2700s to be withdrawn?

There's a mention on IRN of a rumour going around that IE are to "store" (ahem, withdraw) the 2700s. The 2600s and 2800s share common parts so will be kept running, but the 2700s will be stopped to give the new ICRs something to do.

Doesn't surprise me, considering the wastage in IE, but I'd be curious to know if it's actually true or not.

JeffK88

If thats true what a waste of money .. didn't IE recently refurbish a few of them in the new IC livery
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2722_irishrail.jpg

Jonathan

Karsini wrote: »

There's a mention on IRN of a rumour going around that IE are to "store" (ahem, withdraw) the 2700s.

But they looked swanky since they got rid of the gangways and gave them a new lick of paint.

Drimnagh Road

It would be very much in line with IE's current way of carrying out business - spend €000s taking the gangway door off and putting a new front on them, repainting them too, and then withdrawing them.

Pretty much like upgrading the Rosslare-Waterford route and closing it, and in more recent times upgrading the Waterford-Limerick Junction route, more than likely to be closed in 2012.

On an aside, it was criminal of the previous transport minister to allow a second batch of 22000s to be constructed when there was no use for them.

An informed source from within told me recently that the honeymoon period on the 22000s is now well and truly over, and are now starting to be s***e.

Now, as we were the first customer for these types of trains, naturally you would expect teething trouble etc and lessons learnt. Worringly however, the second batch are also the "mk1 version" and do not feature any of the upgrades or modifications developed by Rotem based on our experience, i.e. they are also s***e.

Niles

Seems rather wasteful, I mean at least the mkIIIs got two decades use. I wouldn't object to the purchase of the extra ICRs per se. It was better than having 29000s work links on the Sligo (though it would by annoying if Commuter stock continued on the Rosslare line workings, while the Limerick Junction shuttle gets ICRs).

That said is there any use that could be found for the 2700s at the moment?

Cookie_Monster

Niles wrote: »

That said is there any use that could be found for the 2700s at the moment?

lease them out to that "save the rail" crowd down in Wexford?

Rud

Drimnagh Road wrote: »

An informed source from within told me recently that the honeymoon period on the 22000s is now well and truly over, and are now starting to be s***e.

QUOTE]

Where i work is not too far from the Dublin to Waterford in Athy and usually the only sound you can hear from the line is the 071s or 201s on the freight and PW trains but over the last year or so the 22ks are getting noticably louder.I know they are well opened up at this stage and in use every day or whatever but they are starting to sound bad already and as i said it's easily noticed

JeffK88

Maybe a new organisation should be set up who looks after the railways and infrastructure .. ie Railway lines, bridges all that sort of stuff and just leave IE with running the trains . At the rate of withdrawals and closure of railways and canceling of projects we wont have a railway network by 2050 !!! IE/ CIE has destroyed railways in Ireland and is continuing to destroy our railways .... :mad: ..the shower of clowns ..anyway rant over i do apologise :P

dermo88

I'd be for a restructuring and see if economies of scale could be worked out using a privatised system.

This would mean that the existing rolling stock would fall under the remit of a ROSCO (Rolling Stock leasing Company), and that would be responsible for maintainance and upkeep. This was the best part of British privatisation and enabled a complete renewal of their rolling stock in less than 15 years.

Infrastructure would remain under CIE or an overall National Transport Authority.

Finally, a seperate operator, one which I choose to call Traein Eireann previously when I posted on Irishrailwaynews in 2005 regarding such a proposal.

With a shrinking market and economy, imaginative marketing will be required as much as anything else. Commercial obligations coupled with contractual responsibilities. Devolving funding of services under contract to local authorities in Limerick, Wexford, Tipperary, Mayo etc, in a similar fashion to the old baronial guarantees might actually do more for the rail network.

If people feel that decisions are being made for them in their area, rather than some remote official in Heuston, the communities on a railway line might well feel more obliged to be responsible for using their local station.

In relation to the 2700's, like all Alsthom products, they looked nice on the outside, but were awful mechanically......a shame really. I always thought they were quite comfortable and stylish, a bit like a shiny new Irish Class 158.

JeffK88

That might just work... a much better way than the current setup. so each of the cities and sligo have there own regional control .. Heuston could solely look after the suburban and DART rail services and all intercity and regional commuter rail be run by the regional control centers.. They could at least try to sell or lease the lines before closure ..as a certain supermarket says ...'Every little helps'

foggy_lad

Rud wrote: »

Drimnagh Road wrote: »

An informed source from within told me recently that the honeymoon period on the 22000s is now well and truly over, and are now starting to be s***e.

QUOTE]

Where i work is not too far from the Dublin to Waterford in Athy and usually the only sound you can hear from the line is the 071s or 201s on the freight and PW trains but over the last year or so the 22ks are getting noticably louder.I know they are well opened up at this stage and in use every day or whatever but they are starting to sound bad already and as i said it's easily noticed

I live beside the tracks about a km from Carlow station and some of them are very quiet but others thunder along like that very noisy old banger of a locomotive that used to haul timber trains along the line in the early hours of the morning. Wait another year or two until Irish rail maintenance gets it's claws into the new trains and we will see how good they really are inside and out!

Losty Dublin

foggy_lad wrote: »

I live beside the tracks about a km from Carlow station and some of them are very quiet but others thunder along like that very noisy old banger of a locomotive that used to haul timber trains along the line in the early hours of the morning. Wait another year or two until Irish rail maintenance gets it's claws into the new trains and we will see how good they really are inside and out!

Except Irish Rail actually don't service the engines on the 22000's. They are disconnected, lifted out and shipped out to specialist Mercedes shops as most of the powerheads are within warranty and/or long term servicing contracts. As an aside, I'd love to know about this informed source DR speaks of as their fleet manager a a rule has a higher availability of 22000's per day than he ever did of loco hauled stock

Baron de Robeck

Is there no end to the wastage within Irish Rail? They now propose to withdrawn an entire class of DMU that is only just approaching its 13th birthday. While the 2700's did have reliability problems they have settled down well in recent years with very few reported breakdowns. Only last year a refurbishment programme was started for them. Once they start getting dumped in sidings and vandalised then there will be no way back. 2751 & 2753 in particular were never used to their full potential.

To put it in perspective if NIR had taken the same attitude with the 80 class they would have withdrawn the newest ones 20 years ago instead of 3 months ago!!

Captain Chaos

Baron de Robeck wrote: »

Is there no end to the wastage within Irish Rail? They now propose to withdrawn an entire class of DMU that is only just approaching its 13th birthday. While the 2700's did have reliability problems they have settled down well in recent years with very few reported breakdowns

It was the Rosslare line that the 27s could not cope with. The 28s put them to shame. The 27s only settled down once they were deployed on Cork and Limerick local services in 2 and 4 car formations. In 6 car formations on the Rosslare line, forget about them.

ardmacha

This stock should be given to a private operators with a brief to make a go of the Galway-Limerick-Waterford line. Worth a try.

Drimnagh Road

Losty Dublin wrote: »

As an aside, I'd love to know about this informed source DR speaks of as their fleet manager a a rule has a higher availability of 22000's per day than he ever did of loco hauled stock

Obviously they would say that.

45 ICR units + 7 mk4 sets = 52 trains, as opposed to 15x mk3 sets, 7x mk4 sets, 7x mk2 sets (been very generous here) = 29 loco hauled sets.

So you may have more physical trains to avail from, but I suspect there is way too many trains available than is needed to maintain the timetable - this includes allowances for maintenance / exams / standby etc - which results in lower overall usage of stock.

So, if there are a couple of 22000s been taken apart in Portlaoise (behind the wooden fence because they don't like you seeing in) at any one time - these in addition to the ones which are undergoing scheduled maintenance, which there always seems to be when I go past - then they probably have an ample supply of spare units to cover the timetable.

Captain Chaos

Sure the last 2 22k sets delivered spent a few weeks at the docks on lowloaders because there was no room to store them on rails prior to testing.

If they have so many units spare they should look into increasing capacity, like adding a few 3 car sets to make more 6 car trains on busy services. The problem with the 22s is that alot of times 3 cars are not enough and 6 is too much.

Niles

According to a poster on IRN some of the new ICRs will be deployed on the Rosslare/Gorey services currently worked by Commuter units... Well that's some good at least even if it's been a long time coming. It would have been ridiculous if Limerick shuttles and Dundalk trains were to be worked by ICRs while some to Wexford were 29000s. Ideally they should sort out the Door locking to allow 6 car ICRs down the route at some point.

Judgement Day

What happened to IE's tender for retro fitting SDO to the 22000s? I haven't been on the Rosslare train for months but have to face into a trip on it next week - I can hardly wait.