[Article] Some train journeys slower than 20 years ago

[MrX]

I cannot understand why Irish Rail are not making use of tilting trains. The logical choice for the Cork-Dublin line would have been a fleet of fast tilting DMUs along the line of the Pendolino which is gaining a lot of popularity around Europe.

CIE have purchased coaches that are pretty much just modern versions of what they already had. The specifications are almost identical to the MK3 coaches they bought in the 1980s - All they've done is added "push-pull" capability and a few bells and 21st century bells and whistles that are really only superficial enhancements. The core technology is the same - a conventional train! OK, they do have the advantage of being upgradable to full 125mph operation, but that hasn't even been done!

It's a bit like buying a new merc, but not buying the engine, then toeing it behind a 1992 pick up truck.

What's the point of just ignoring 20 years of technological innovation ?

Also, the new Mitsui trains are limited to 100mph and don't tilt either!?

Again, even if 50% of them could tilt and get up to 125mph we'd be looking at more possibilities over their lifetime.

CIE's purchasing policy has now locked us in to a situation where by we're stuck with very conventional railway technology for the next 20+ years!

Getting the Cork line up to 125mph with the new Cork train's quite possible, but it's arguable that it wouldn't have needed to have had so much line work, particularly re-allignment of curves, carried out if they'd gone with tilt technology.

I'm sure these new Mitsui DMUs will provide enhanced service and better levels of on-board comfort, but they're not thinking very far "outside the box"

IE was grossly underfunded though.

What exactly spurred the investment in the 1983/84 period ? There was a big pouring of cash in .. DART and the MK3 project..?
MK3 was a reaction to the Buttivant crash ?... DART was pretty inspired though for the dark days of the 1980s.
Seems that there was nothing spent between then until Mary O'Rourke started authorising funding for new DARTs, arrow/commuter etc etc.

I think a lot of the problems though are no longer directly funding related. They have access to quite a bit of cash thesedays, it's more down to CIE management. The quality of service across the companies can be abysmal and it's nothing to do with poor infrastructure / fleet. They need to work on those issues to get more universally customer focused.

I would complement them on the Cork service though. The customer service has improved by leaps and bounds. I just hope they manage to keep up the momentum across the rest of the network!

They could obviously do with more funding for capital projects etc, but they're certainly no longer strapped for cash like they used to be. I think they need to snap out of that doing everything on a shoe string mentality too. E.g. not ordering power cars for Cork-Dublin!?!