New FSO service Waterford - Dublin

[Jamie2k9]

Originally Posted by berneyarms

As I understand it they have to visit the depot in Drogheda or Portlaoise every 48 hours for basic servicing (excluding fuelling and toilet discharge which can happen at terminal stations).

Totally agree about the locations of maintenance facilities. While on the Heuston side it is covered (in the main) by the hourly Heuston/Portlaoise services, the facility was located in Portlaoise for purely political reasons.

Moving ICR maintenance from Connolly to Drogheda was utter madness as it means trains are unavailable for roughly 1.5 hours more than necessary due to having to travel to/from Drogheda. Cost savings from sharing resources (one depot) to me have to be offset by the unnecessary additional downtime that causes, and the reduction in rostering flexibility.

The 48 hour is the fuel/toilets and its once weekly for general service AFAIK. They carry out different sort of checks eg a D check takes place once a month and is only carried out in Portlaoise. The depot couldn't handle up to 63 units passing through every 48 hrs. They carry out some work in Heuston to.

Locating in Portlaoise while not good it does deliver advantages to.

[berneyarms]

Originally Posted by Jamie2k9

The 48 hour is the fuel/toilets and its once weekly for general service AFAIK. They carry out different sort of checks eg a D check takes place once a month and is only carried out in Portlaoise. The depot couldn't handle up to 63 units passing through every 48 hrs. They carry out some work in Heuston to.

Locating in Portlaoise while not good it does deliver advantages to.

No sorry you're wrong on that - they do have to visit the depot, be it Portlaoise or Drogheda every 48 hours (excluding days they're not used). That much I did get confirmed before.

You certainly couldn't last 48 hours without refuelling/discharging toilets. That's done daily.

[Jamie2k9]

Originally Posted by berneyarms

No sorry you're wrong on that - they do have to visit the depot, be it Portlaoise or Drogheda every 48 hours (excluding days they're not used). That much I did get confirmed before.

You certainly couldn't last 48 hours without refuelling/discharging toilets. That's done daily.

That would mean 20 units being serviced per day. It is just not possible. The Tralee branch only gets swapped once weekly.

If a new fleet of trains need tlc every 48h then questions need to be asked when average millage would be 700-1000 miles.

The fuel tanks are quiet large, its somewhere between 500 to 1000 miles worth of fuel they can take and the toilets are not always emptied daily.

[berneyarms]

Originally Posted by Jamie2k9

That would mean 20 units being serviced per day. It is just not possible. The Tralee branch only gets swapped once weekly.

If a new fleet of trains need tlc every 48h then questions need to be asked when average millage would be 700-1000 miles.

The fuel tanks are quiet large, its somewhere between 500 to 1000 miles worth of fuel they can take and the toilets are not always emptied daily.

Not unusually for Cork, the sets based there for the Kerry route are different, and they get serviced in Cork depot during the week I understand.

[Mark Gleeson]

There is no need to get back to base every 48 hours (that said the 29k's reliability is down to getting home regularly)

There is a basic inspection requirement at 48 hours that can be done locally.

[ACustomer]

The location of the Traincare Depot in Portlaoise may in part be due to local political pressure. But it was spurred on partly by the need to free up some land in Inchicore for Dart Underground access. However in my opinion the real killer was the plan to make vast profits for Irish Rail and/or developers by using the Inchicore site for housing and office development. Also land near the railway in the Dublin area was horrifically expensive, so Portlaoise seemed a comparatively good choice at the time.

The true ongoing costs of running trains to the Portlaoise depot must be far more than the cost just of running the hourly service to Portlaoise station.

So we are left with yet another expensive legacy of the Celtic Tiger years and the truly demented property market in the years prior to 2008.

[Thomas J Stamp]

well, another reason for portlaoise was that it is central to the entire heuston inter-city network and so can send out replacement trains to various places more efficiently than out of the core. it was also supposedly handy for the clockface every 2 hour/1 hour service every route was to have with the 22k fleet.

as for toilets/fuel, toilets are emptied all the time in heuston between arrivals and departures. maybe fuel is done there too for all i know.

[ACustomer]

Thomas J Stamp: The place that's most central to the Heuston/Intercity network is Heuston itself, or Heuston/Inchicore. Most trainsets either end their day there, or visit on a turn-around, which facilitates swapping with a newly-serviced set. Portlaoise is much less efficient as a location. If, say you want to get a 22k to Limerick after servicing, you have to either run it empty directly from Portlaoise or run it (quite probably empty) into Heuston to form a Limerick service, and then there is the reverse move with the set it has replaced.

Another bad Celtic Tiger legacy.

[James Howard]

Well there is a dirty great tank with "20,000 litre Diesel Tank" written on it at the end of platform 1 in Connolly so I guess there must be the equivalent in Heuston. It would be too stupid even for Irish Rail to be sending a train on a 60 mile round trip to get enough fuel for 1000 miles.

The situation out of Connolly must be even worse as by my reckoning there must be 4 sets overnighting in Sligo, as the 1505, 1600, 1705 & 1905 all arrive after (or just as) the last up-train leaves.

There were a lot of stupid decisions made by Irish Rail (and others) during the Celtic Tiger but there is very little can be done about them.

[dowlingm]

I don't have the same animus towards Portlaoise/Drogheda - storing trains, particularly commuter ones, in the outer edges of a network makes logistical sense. The land was probably a damn sight cheaper and as noted freed up some in Inchicore. If there is insufficient maintenance cover at Heuston/Connolly then that is a point that could be made irrespective of the decision to create the outer depots.

That said, the sight of 29000s dragging DARTs to and from Drogheda does make one wonder whether a bit too much was sent out of town Connolly side.

[berneyarms]

Originally Posted by dowlingm

I don't have the same animus towards Portlaoise/Drogheda - storing trains, particularly commuter ones, in the outer edges of a network makes logistical sense. The land was probably a damn sight cheaper and as noted freed up some in Inchicore. If there is insufficient maintenance cover at Heuston/Connolly then that is a point that could be made irrespective of the decision to create the outer depots.

That said, the sight of 29000s dragging DARTs to and from Drogheda does make one wonder whether a bit too much was sent out of town Connolly side.

I too have no problem with Portlaoise to be honest - it facilitates the hourly stopping service and at this stage the number of empty movements to/from Heuston is fairly insignificant.

Nor do I have a problem with Drogheda - it makes perfect sense for the 29k fleet to be maintained there.

It was the closure of Connolly valeting plant for servicing ICRs I have the problem with as it makes rostering sets far more difficult and is part of the reason for the sight of ICRs on local services and 29k on Intercity trips.

[berneyarms]

Originally Posted by James Howard

Well there is a dirty great tank with "20,000 litre Diesel Tank" written on it at the end of platform 1 in Connolly so I guess there must be the equivalent in Heuston. It would be too stupid even for Irish Rail to be sending a train on a 60 mile round trip to get enough fuel for 1000 miles.

The situation out of Connolly must be even worse as by my reckoning there must be 4 sets overnighting in Sligo, as the 1505, 1600, 1705 & 1905 all arrive after (or just as) the last up-train leaves.

There were a lot of stupid decisions made by Irish Rail (and others) during the Celtic Tiger but there is very little can be done about them.

Yes, the set that does the 15:05 stays in Sligo until 11:00 the next morning, while the others do the 05:45, 07:00 and 09:00 the next day.

[Jamie2k9]

It was the closure of Connolly valeting plant for servicing ICRs I have the problem with as it makes rostering sets far more difficult and is part of the reason for the sight of ICRs on local services and 29k on Intercity trips.

I completely agree, I see no real reasoning why it was done and IE spent a lots of money upgrading the facility in Drogheda to handle the 22. Now I can't see any savings being achieved.

If you ask me it was an excuse to allow 22's operate the Commuter routes. ( I know some sets were got for this).

Well there is a dirty great tank with "20,000 litre Diesel Tank" written on it at the end of platform 1 in Connolly so I guess there must be the equivalent in Heuston. It would be too stupid even for Irish Rail to be sending a train on a 60 mile round trip to get enough fuel for 1000 miles.

The situation out of Connolly must be even worse as by my reckoning there must be 4 sets overnighting in Sligo, as the 1505, 1600, 1705 & 1905 all arrive after (or just as) the last up-train leaves.

There were a lot of stupid decisions made by Irish Rail (and others) during the Celtic Tiger but there is very little can be done about them.

They have full fueling facilities on platforms 2-8 in Heuston as well as Limerick, Cork and Galway.

The number of units in Sligo overnight compares to most terminus stations.

[dowlingm]

Getting back to the original topic, I think in a situation where a set *was* being sent up to Portlaoise depot, wouldn't it still be worth offering a connecting service to Kildare, where the train would be reversing back down towards Portlaoise anyway? Shouldn't let perfect be the enemy of good.

All that said, if posters here don't have possession of a current IE working timetable, why assume that there are reasons a train is not running in service as a way to shut down discussion? As I said upthread, IE are well capable of their own naysaying without others helping them.

[Mark Gleeson]

Any out of service train within reason should operate in service.

Thankfully there has been a serious reduction in the number of out of service trains in recent years

[Jamie2k9]

Dowlingn

IE need a push to get things done.

One very good reason for the stock transfer not being in service is the journey time often took 3 hours to complete.

Todays service was held for 35 minutes waiting for train crossings and that was caused by delay of a couple of minutes.