Quote:
Originally Posted by Rushed2nowhere
Is there any possibility of borrowing any carriages from other rail networks just to tide us over?
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The very first media appearance for P11 was on the Marian Finucane show in April 2003. Joe Meagher, the MD of IE was also on. I specifically put to him that IE could lease rolling stock. He said we can't because of our track guage. I said that you can because UK leasing companies reguage the coaches. He conceeded. A few months later in the DAIL, then Transport Minister, Seamus Brennan, confirmed in answers to dail questions that he had instructed IE to examine the leasing option. Nothing after that. Considering the long procurement time for rolling stock, leasing is a great backup. Its not as if CIE never did it before, because in the 80s/90s they "borrowed" stock from NIR to operate on the Greystones shuttle and then on the Maynooth line. I reckon, they don't want to go down the leasing road because, partly, it will reveal they don't know how to operate a train at a profit anywhere on the network.
This company in the UK lease, reguage or sell.
http://www.porterbrook.com/
Excuses of rolling stock shortages fed to us by IE over the years are baloney. A private company that depended on providing a good service to their customers would have leased. IE chose to sit on a mantra...."decades of under investment", because they don't have the hunger of a private company and have always fell back on state investment. Thats the way they are and the way it is and the way it will always be, until every last muppet in IE HQ is made perform like his/her colleagues in the private sector.
Thank you and goodnight. Derek has left the building.