-Sligo and 13:00 Sligo-Dublin, 16:40 Dublin-Gorey and 19:23 Gorey-Dublin from Thursday 19 February. This was the first commercial ICR working on the former D&SER line and was made possible by transferring the single 3-car ICR from Heuston-Kildare services and replacing it with a 4-car 29000-class. The first train was worked by 22026. It also meant that all Monday-Saturday Dublin-Sligo line trains were worked by 3-car and 2 x 3-car ICRs, with 29000-class railcars only used on some Sunday services.

Deliveries of standard-class only 6-car ICRs continue through Waterford Port. These are sets 22041-46 and consist of A2-B-B-B-B-A3 type cars and are effectively a 3-car set with 3 additional type B intermediates. Sets delivered to date were 22041 on 8 January, 22042 and 22043 on 1 May, with 141 hauling set 22043 through Waterford station at 15:50. 147 hauled 22042 to Limerick Junction from Waterford on Saturday 2 May, where it stabled over the weekend before delivery to Limerick.

22000-class Fuel Saving A modification has been made to shut down engines to save fuel when sets idle. On a 3-car set 2 of the 3 engines and on a 6-car set 3 of the 6 engines shut down after idling for 8 minutes. All engines shut down after idling for 90 minutes.

22000-class Routes The class is now cleared to operate Ballybrophy-Killonan Junction and Limerick-Ennis (See JOURNAL 167).

Passenger Information System (PIS) In April, IÉ placed an advertisement: ‘Expressions of interest are invited from suppliers for the provision of a turnkey solution to design, supply and install a replacement Passenger Information System across a number of EMU and DMU train types. The Supplier will be expected to provide a proven system, fully compliant to the latest standards including PRM TSI, from a reputable supplier of Rail Vehicle on board passenger Information Systems, The Supplier will have full responsibility for the design and system integration, installation, equipment performance and electronic obsolescence for a significant duration’.

At the same time the following notice was published in the Weekly Circular: ‘Further to continuing failures of CCTV and PIS equipment on Class 29000 units, train builder CAF has agreed to fit a new type of CCTV recorder on a trial basis to’ 29005, 29007, 29010, 29017.

2600-class A programme of major overhauls continues in Inchicore Works.

The remainder of this article appears in IRRS Journal number 169, published June 2009.