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Unread 10-03-2018, 19:08   #1
Ireland trains
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Default Irish rail fleet deployment

Irish rail could use the 1 spare mkiv set and reconfigure the enterprise sets to 4 7-car trains and increase the enterprise service to hourly
Does anyone know what services to Waterford and Galway from Dublin are 5/6/7 car ICR sets.
Have Irish rail ever operated an 8 or 9 car ICR in passenger service.
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Unread 12-03-2018, 19:26   #2
Mark Gleeson
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Mk4 are for Dublin Cork only, not certified or equipped for use in Northern Ireland, hourly service would need 6 sets at least for Dublin Belfast plus spare, so 3 on top of current, funding is shared with NIR so it is complex to get any improvement as both parties have to share 50:50

Dublin Cork requires all 7 sets + 1 spare to run the timetable, 6 are used currently, the 7th set will have to go into regular use to replace a ICR's to free them up for other routes

9 coach ICR is permitted and has been used many times, 8 coach sets are regularly used Dublin Cork but are good for most routes. Dublin Sligo has a limit of 7, Waterford has a limit of 6, Rosslare 5 (but is typical only 4 timetabled)
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Unread 14-03-2018, 13:38   #3
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When have irish rail used 9 and 8 car icrs in passenger service.
Also Belfast only would need 5 trains to make it hourly ( 2h 10min journey time and 20 min turnaround)
Cork only needs 6 and I thought all mkiv trains were back in service
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Unread 14-03-2018, 19:57   #4
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20 minutes isn't sufficient, need at least 40. And you need a spare set, so you need 7.

Cork needs 7 + 1 spare which is the MK4 fleet, its currently running as 5 or 6 plus some ICR's

9 car is used for GAA specials regularly. Dublin Cork line only
8 car sets are used on Saturdays during the engineering works between Heuston and Portlaoise, again somewhat restricted in routes they can operate
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Unread 15-03-2018, 12:15   #5
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Belfast hourly could easily be run with 5 sets (+1 spare) especially if the current idiotic time wasting schedules were tightened up. There is often sufficient time in Drogheda or Dundalk on northbound trips to nip out to the local shops while the train idles away at the platform.

Mk4s would be little addition to the Belfast line although cerifying them to run in NI would not be a big obstacle, they are not massively different operationally to a De-Dietrich but would require upgrades to on board signalling equipment, notably TPWS and the rather less useful DRA.

As for 9 piece ICRs in passenger service, this is a comparitiv rarity, perhaps less than half a dozen times a year. Eight piece ICRs in passenger service are also relatively rare but do appear during weekend engineering works on the Cork line when service frequency is reduced to two-hourly. No regular workings to my knowledge. Seven car sets are common enough particularly on commuter oriented services notably from Sligo, Newry and Maynooth, perhaps less so on the Heuston lines where 3 or 4 car sets appear to pre-dominate.
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Unread 15-03-2018, 14:45   #6
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I've seen the Enterprise turned around in as little as 10 minutes in Connolly, but I presume that's under exceptional circumstances. It's one thing to do quick turnarounds on an occasional basis, but if they have to turn around that quick all day every day, there isn't time for the routine checks and servicing, not to mention cleaning. Things will inevitably start to break down, and the quality of service will degrade.

Aside from that, having the service split between two different train types causes a lot of complexity for maintenance, servicing and training, and also makes online seat booking difficult (what happens if a Mk4 is scheduled to run a service and it gets swapped for a DD at the last minute, and the seat number you've reserved doesn't exist on the replacement train?).

I hope we'll see an hourly Enterprise service one day, but it will probably need to coincide with the replacement of the DDs by new stock.
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