Mass Rail Closing in the Next Decade?

OurLadyofKnock

I was just thinking about this today - the Celtic Tiger years should of been the decade were the rail network was finally saved.

Instead it was mortally wounded. Rolling stock is now all wrong for a recession railway and no locos for a freight revival which might of saved it going forward. Ironically if no investment had of been made during the Celtic Tiger years - the network now would be in a much better position to meet the challenges of the future. Right now it is basically waiting to die.

I see nothing for the future except some commuter services. Other than that - no chance.

corktina

might of saved it going forward.

RIP English Langugage :mad:

OurLadyofKnock

corktina wrote: »

might of saved it going forward.

RIP English Langugage :mad:

Anyone else getting tired of this troll?

-Chris-

corktina wrote: »

might of saved it going forward.

RIP English Langugage :mad:

Don't be a grammar Nazi.

P.S. I hope your misspelling of "language" was deliberate and ironic, otherwise you look pretty stupid right now...

OurLadyofKnock wrote: »

Anyone else getting tired of this troll?

Don't call people trolls.

corktina

im not keen on people insulting my appearance:D

OK proper answer following

corktina

first we have lots of quite adequate class 22s and second we have lots and lots of suitable freight locos.

whereas the rest of your post may well prove correct, these two bits are not.

Cookie_Monster

OurLadyofKnock wrote: »

Instead it was mortally wounded. Rolling stock is now all wrong for a recession railway

why? plenty of DMUs and EMUs of varying size, capacity, carriage number etc. Reasonably standardised fleet.
new ballasting equipment, new sandite equipment, plenty of freight stock.

and no locos for a freight revival which might of saved it going forward.

no locos, 18x071s and 34x201s is not enough is it?

kingshankly

OurLadyofKnock wrote: »

I was just thinking about this today - the Celtic Tiger years should of been the decade were the rail network was finally saved.

Instead it was mortally wounded. Rolling stock is now all wrong for a recession railway and no locos for a freight revival which might of saved it going forward. Ironically if no investment had of been made during the Celtic Tiger years - the network now would be in a much better position to meet the challenges of the future. Right now it is basically waiting to die.

I see nothing for the future except some commuter services. Other than that - no chance.

there is so much wrong with this post

Drimnagh Road

This is my original post in a similar thread I started on IRN back in May 2010:

Would anybody really notice if Ireland's Railway's were Dug up in the morning?

A couple of enthusiasts, a few commuters around the Dublin belt perhaps, a few hens parties who would miss the convenience of been able to drink on the way down to Wexford.

But, this is actually a serious question. From a practical point of view, where do railways fit in in this country? Do they serve any purpose at all any more other than carrying people who don't drive and don't like sitting on coaches.

I read today that one of the final pieces of the M7 motorway jigsaw is now opened, the Abbeyleix bypass and it will cut journey times to Cork by up to 45 minutes at peak times. That means that Dublin-Cork (M7/, Dublin-Limerick (M9), Dublin-Galway (M4/6), Dublin-Belfast (M1), Dublin-Waterford (M9) will all be much quicker to travel by road than it is by train.

I have to say that if one good thing came out of the boom years in spite of the bankers, greediness, high prices, property chaos, corruption and subsequent downfall, it was the road network. Everybody admits that the road network is now superb, and I don't even drive!

All these motorways would have been developed during the boom years. Railways also got hundred of millions to invest around the same time aswell, and it is only now that it should be obvious that a lot of it was squandered. We do not have a better railway than we did ten years ago. Yes we've shiny units, colour light signalling and replacement CWR track over vast amounts of the network.

Yet journey times are tediously slower. It would be the same as a new motorway opening yet it would be quicker to travel on the old road via every little village you could think of. Something is just not right!

I've been surprised yet hardly surprised at the general lack of interest from local people about the Rosslare-Waterford line. While I agree with and expected eventually that this line would close, I thought that locals would have been at least able to rustle up enough support to cause enough racket to at least implement a delay.

I've always been pro-rail but with our poor country in such a dreadful state can we afford to spend any more money on something that contributes no benefit to us. The 16:00 Cork on Saturday had 68 people out of Dublin, I viewed a 2700 arrive in the Junction with 3 people on-board from Waterford, is this viable?

When railways come to a halt on other countries there does be mass chaos, over here it generally awakens people to better and faster modes of transport (i.e. Malahide Viaduct been tragic for Irish Rail passenger numbers).

I don't necessarilly think that Irelands Railways have any strategic part to play in our country's national infrastructure anymore. We have gotten so little out of ours and the EUs moneys from the investment programme that is it now time to give up now and redirect the money to healthcare etc, where everybody would feel the benefits?

With so many great roads around the country now would anybody really be that inconvenienced if the railways were shut in the morning?

Captain Chaos

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

plenty of freight stock.

no locos, 18x071s and 34x201s is not enough is it?

There is actually feck all modern freight stock. There is a lack of it if any more freight runs start up.

6 of 071s are due to be withdrawn in a few years, they are the 6 that didn't get the recent overhauls the other 12 got.

201-205 and 210-214 will very likely never run again and are being taken apart for spares for the rest of the 201 fleet. 204 has been in the scrap line with the remaining 141s for almost 2 years now.

So you have 12 071s for per-way, tara and other freight duties.

206-209,227,228,230,231,233 are the Enterprise rated locos that can operate cross boarder.

7+ 201s for daily Mk4 runs

Thats a minimum of 22 201s needed. Yeah only 3 Enterprise are in use each day and at least 2 are on thunderbird duties. So a few are spare and can do other freight duties.

Then factor in maintenance, overhauls and failures. There really are not many free locos left after the 071s are all gone. Which I'd give 5 years tops the way IE are looking after them lately.

Drimnagh Road

I think there's at least 2x 071s that are already been used to keep others going, 078 will probably never work again.

certainly, some "freight livery" 071s have been seen with orange doors from other 071s in the past few weeks.

CIE

Drimnagh Road wrote: »

This is my original post in a similar thread I started on IRN back in May 2010:

Would anybody really notice if Ireland's Railway's were Dug up in the morning?

A couple of enthusiasts, a few commuters around the Dublin belt perhaps, a few hens parties who would miss the convenience of been able to drink on the way down to Wexford.

But, this is actually a serious question. From a practical point of view, where do railways fit in in this country? Do they serve any purpose at all any more other than carrying people who don't drive and don't like sitting on coaches.

I read today that one of the final pieces of the M7 motorway jigsaw is now opened, the Abbeyleix bypass and it will cut journey times to Cork by up to 45 minutes at peak times. That means that Dublin-Cork (M7/, Dublin-Limerick (M9), Dublin-Galway (M4/6), Dublin-Belfast (M1), Dublin-Waterford (M9) will all be much quicker to travel by road than it is by train.

I have to say that if one good thing came out of the boom years in spite of the bankers, greediness, high prices, property chaos, corruption and subsequent downfall, it was the road network. Everybody admits that the road network is now superb, and I don't even drive!

All these motorways would have been developed during the boom years. Railways also got hundred of millions to invest around the same time aswell, and it is only now that it should be obvious that a lot of it was squandered. We do not have a better railway than we did ten years ago. Yes we've shiny units, colour light signalling and replacement CWR track over vast amounts of the network.

Yet journey times are tediously slower. It would be the same as a new motorway opening yet it would be quicker to travel on the old road via every little village you could think of. Something is just not right!

I've been surprised yet hardly surprised at the general lack of interest from local people about the Rosslare-Waterford line. While I agree with and expected eventually that this line would close, I thought that locals would have been at least able to rustle up enough support to cause enough racket to at least implement a delay.

I've always been pro-rail but with our poor country in such a dreadful state can we afford to spend any more money on something that contributes no benefit to us. The 16:00 Cork on Saturday had 68 people out of Dublin, I viewed a 2700 arrive in the Junction with 3 people on-board from Waterford, is this viable?

When railways come to a halt on other countries there does be mass chaos, over here it generally awakens people to better and faster modes of transport (i.e. Malahide Viaduct been tragic for Irish Rail passenger numbers).

I don't necessarilly think that Irelands Railways have any strategic part to play in our country's national infrastructure anymore. We have gotten so little out of ours and the EUs moneys from the investment programme that is it now time to give up now and redirect the money to healthcare etc, where everybody would feel the benefits?

With so many great roads around the country now would anybody really be that inconvenienced if the railways were shut in the morning?

No modern country gets anywhere without railways. You think Germany got where it is today by neglecting its railways, and that the autobahn is enough? Think again.

Never mind the tremendous mistake of further socialising healthcare.

That bit about the Malahide Viaduct is a canard. Any infrastructure that is neglected will fail. Ever saw what happened to the West Side Highway in New York City?

DWCommuter

Drimnagh Road wrote: »

This is my original post in a similar thread I started on IRN back in May 2010:

Would anybody really notice if Ireland's Railway's were Dug up in the morning?

A couple of enthusiasts, a few commuters around the Dublin belt perhaps, a few hens parties who would miss the convenience of been able to drink on the way down to Wexford.

But, this is actually a serious question. From a practical point of view, where do railways fit in in this country? Do they serve any purpose at all any more other than carrying people who don't drive and don't like sitting on coaches.

I read today that one of the final pieces of the M7 motorway jigsaw is now opened, the Abbeyleix bypass and it will cut journey times to Cork by up to 45 minutes at peak times. That means that Dublin-Cork (M7/, Dublin-Limerick (M9), Dublin-Galway (M4/6), Dublin-Belfast (M1), Dublin-Waterford (M9) will all be much quicker to travel by road than it is by train.

I have to say that if one good thing came out of the boom years in spite of the bankers, greediness, high prices, property chaos, corruption and subsequent downfall, it was the road network. Everybody admits that the road network is now superb, and I don't even drive!

All these motorways would have been developed during the boom years. Railways also got hundred of millions to invest around the same time aswell, and it is only now that it should be obvious that a lot of it was squandered. We do not have a better railway than we did ten years ago. Yes we've shiny units, colour light signalling and replacement CWR track over vast amounts of the network.

Yet journey times are tediously slower. It would be the same as a new motorway opening yet it would be quicker to travel on the old road via every little village you could think of. Something is just not right!

I've been surprised yet hardly surprised at the general lack of interest from local people about the Rosslare-Waterford line. While I agree with and expected eventually that this line would close, I thought that locals would have been at least able to rustle up enough support to cause enough racket to at least implement a delay.

I've always been pro-rail but with our poor country in such a dreadful state can we afford to spend any more money on something that contributes no benefit to us. The 16:00 Cork on Saturday had 68 people out of Dublin, I viewed a 2700 arrive in the Junction with 3 people on-board from Waterford, is this viable?

When railways come to a halt on other countries there does be mass chaos, over here it generally awakens people to better and faster modes of transport (i.e. Malahide Viaduct been tragic for Irish Rail passenger numbers).

I don't necessarilly think that Irelands Railways have any strategic part to play in our country's national infrastructure anymore. We have gotten so little out of ours and the EUs moneys from the investment programme that is it now time to give up now and redirect the money to healthcare etc, where everybody would feel the benefits?

With so many great roads around the country now would anybody really be that inconvenienced if the railways were shut in the morning?

I agree.

DWCommuter

CIE wrote: »

No modern country gets anywhere without railways. You think Germany got where it is today by neglecting its railways, and that the autobahn is enough? Think again.

Never mind the tremendous mistake of further socialising healthcare.

That bit about the Malahide Viaduct is a canard. Any infrastructure that is neglected will fail. Ever saw what happened to the West Side Highway in New York City?

Please spare all of us the absurdity of a comparison to Germany.

foggy_lad

Captain Chaos wrote: »

201-205 and 210-214 will very likely never run again and are being taken apart for spares for the rest of the 201 fleet. 204 has been in the scrap line with the remaining 141s for almost 2 years now.

Why are these ten locomotives being scrapped for spares? They can't be old enough to be scrapped surely?

CIE

DWCommuter wrote: »

Please spare all of us the absurdity of a comparison to Germany

The only absurdity would be a lack of same. Especially since Germany now controls Ireland, and the Irish public is allowing it to consolidate

There's no reason nor rhyme for allowing a mind-set in that envisions Ireland as a backwards country in terms of infrastructure and transport technology, especially in the 21st century.

robd

This thread is already giving me a headache.

Once I see quotes of the actual train numbers of particular engines and carriages or DMU's I reach for the Neurofen Plus. If only it was so easy to obtain these days !!!

The important thing over the next couple of decades is to reserve the pathways all railway lines at the very minimum.

Ireland is not Germany or the UK. It's a small island with 4.5 million people, liberally dispersed due to our idealistic ideas of retention of "rural Ireland". There's decent concentration of population in the main centre of Dublin, not to bad concentration in Belfast, a bit in Cork, and a little bit less in Limerick and Galway. That's about it really.

I seriously question why we need railway freight at all. Don't see the market crying out for it. The distances from ports to final delivery points or viza-versa are pretty short and we have a way under capacity motorway network to serve needs of transport companies.

In regard to intercity. Motorway network killed it. CIE/IR like many companies failed to see the disruptive technology that a motorway network is over a railway network. This happened despite having clear reference sites all over the world and across the water in the UK to look at. Someone should be fired. Multiple people should be fired. Wrong trains were purchased and zero investment was made when money was there in the little things of improving basic track speed and removing slow sections and bad turns. Instead grandiose ideas took over. Of course, not heads will roll and they're be a lost couple of decades and then who knows. Difficult to predict next few years let alone 20 years time.

And who (out of fare paying passengers) really cares? Enthusiasts, that's about it. I certainly don't anymore. Train journeys to me are unpleasant experience shared with all sorts of undesirables. Round Ireland, I prefer to drive. Round Europe and further a field I prefer to fly. And I'm in the majority on this one. A bus is well good enought of freebie pensioners and undesirables. So bye bye Irish Rail.

bk

Drimnagh Road wrote: »

This is my original post in a similar thread I started on IRN back in May 2010:

Would anybody really notice if Ireland's Railway's were Dug up in the morning?

+1,000,000

One of the best posts I've read here on boards in years.

corktina

I don't think theres a lot of doubt that if the free passes were confined to bus travel or eleiminated, our rail system would suddenly look very empty and questions of its viability would be raised.

I don't think you would get concessions such as ours in most European countries (could be wrong) which leads me to believe that the rail system is largely a perk for those on benefits, and an expensive one at that.

With Motorways generally well below capacity,can we afford two systems?

If passes were withdrawn for rail travel, I imagine just the odd express train at business hours and at weekend peaks would suffice, with the Class 22 units eminently suitable to cover semi-fast and stopping services (which most of them are anyway)

The other option (my preference) is to invest in really upgrading the rail system with new 125mph power cars on the premier Cork line and improved signalling and passing facilities. Of course , this should have been done whilst times were good, we wont have the cash for this for many a moon now

Captain Chaos

foggy_lad wrote: »

Why are these ten locomotives being scrapped for spares? They can't be old enough to be scrapped surely?

They have been in storage since all the Mk3s were withdrawn. These locos have either no push pull equipment, retractable buffers or HEP was never certified on them as they were the early batch and needed to be delivered as quick as possible. 210 did work HEP test trains with Mk3s in the late 90s though.

These 201s can only work freight or standard passenger trains like Mk3s. They cannot work with Enterprise DD or Mk4 sets.

IE cancelled spare parts contracts on the 201s in the past year or so, so the spares are now coming from the unused locos.

The 071 locos are going down the same route, the locos that fail first will be used for spares to keep the ones in better condition going.

corktina

GM spares fetch good money so using the unused locos as "christmas trees" makes sense up to a point, but the problem with that is that some parts are more liable to fail than others and when they are all used up, the rest of the parts are possibly never going to be used.

The 071s are pretty well life expired by this time, having been extremely hard working and useful units. The 201's are however reasonably new and I doubt it would be impossible to modify the bogies to standard guage (or buy secondhand units) and sell them on.

The ones still in use are mainly still in use due to IE buying the Mk4 coaches to suit them rather than admitting they are a White Elephant and replacing them with power cars suitable to haul the Mk4s or even the Mk3s, suitably refurbished.

Judgement Day

Cannibalizing perfectly good diesel locomotives is considered best practice by CIE/IE which has a long track record - sorry - of doing such things. It's easy to understand as everybody's business is nobody's business. :rolleyes:

AngryLips

Drimnagh Road wrote: »

Would anybody really notice if Ireland's Railway's were Dug up in the morning?

A couple of enthusiasts, a few commuters around the Dublin belt perhaps, a few hens parties who would miss the convenience of been able to drink on the way down to Wexford.

robd wrote: »

Ireland is not Germany or the UK. It's a small island with 4.5 million people, liberally dispersed due to our idealistic ideas of retention of "rural Ireland". There's decent concentration of population in the main centre of Dublin, not to bad concentration in Belfast, a bit in Cork, and a little bit less in Limerick and Galway. That's about it really.

That translates to 48 million passengers annually that might disagree with the first statement.

robd

AngryLips wrote: »

That translates to 48 million passengers annually that might disagree with the first statement.

Unique passengers is a far more important figure as is unique fare paying passenger numbers. Also remember we're talking about intercity not commuter or DART passengers.

OurLadyofKnock

Drimnagh Road wrote: »

This is my original post in a similar thread I started on IRN back in May 2010:

Would anybody really notice if Ireland's Railway's were Dug up in the morning?

A couple of enthusiasts, a few commuters around the Dublin belt perhaps, a few hens parties who would miss the convenience of been able to drink on the way down to Wexford.

But, this is actually a serious question. From a practical point of view, where do railways fit in in this country? Do they serve any purpose at all any more other than carrying people who don't drive and don't like sitting on coaches.

I read today that one of the final pieces of the M7 motorway jigsaw is now opened, the Abbeyleix bypass and it will cut journey times to Cork by up to 45 minutes at peak times. That means that Dublin-Cork (M7/, Dublin-Limerick (M9), Dublin-Galway (M4/6), Dublin-Belfast (M1), Dublin-Waterford (M9) will all be much quicker to travel by road than it is by train.

I have to say that if one good thing came out of the boom years in spite of the bankers, greediness, high prices, property chaos, corruption and subsequent downfall, it was the road network. Everybody admits that the road network is now superb, and I don't even drive!

All these motorways would have been developed during the boom years. Railways also got hundred of millions to invest around the same time aswell, and it is only now that it should be obvious that a lot of it was squandered. We do not have a better railway than we did ten years ago. Yes we've shiny units, colour light signalling and replacement CWR track over vast amounts of the network.

Yet journey times are tediously slower. It would be the same as a new motorway opening yet it would be quicker to travel on the old road via every little village you could think of. Something is just not right!

I've been surprised yet hardly surprised at the general lack of interest from local people about the Rosslare-Waterford line. While I agree with and expected eventually that this line would close, I thought that locals would have been at least able to rustle up enough support to cause enough racket to at least implement a delay.

I've always been pro-rail but with our poor country in such a dreadful state can we afford to spend any more money on something that contributes no benefit to us. The 16:00 Cork on Saturday had 68 people out of Dublin, I viewed a 2700 arrive in the Junction with 3 people on-board from Waterford, is this viable?

When railways come to a halt on other countries there does be mass chaos, over here it generally awakens people to better and faster modes of transport (i.e. Malahide Viaduct been tragic for Irish Rail passenger numbers).

I don't necessarilly think that Irelands Railways have any strategic part to play in our country's national infrastructure anymore. We have gotten so little out of ours and the EUs moneys from the investment programme that is it now time to give up now and redirect the money to healthcare etc, where everybody would feel the benefits?

With so many great roads around the country now would anybody really be that inconvenienced if the railways were shut in the morning?

This is a superb post and what I was trying to state the other day when I was drunk. But yes - there is nothing here that any rational person (other than a trainspotter) could really argue with.

It is only a matter of time. The choo-choo is dead in Ireland outside commuter services.

OurLadyofKnock

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

why? plenty of DMUs and EMUs of varying size, capacity, carriage number etc. Reasonably standardised fleet.
new ballasting equipment, new sandite equipment, plenty of freight stock.


no locos, 18x071s and 34x201s is not enough is it?

But all of this comes to naught when compared to the amazing road system we have.

Using fallback options like "peak oil" or "carbon footprint" is just the tainspotters panecea to deny reality of a rail system which has no further role to play in Ireland. We might as well be worried about Godzilla or an asteroid hitting us. Some of new diesel engine technology for trucks and buses is light years of anything Irish Rail has. More importantly, they do not need to pay Craig Doyle huge sums to make ads about it, or pay Barry Kenny to make up excuses as to why it does not work.

The Celtic Tiger years for the rail network will be looked upon in the same way as when they buy people on life support new clothes and have their photo taken before they die.

As soon as the Western Rail Corridor will be finally looked upon as the neurosis it is - then the entire house of cards will come crashing down. In fact it is already happening. I predict that one of the mainlines possibly Westport and Wexford will go in the next few years. By then the country will be in complete ruins (possiubly with massive social disruption as impoverished and unemployed private sector workers go to war against the public sector Civil Servants who will be then a pampered elite class.) and no one will care.

Run_to_da_hills

CIE could lease 003, 039, 124, 146, 152 and 190 from the ITG should there be a shortage of freight locos.

Revival of classic diesel locos for the increased demand in freight duty has already happened in the UK.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13592652

OurLadyofKnock

-Chris- wrote: »

Don't be a grammar Nazi.

P.S. I hope your misspelling of "language" was deliberate and ironic, otherwise you look pretty stupid right now...

Not as stupid looking as:

00112984,
ArmaniJeanss,
Ciaran_B,
highlydebased,
newmug,
number10a,
schemingbohemia

who gave him a thumbs up mind. LOL!

I love boards.

corktina

couldn't leave it could you? OK

Not as stupid, in that case , as someone who thinks "might of" and "could of" is correct....thats way worse than someone who hits an extra key as he's a useless typist.(reasonably good speller though)

Oh and btw , mr Moderator, I object to be called a nazi, even Gentiles can object to that I think. As it happens, I was poking fun at his use of that awful cliché "going forward"...'twas yourself picked up on his grammar I think.

CIE

robd wrote: »

Ireland is not Germany or the UK. It's a small island with 4.5 million people, liberally dispersed due to our idealistic ideas of retention of "rural Ireland"

...and yet, there's such a "need" to build motorways through your stereotypical "rural Ireland"? That's an average of 30 to 50 acres per mile that can't be used for farming anymore.

You keep thinking small, you'll remain small. The only reason that Ireland is not like Germany or the UK is due to that small thinking. The only reason. Hold onto that subservient thinking, and all you'll be is someone else's breadbasket.

bk

CIE wrote: »

...and yet, there's such a "need" to build motorways through your stereotypical "rural Ireland"? That's an average of 30 to 50 acres per mile that can't be used for farming anymore.

You might have been able to make this argument 10 years ago.* But it is pointless now. The motorway has been built and is mostly complete. It was built to a very high standard and is mostly underutilised.

We are now broke and intercity rail is not competitive.

So the correct question to ask now is, with money very tight and the motorway network already in place, should we continue to heavily subsidise intercity rail?

And if yes, then why?

* To be honest even 10 years ago the answer would still have been yes, invest in motorways. Name a single country in the world that has a high quality rail network but no motorways?

The reality is you will always need a high quality motorway network, to go all the places that rail doesn't, to take private cars and road freight so vital to a countries economy.

For intercity transport, rail will always be secondary. Usually when their are large distances between large cities and rail offers journeys that are faster then by car but cheaper then flying.