[MrX]

From a technical perspective the Enteprise just strikes me as a complete mess.

At least the Cork-Dublin Express (CAF) coaches work well with the locomotives and there's a clearly designed-in upgrade path to full 125mph operation. The bugs were largely ironed out and they seem to be increasingly reliable.

I'm not posting this as a long-winded or boring technical rant, but as a tax payer and a rail user, I would like to know a few things:

The questions I'd have about the enterprise are:

1) Why are there on-going problems with the doors and brakes and why didn't the manufacturer resolve them as the problems presented themselves? It's running for over 10 years now!!

2) How did they not realise that the locomotives were not really compatible with the trains? i.e. If they cannot provide them with electrical power without basically self destructing, they're simply not suitable for use on the service!

3) Why, oh why were they specified to run at a maximum of 90 miles per hour? It seems insane that a modern intercity train built to that level of specification is so speed limited.

4) Is there no upgrade path possible i.e. retrofitting the coaches to allow them to go faster and fixing the power problems?

It strikes me as a textbook example of pathetically bad project management and design and a gross waste of public money.

There were simple almost off-the-shelf solutions out there in 1995/96 when that train was built, yet they decided to roll out some utterly weird solution that to me anyway, makes absolutely no sense!

From an end users perspective it's a complete disaster of a service that's totally unreliable and unacceptably poor. The fact that it shares a bit of interior design with the Eurostar doesn't really make up for it!