Rolling Stock 169

Irish Railway Record Society

JOURNAL 169 ROLLING STOCK

PASSENGER ROLLING STOCK

Mk IV Ride quality of the CAF built Mk IV fleet had never met specifications and in April IÉ placed the following advertisement: ‘The fleet is 3 years old and the ride comfort of the vehicles requires improvement. Recognising that this is a complex issue expressions of interest are invited from companies interesting in bidding for a turnkey project to rectify the ride comfort on the fleet to an agreed performance level’. IÉ said ‘... there are minor modifications required to bring the ride quality completely in line with the specifications in the contract, and this work will be covered under the manufacturer's warranty at no cost to us or the taxpayer’.

Mk III The final scheduled working of a Mk III push-pull on the Sundays-Only 08:10 Dublin-Tralee and 17:45 return was on 1 February and featured 232 + 6 Mk III push-pull (DT6105). 6-car ICRs then took over the service.

For a short period this left one push-pull set remaining in service. This was displaced by a new 6-car ICR from the Dublin-Waterford link (see above) and transferred to the 17:10 Dublin-Athlone link from 2 February. This allowed another Mk III set be withdrawn.

Another set of withdrawn Mk III vehicles was moved from Inchicore to North Wall for storage on Tuesday 3 February by 218. The carriages were 6311, 6317, 6309, 7138, 7118, 7135, 7109, and 7603.

On Thursday 7 May, 6104 returned to traffic after a period in storage. It worked the 17:50 Dublin-Galway. It replaced 6105, which was ‘stopped’. 6101 was the other driving trailer in service.

By mid-May, the following vehicles were in store in various locations such as Inchicore, North Wall, Heuston, Waterford and Dundalk:

6102-03, 6105, 6301-02, 6305-11, 6313, 6315-17, 7101, 7105, 7107-12, 7116-19, 7122, 7124-28, 7130-31, 7133-39, 7141-42, 7145, 7147-48, 7150-56, 7158-65, 7167, 7169-70, 7172, 7401-03, 7405-10, 7412-13, 7601, 7603-07, 7611-13.

The Mk IIIa (International or Cú na Mara) set 6201-6208 and 6401, mostly in storage in North Wall, has been authorised for disposal.

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