Should Irish Rail be fitting these to the push pull 201s?

dowlingm

http://www.emdiesels.com/emdweb/international/india_radial.jsp

Certainly seems like the kind of thing that would help reduce track stress from a massive loco hammering it at 160km/h.

AngryLips

An IE loco going at 160? :pac::pac::pac:

I think you're loco, mate

corktina

loco he may be, but knowledgable he certainly is.

myself, i think they would be better to chanel any investment into new motive power (ie pairs of lightweight power cars) and sell the 201s off (in pieces if necessary) whilst they still have a (quite considerable) value, After all they would need only a dozen or so new power cars to operate Dub to Cork

Chris_5339762

Loco he is not, believe it or not Cork - Dublin trains do reach about 150-155kmh on parts of the line.

But the line is so indirect as to be ridiculous and there are so many speed restrictions that its still way slower than driving it.

Cookie_Monster

IE don't give a **** about the 201s and have stored half them after only a few years. they're hardly going to spend huge money on a major retrofit for them at this stage, not when they're too busy throwing money at plastic-fantastic railcars.

dowlingm

@cookie you'll note I said the pushpulls. The nonPPs are the ones in storage.

My thought is basically that IE are laying all this nice new UIC60 rail but it would be better if they dealt with the cause and not just rely on inevitable TSRs and PSRs down the road at trouble spots.

{Incidentally I have no objection if there was enough money for powercars}

kc56

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

Loco he is not, believe it or not Cork - Dublin trains do reach about 150-155kmh on parts of the line.

Not only Dublin-Cork trains. All trains, including 22Ks, can reach 160km/h (100mph) on the 4-track fast lines.

Losty Dublin

These special bogie wheel that steer into curves are intended for lines that have a lot of tight curves to try and move speeds a little higher through same. It's fairly new with this layout and technology so it would be a risk to retro fit older units, not to mention the cost of same. Most of our mainlines would not benefit greatly from such a technology as curves are fairly gradual as a rule with many of the worse pinch points being eased over the last few years but it's worth looking at to see if it performs well in the long term.

dowlingm

Good points Losty, I wouldn't have even considered it were it not an EMD part.

Vic_08

Those bogies will not significantly (if at all) cut down on on the track wear heavy locos cause to trackwork which is all down to the impact weight and in particular unsprung weight. They appear to be designed to deal with the specific issue of 3-axle bogies on tight curves which is not a big problem on fast lines with gentle curves.

Victor

How about putting them on the DART for Pearse-Connolly.