Each coach has two engines, one for driving the coach, and one for providing heat, lights and aircon. As one would expect, the driving engine is the noisier of the two, although this may not be the case when it's parked. As already stated, the driving engines are located between coach 1&2, and between 3&4 (by the toilets or away from the driving cab - avoid these areas). The auxillary engine seems to be under the standing area closest to the cab or furthest from the toilet, but it's nowhere near as loud, and most importantly, it doesn't roar when the train accelerates. I tend to avoid the seats by the driving cab because there's less knee room, and no table. The quietest seats are the ones right at the middle where coaches 2&3 meet.

However the seats at the central tables of each coach aren't too bad either, being between the two engines.

No, that's it at the moment. One imagines if IE do buy more commuter DMUs, the spec will be very similar to the 2900s, and CAF having experience in this area would be in a strong position to bid.

However, IE have just put out a tender to enlarge the DART fleet, and there seem to be grounds to hope that the Maynooth line electrification will be pushed ahead early. This would both allow a much expanded Maynooth service, and free up DMUs for other services. As the Interconnector and Balbriggan DART come on stream, there would seem to be plenty of DMUs for everything else.

If the 2900s were only serving Gormanstown, Laytown, Drogheda and Dundalk (and possibly Dunleer), there would be potential for a much quicker journey, though it would be limited by the train in front.

Wow, that is incredibly accurate lostcarpark - exactly as I worked it out today walking alongside the train and then down through it (waiting to leave). There is indeed a very noisy driving engine, and a quieter services engine under each car, hence the different noise levels on board that often make it impossible to decide where to sit! Walking along on the platform you can make out exactly which is which, and where each is sited.

So to be finnicky about things, is this the layout? (:))


Sitting over a driving engine beside a cab in particular is a disaster, as the shudders also go up the wall the seat is attached to, making it feel like a vibrating chair gone bonkers.

Upon finding out where the engines were (though wasn't sure which were the worst till now), I sat in a middle table seat to avoid both and you're right - as suspected this is probably the best seat on the 2900, also taking into account the decent window view. The tables really need to be larger though - a common complaint of the DMUs.

So to sum up, if the driving engine is momentarily turned off, you can get the best seat in the house if you're sitting over them as you're far away from the services engines and get the advantage of the only decent airline seat which is on top of some of them - but when they're switched on, which is probably 80-90% of the time, if not 100% on some journeys, then it's a nightmare.
If you chose a services engine seat, you've less noise, but it's constant and gauranteed for the whole journey.
Damned if you do....

I think I'll be taking the table seat from now on :)
Thanks lostcarpark.

Occasionally - very occasionally - a driving engine will fail. A set can quite happily operate with an engine switched off with only slight reduction in acceleration (in an 8-car set with one dead engine you'd still have over 85% total power). If you're lucky enough to find such a car, you're in for a very much quieter ride.

However, the guys in Drogheda seem to keep them running reliably, so it doesn't happen too often.

Nice one Graham, it appears that the driving engines are under the controll cab of each two car set.

??

29k's only come in sets of fours.

Yes, they are in fixed sets of four, but on the busy commuter routes they are usually coupled together to make an 8-car set. There are gangways between cars withing the fixed sets, but no way to move from one set to the next - not that you could move from one end of a coach to the other when it's packed full of commuters.

Not to get technical but a 29000 is 2 separate units coupled back to back, to form a 4 car set, well thats the equipment setup as equipment is spread out

The Mk3 push-pull set would be a good idea but is not air conditioned, so might be a rude awakening to regular commuters. In the winter time it probably wouldn't matter too much.