Quote:
Originally Posted by James Howard
This chestnut of regular maintenance for the 22Ks seems to come up a lot in terms of justifying some of the crazier-looking rostering decisions like 29Ks to Sligo or 22Ks to M3 Parkway. How often do these units need servicing?
If the need for serving is such a problem, it would seem to be a bit silly to have the maintenance located so far out of the way of the regular routes of so many of the trains so that they have to be shuttled 50 or 60k from a terminus in order to receive regular maintenance.
|
As I understand it they have to visit the depot in Drogheda or Portlaoise every 48 hours for basic servicing (excluding fuelling and toilet discharge which can happen at terminal stations).
Totally agree about the locations of maintenance facilities. While on the Heuston side it is covered (in the main) by the hourly Heuston/Portlaoise services, the facility was located in Portlaoise for purely political reasons.
Moving ICR maintenance from Connolly to Drogheda was utter madness as it means trains are unavailable for roughly 1.5 hours more than necessary due to having to travel to/from Drogheda. Cost savings from sharing resources (one depot) to me have to be offset by the unnecessary additional downtime that causes, and the reduction in rostering flexibility.