Irish Rail seeking director of train operations

[Jamie2k9]

Originally Posted by berneyarms

It was at a talk at some point that a member of CME staff said that the Mark 4 sets were under too much pressure. As I understand it there are 6 sets in daily use, the sixth coming out later in the day (earlier on Fridays and weekends).

That leaves one full spare set and then a second as maintenance cover.

As for Belfast - the LRA causes massive issues on the first northbound train on the bank north of Dundalk. That is a fact - I’ve experienced it which you clearly have not. It crawled and I mean crawled. It could barely move.

This is the third year they have temporarily used an ICR to cover that trip - the loco hauled trains are ok after that.

As far as I know the ICR has now been removed from Belfast as the issue has diminished to manageable levels. Nothing more than that. I think you’re adding two and two and making five!

I fully accept its bad on Belfast route, if the refurb didn't happen the ICRs would unlikely have passed the border so again I refer back to the fact for 20 years they didn't have such an option and coped all be it with problems.

They don't even run the washer on the line. Yes i know it does commuter runs but doesn't mean they couldn't make a better effort around other problem areas. Removing sanding from 201's makes the problem worse and there is no accountability for that.

This year could probally be considered a good year but it was removed in a hurry last week (?) because it was a case of remove it or cut capacity on one of the Heuston rosters.

As for the MarkIVs been "overused", the failure rate is likely 201 heavy than MarkIV and surely changes to maintenance practices and or extra staff would solve most of this problem.