Irish Rail investment

Rud

Simple question,what has been the best and worst money Irish Rail/CIE have spent so far?

Has investing over the years in ever reliable workhorses like the 071/141 fleet been money well spent?

Has investing in building new stations that never even opened,upgrading/rebuilding stations/lines that remain seriously underused or purchasing the 201 Class only to let half the fleet rot away in Inchicore,been a stroke of madness?

Cookie_Monster

you cannot possibly argue that money spent on 141's was not well spent given the sheer length of service provided.

the B101's maybe could be a question, a botched gov intervention prevented them from being what they could be and a guarantee to buy regardless less a less than perfect loco that had to be bought and used regardless of gov interference.

CIE

The GL8s and JL8s could most likely have been brought back to life with another rebuild. They seem to be able to give the old "Geeps" from the 60s and 70s in the USA infinite rebuilds; loads of them still on the rails. (There are even American Locomotive Company RS3s still on the rails in the USA, and those were built in the mid-50s when rock & roll was born.)

It's not that when IE rebuilds a line and reopens stations that they are "underused"; in a lot of cases, they are under-served. That's what happens when transport is so centralised; the government doesn't want to spend on what they perceive as "duplication", even between modes, so they end up favouring one mode over another, which is literally a conflict of interest. Decentralise; allow people to make an actual living from the rails; it can be done.

The 101s should have been rebuilt with GM "prime movers"; I don't think I will change my view on that. The new 201s were a blunder; a heavy freight puller completely unsuited for passenger operations no matter how you try to modify them. Don't get me started on the Mark 3 travesty again...

Judgement Day

All the money spent in recent years on track renewals on the soon to be "greenways" from Waterford/Limerick Junction and Limerick/Ballybrophy.

The premature withdrawal of the MkIII carriages is another massive waste of money.

The ordering of the 22000s without SDO.

The designing of the 22000s so they lack capacity for parcel traffic.

The A class would have been a bad buy if it weren't for the GM refit but this proved what they could do, 40 years service is not to be sniffed at. I don't know enough about the C class to comment but I only know of them running the pre-DART suburban services.

The problem with the B101s as far as I know was that they were a small, non-standard fleet in comparison to the rest of the classes. The Sulzer prime movers were sound but the locos suffered from many a finicky electrical problem. So I don't think that refitting them with GM engines would have saved them. Not to mention the asbestos in the cabs.

As much as I like the modern day 201s, I do feel they're not suited to the railway they were purchased for. I would consider them a bad buy considering that at least 10 are rotting away in Inchicore and one is being used as a very expensive "taxi" between Heuston and Inchicore - this duty should be carried out by a 141 or even a track inspection car - not a 3,200hp locomotive. Maybe this is more to do with company management than the locomotives themselves.

L1011

The unwillingness to return faulty kit to its manufacturers - the retired DARTs, the early days of the 2700 Arrows being as sold as Flake bar, etc; and the buying of patently unsuitable equipment (201s too heavy to use on much of the network, De Deitrich's needing HEP from a HEP-unsuited engine, CAF Mk4s that are designed for better track than we have) stand out for me as complete investment cock ups.

Maverick88

Judgement Day wrote: »

The premature withdrawal of the MkIII carriages is another massive waste of money.

There's a big write up on the MK3's being made available for sale in this months Modern Railways magazine by Derek E Byrne (Procurement Engineer with Irish Rail). Article quotes 84 vehicles being made available.

SeanW

Good things they bought:

1. The BREL carriages, Mark 2d and Mark 3.
2. Most of the DART fleet.
3. The GM locomotives (except the 201s for Enterprise)
4. The 22000 railcars
5. The 2800 railcars

Bad things they wasted money on:

1. Those Alstom DARTs
2. A mismatch between the DeDietrich coaches and the 201 locomotives - they look nice together but they sure don't work well together.
3. The Western Snail Corridor (& floodplain).
4. Not getting CAF to build trains with our track profile in mind (29000s and Cork Intercity carriages)
5. Selling the land at Spencer Dock for apartments instead of using it to create an integrated Docklands Luas+Rail station.
6. Building the Docklands train station so that it could only be accessed by trains coming from the Midland railway line.

Well, that's my take on it anyway.