Railcars 171

Irish Railway Record Society

JOURNAL 171

DIESEL RAILCARS

22000-Class ICR Routes The class has now been cleared to operate in passenger service between Manulla Junction and Ballina (3-car), Gorey-Rosslare (3-car south of Greystones), into Docklands station and between Islandbridge Junction and Glasnevin Junction. They have also been cleared to operate as 9-car between Dublin Connolly/Heuston-Cork-Tralee but are not allowed to serve Newbridge, Portarlington, Ballybrophy, Templemore, Banteer, Rathmore and Farranfore.

22000-Class ICR Commissioning The final standard-class ICR 6-car set, 22045, entered service on Thursday 3 December on the 17:25 Dublin-Limerick. Nineteen 3-car sets are on order for delivery in 2011, as are replacements for sets 22010 and 22011.

22000-Class ICR Workings On Thursday 26 November, 6-car ICRs commenced working Dublin-Sligo trains, replacing pairs of 3-cars. Standard-class set 22044 worked the 13:05 Connolly-Sligo, which only operated to/from Longford because of flooding. The same morning, 3-car ICR 22008 worked Docklands-Clonsilla services instead of the usual 4-car 29000-class. On Monday 7 December, Premier-class 22034 and Standard-class 22045 transferred from Heuston to Connolly.

Dublin-Rosslare services are worked by 3-car ICRs since the commencement of the new timetable in November. 3-car ICRs have taken over from 4-car 29000-class on the Heuston-Kildare route.

2600-Class With the commencement of the new timetable, the 2600-class have been transferred from Drogheda to Cork. This now means they have re-appeared on some Mallow-Tralee InterCity services. On Wednesday 30 December, 2-car 2616/05 worked an overcrowded 09:15 Tralee-Mallow.

2700-Class The new timetable saw Ballina branch trains change from 2-car 2600-class to 2-car 2700-class. The latter are all based in Limerick and sets are swapped on Saturdays to facilitate inspection and maintenance. 2705/06 arrived in Ballina at 13:15 on Saturday 12 December from Limerick and was used for driver training from the following Monday. 2709/10 replaced 2705/06 on Saturday 19 December. It failed in Ballina on Christmas Eve and a bus was used for the rest of the day.

2800-Class One set, generally 4-car, works the 16:53 Maynooth-Wexford link, while another 8-car and two 4-car sets are used on Dublin outer suburban and Maynooth lines.

The remainder of this article appears in IRRS Journal number 171, published February 2010.