Good news for Sligo 29000 haters.

[John J]

Word has it, the Mark II's are to temporarily return to daily duties on the Sligo line. This is to free up commuter railcars to operate the Docklands services.

From tomorrow 12/3/07, The Mark II set is expected to operate the 08.50 ex Sligo and 17.05 ex Dublin. It will then be replaced by the Mitsui's as soon as they enter service.

Hope this is true... see yaz on the 17.05 tomorrow if so!!

[Mark Gleeson]

All I can say is the Sligo Mk2 was in Connolly at lunchtime which suggests it went to Sligo this evening

They are desperately short of trains, this is just the start of the musical chairs game there is a deficit of at least 40 suburban railcars against promised improvements

Sean will be happy

Question is how the passengers will react and indeed the 15:55 on a Friday? Someone will lose capcity elsewhere to make it happen.

You could have done even better a citygold set could have been sent over and if the current enterprise mess, which the Sligo train covers for regularly continues you never know

[Derek Wheeler]

Where are all the much needed new trains coming from? Apart from DARTs (out to tender) and additional IC Railcars on order, thats it.

Do Brendan and Maggie from Claregalway have to take a spanking new IC Railcar,a clapped out commuter railcar, a leaking MK2 or will the cravens make a comeback?

I was just wondering out loud.

[Dave]

If they are so desperately short of trains why are they planning to scrap the Mk3s? Surely they are good for a few more years. The push pulls are as flexible as DMUs are they not so could be used on suburban services.

[sean]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

All I can say is the Sligo Mk2 was in Connolly at lunchtime which suggests it went to Sligo this evening

They are desperately short of trains, this is just the start of the musical chairs game there is a deficit of at least 40 suburban railcars against promised improvements

Sean will be happy

Question is how the passengers will react and indeed the 15:55 on a Friday? Someone will lose capcity elsewhere to make it happen.

You could have done even better a citygold set could have been sent over and if the current enterprise mess, which the Sligo train covers for regularly continues you never know

Happy? Delighted is more like it.

My thoughts on this news go something like this:


I suppose Irish Rail 'management' has finally figured out how utterly retarded it was to take functional, appropriate, comfortable rolling stock off Intercity duty and replace them with inappropriate low-grade commuter tincans while actual short-haul commuter lines are falling over themselves due to overcrowding and lack of capacity.

I only wish they'd got this fit of inspiration years ago before this inane nonsense ever started.

My only concern now is that it is my understanding that the set in question has been based out of Heuston for the last year, and we all know what time in Heuston does to Mk2ds. I only hope their condition hasn't slid too far in that time.

I've complained a lot about the Sligo line these days but it used to be pretty good especially up to and including 2005, with reasonably well scheduled timetable, comfortable trains and a decent speed, for example the old 18:10 ex-Connolly used to go non-stop to Mullingar and it made in in 1hr 1min.

As for this most recent news, even though it's only one set, I'm still happy to see the back of some of those rolling tincans, and from what I've been reading, there'll be plenty of people happy to get them in Clonsilla etc.

I only hope that this is the start of an upward trend for the Sligo Line.

If they are so desperately short of trains why are they planning to scrap the Mk3s? Surely they are good for a few more years. The push pulls are as flexible as DMUs are they not so could be used on suburban services.

Well, IE is getting more Intercity railcars to cover commuter services to Athlone, Carlow and Portlaoise which is great, but as for why IE now wants to scrap the P/P Mk3s when I know we in Longford/Westmeath/Kilcock/Enfield could put some of them to much better use, well, that's a matter for another thread.

[Mark Gleeson]

Originally Posted by sean

I suppose Irish Rail 'management' has finally figured out how utterly retarded it was to take functional, appropriate, comfortable rolling stock off Intercity duty and replace them with inappropriate low-grade commuter tincans while actual short-haul commuter lines are falling over themselves due to overcrowding and lack of capacity.

Sean its go nothing to do with that, its a case of we need 2 29000 railcars and the only way to get that is to replace a pair of 29000's from somewhere, and I just don't think a rush hour Drogheda service will do

Bad news is the Mk2d set will degrade rapidly it will no longer get the TLC it got in Connolly where it made a guest appearance on a weekend. Its not structurally sound and spending 6 nights a week in the open in Sligo won't do it any favours

[hhf8]

what has happened to the mk3 that the cde has replaced?

[Mark Gleeson]

Of the 5 sets

3 went to Limerick displacing Mk2d for Fridays only thus removing the cravens
1 went to Cork on standby for CDE failure
1 held in Dublin on standby for CDE failure

Thus if things where as you would expect Connolly would have Cork's Mk3 set for enterprise and Sligo cover, Sligo was to get 2 Mk3 sets until the local politicians complained and as we all know that was a very stupid move

[John J]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

Question is how the passengers will react and indeed the 15:55 on a Friday? Someone will lose capcity elsewhere to make it happen.

Well one comment I heard going through the automatic barriers was "great, it's the big train"
Mind you, I'm sure there's a few masochists out there missing the 29K's.

As for the Friday only service, maybe they'll pinch some 29K's from the Rosslare?

My only concern now is that it is my understanding that the set in question has been based out of Heuston for the last year, and we all know what time in Heuston does to Mk2ds. I only hope their condition hasn't slid too far in that time.

It's had better days, I'll admit - some exposed light fittings, etc.
However anything is an improvement over what we've been putting up with - after a full year on 29K's you really appreciate the leg room, table space and comfortable seats.
We made good time too - 58 minutes to Mullingar...
Unfortunately the dining car seems to have been done away with - a trolley operated instead (and for once it didn't have to negotiate the gap at Mullingar to get from one end of the train to the other).

Anyway, my advice to the Mk2 fan club members on the board is - enjoy it while it lasts!

[Mark Gleeson]

There is at least 6 months of it to go

They need to find 8 coaches to run the 15:55, even if they pulled 2 coaches off all Rosslare trains it still wouldn't be enough, at least 2 outbound services in the 3-5pm bracket will be short

17:15 to Longford looks like a target busy to Coolmine but quiet enough afterwards, combine in a Docklands train just ahead it it might work but it won't be comfortable

[Colm Moore]

I experienced the 29000 suspencion this evening in Docklands, even before we had cleared the platform it was wobbling.

[Rushed2nowhere]

Is there any possibility of borrowing any carriages from other rail networks just to tide us over?

maybe they'll pinch some 29K's from the Rosslare?

As far as I know only the 27K's and 28k's do the Rosslare line.

[Derek Wheeler]

Originally Posted by Rushed2nowhere

Is there any possibility of borrowing any carriages from other rail networks just to tide us over?

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.

[hhf8]

Originally Posted by Derek Wheeler

http://www.porterbrook.com/

I just saw they have HST's..... I doubt that would come, They seem to have every type there

[Colm Donoghue]

Originally Posted by Rushed2nowhere

Is there any possibility of borrowing any carriages from other rail networks just to tide us over?



As far as I know only the 27K's and 28k's do the Rosslare line.

I've got 29k's to Arklow several times

[ThomasJ]

Originally Posted by Rushed2nowhere

Is there any possibility of borrowing any carriages from other rail networks just to tide us over?



As far as I know only the 27K's and 28k's do the Rosslare line.

They no longer use the 2700s on the Rosslare line. I think they are down in cork.

As the summer comes in you will find IE using 4 car 2900 on either Gorey or Rosslare services. They did that last year. Not that it is right to do that!!

Actually on Friday the 17.25 connolly-gorey was a 4-car 29000. The evening Bray-Longford service was a 6-car 2800!!!

[Maynooth_Line]

So what trains are operated by the Mk II's on the Sligo line at the moment?

[ThomasJ]

the 5.05pm train this evening was MKII operated.