Its about priorities, thats how I view it. The WRC is far down the list. Whats defective needs to be fixed. Existing services need to be fixed. When thats sorted, we move on to the next step. We have a main line now.....Dublin to Cork with serious speed restrictions imposed. Noone begrudges the Midleton line at all, in fact it has a greater return on investment than the Navan line, or any of the other major rail based projects for a relatively small outlay. In short, there are 8 or 9 other projects we could outline that deserve greater priority than the Northern portion of the WRC. The Southern portion, Ennis to Athenry, noone had any objections to that. Lets be perfectly clear on that.
The withdrawal of the remaining Mark 3 coaches. Okay, lets ask some questions:
1. How much would it cost to convert them into Push/Pull stock, which would get another 15-20 years life out of them.
2. Having them as Pull only is actually a cost in itself, considering shunting etc.
3. Iarnrod Eireann learned the hard way in the 1980's when they ended up with the remaining 24 of the Mark 3 order getting shoved around by the 121's for 6 years or so, when they were supposed to be railcar sets.
4. The Mark 3's could be refurbished, but again, it would mean that there was a non standard brand across Intercity. With the ICR sets, we get a consistent brand across the network, which can only be a good thing.
The day of the loco hauled train in Ireland is over. Period. In fact, it should have ended a long time ago. Northern Ireland Railways was almost pure DMU territory for decades, and they provided a reasonably good service, more frequent than Iarnrod Eireann for less money on the network that survived.
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