8200 DARTs

JimmysRabbits

Are the 8200 alstom darts still mothballed at inchicore ? It seems so long since they were actually in service - I can remember their much anticipated return to service in 2008/09 as an 8 piece. From there they returned to a 6 piece and eventually totally withdrawn. Is it really almost 4 years since they last saw revenue service ?

It's an awful shame - they must have such low mileage for units that are only 12 or 13 years old.

Presumably no buyer was forthcoming - I wonder is the cutters torch now an inevitability ?

Captain Chaos

Yep still at Inchicore. IE put them up for sale along with the 2700s but no buyer was found.

Only a matter of time before they are cut up along with the 2700s and Mk3s.

Markcheese

What was or is so wrong with them ??
And how long after buying them did they start to go wrong ...

Captain Chaos

Don't know what was wrong with them but the lads in Fairview and Inchicore could not sort it out. They even had some guys from Alstom over here looking at them. Think they only worked ok for about 5-6 years before all the trouble started with them. From 1999-2002 they only ran within their own class and from 2003 they were mixed in with 8500s and 8510s to form 6 car sets before all the platforms were extended to take 8 car trains.

In the summer of 2007 only 2 of the sets were operational, 3 and 5. There were part of an interesting DART formation for about a month that never happened again. Sets 3 and 5 formed up with 4 car set 8513/14 to make and 8 car set. They ran like this for a few weeks then formed up with 8515/16 for a few more. That was the only time the 8200s worked with 8500s to make an 8 car formation. The 8200s never worked with the 8100s in service, don't think they were fully compatible but they shunted each other around Fairview depot when needed as their couplings were compatible.

In 2008 they managed to get 4 sets back in operation forming an all 8200 8 car formation. It ran like that for 2 days before a set was removed with problems and it remained in service as a 6 car formation until they were all out of service a few months later. After that the odd sets had brief returns to service and test runs but reliability at that stage was dire.

Markcheese

Can't imagine that if I bought a fleet of cars or vans that was purchased to have a life of 20 to 30 years that I'd be content with ford or Toyota sending a few lads out to look at them for a bit ....
I'd expect them replaced or overhauled or something ...

dowlingm

Markcheese wrote: »

Can't imagine that if I bought a fleet of cars or vans that was purchased to have a life of 20 to 30 years that I'd be content with ford or Toyota sending a few lads out to look at them for a bit ....
I'd expect them replaced or overhauled or something ...

And if the vans had a 5 year/100,000 km warranty Ford would give you an estimate to fix them at your cost.

Markcheese

dowlingm wrote: »

And if the vans had a 5 year/100,000 km warranty Ford would give you an estimate to fix them at your cost.

How long after buying them did the darts start to implode, and would it not have been possible to reliably refurb them ...

Cookie_Monster

They should have just gutted the running gear and operated them as trailers, at least that way they'd still be in use rather than sitting there with no one interested in them.

Marcusm

This is fairly shocking; there are 35 year old EMUs in daily service on UK rail routes. Were these accepted into service without noticing inherent defects?

GBOA

Marcusm wrote: »

This is fairly shocking; there are 35 year old EMUs in daily service on UK rail routes.

Perhaps more relevant, is the fact that there are Mk3s which are now approaching 40 years in service and still show no signs of withdrawal anytime soon! Stark contrast to the IÉ Mk3s which are between 24 and 29 years old and heading for scrap.

I never understood why IÉ seemed to squander so much money on things they didn't need or things they did need but which didn't work. Perhaps it was a symptom of the 'good times' or maybe, as I'd be more inclined to think, typical inept public sector management.

Captain Chaos

Some Mk3s in the UK are going in for refurb now to last another 15-20 years of service and they are running around at 110-125mph daily. Our Mk4s will be gone by then, there is talk of mothballing the Mk4 fleet already after just 7 years and going all ICRs.

Cookie_Monster

GBOA wrote: »

I never understood why IÉ seemed to squander so much money on things they didn't need or things they did need but which didn't work. Perhaps it was a symptom of the 'good times' or maybe, as I'd be more inclined to think, typical inept public sector management.

because there are no consequences, they've never been pulled up for waste so will continue to not worry about it; the gov don't care, the management don't care so the ground level staff don't care either. It's reflected in stock (mis)use, the run down look of all the stations, the indifferent attitudes so often reported here and so on and so on and so on.

corktina

it was stated recently that trains couldn't be lengthed because there is an embargo of how much stock can be in service at any one time.
There clearly is a massive over-provision of rolling stock; Dart, Railcar, Mk4...across the board (not to mention the mk3 fiasco).

How can this happen without heads rolling?

GBOA

Heads generally don't roll in the public sector, they quietly move to another department. It's all very incestuous.

Marcusm

Captain Chaos wrote: »

Some Mk3s in the UK are going in for refurb now to last another 15-20 years of service and they are running around at 110-125mph daily. Our Mk4s will be gone by then, there is talk of mothballing the Mk4 fleet already after just 7 years and going all ICRs.

Have you been looking at Eversholt's mock up with special recliners etc!

Captain Chaos

Marcusm wrote: »

Have you been looking at Eversholt's mock up with special recliners etc!

No, just read a little about them. Are they going to replace the slam doors, seems odd this day and age with top end stock still with slam doors.

GBOA

Some UK Mk3s have been converted. See below.

http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=60127&highlight=plug+doors

Surprised it's taken so long. The Irish Mk3s were streets ahead in that respect.

end of the road

Captain Chaos wrote: »

there is talk of mothballing the Mk4 fleet already after just 7 years and going all ICRs.

i would ask are you joking but knowing irish rails history with wastage i can't say i'm shocked if this is true

corktina

are there enough 22s to do this?

Captain Chaos

corktina wrote: »

are there enough 22s to do this?

Plenty. There are 22k sets surplus to requirements daily. When the earlier sets needed overhaul they just left them in the depot until they needed to be actually overhauled and used the newer sets instead. It was a case of "no rush like" on those overhauls lads.

TheBandicoot

Captain Chaos wrote: »

It was a case of "no rush like" on those overhauls lads.

No. It's more like "there's no money" to perform the overhauls. Whatever about capital investment, IE doesn't have the current resources to operate all of its trains, and as a result they scrapped the 2700s to save on maintenance costs and that's probably why they are looking at the Mk4's to extract economies of scale in 22k maintenance. It's also why there are problems with overcrowding and set diagrams, IE can't afford to run more than a bare minimum of 22ks. In other countries they subsidise their public transport enough to actually operate effectively, but here car is king and parish pumps politics stops anything getting done. What's needed is a proper nationalisation of CIE and its child companies and proper subvention and investment on an ongoing basis, with a government commitment to operating a well funded, efficient transport service that acts as the sole PSO operator and let the privates fight over the more lucrative routes, but can be replaced with state-run services when/if they fail.

Grandeeod

TheBandicoot wrote: »

No. It's more like "there's no money" to perform the overhauls. Whatever about capital investment, IE doesn't have the current resources to operate all of its trains, and as a result they scrapped the 2700s to save on maintenance costs and that's probably why they are looking at the Mk4's to extract economies of scale in 22k maintenance. It's also why there are problems with overcrowding and set diagrams, IE can't afford to run more than a bare minimum of 22ks. In other countries they subsidise their public transport enough to actually operate effectively, but here car is king and parish pumps politics stops anything getting done. What's needed is a proper nationalisation of CIE and its child companies and proper subvention and investment on an ongoing basis, with a government commitment to operating a well funded, efficient transport service that acts as the sole PSO operator and let the privates fight over the more lucrative routes, but can be replaced with state-run services when/if they fail.

Despite what supporters may say, let CIE clean up its act and then we can demean and demand from Government. Yes Government and the minister as a stakeholder is massive problem, but the railway issue in Ireland is an onward going problem. Both sides are at fault and I fear both sides play games that ultimately affect the railway in a horribly negative fashion. This game of chess has been going on since the 1950s. I'm no fan of CIE, but I do appreciate the negative impact of successive Governments.

end of the road

Grandeeod wrote: »

Despite what supporters may say, let CIE clean up its act and then we can demean and demand from Government.

i should think supporters of CIE (i take it thats the supporters your referring to) would agree their are problems with CIE and that they do need to clean up their act.

Grandeeod wrote: »

Yes Government and the minister as a stakeholder is massive problem, but the railway issue in Ireland is an onward going problem. Both sides are at fault and I fear both sides play games that ultimately affect the railway in a horribly negative fashion. This game of chess has been going on since the 1950s. I'm no fan of CIE, but I do appreciate the negative impact of successive Governments.

brilliantly put

davidlacey

If the mark 4 goes i will never use the cork service again! Its like putting a railcar on the enterprise service, while people say the ride quality on the the 22k is far superior, on the main routes of a specific country you expect a higher quality of rolling stock and just pitting a run of the mill 22k on the main route in ireland will lose business rather than gain it, mark4s in my opinion are much more comfortable than 22ks end of! As for the CIE situation as long as they are seen to making cost cutting measures no one will pull them up on it even if it is putting relatively new stock in storage. They will just label that stock as overspending during the celtic tiger and stock that was always going to be surplus to requirements. Sure we are talking about a company that cant afford the day to day things, for example the lift at athenry has been out of service for the last 6 months and the pedisteran bridge in bray that was demolished a few years back due to health and safety concerns at the LC has never been replaced due to lack of money...

corktina

mk4s more comfortable than 22s? I don't think so....I think they are dire, really poor quality stock. I quite like the 22s, big improvement if they took over the Cork sercvices

davidlacey

corktina wrote: »

mk4s more comfortable than 22s? I don't think so....I think they are dire, really poor quality stock. I quite like the 22s, big improvement if they took over the Cork sercvices

I mean the comfort of being in a loco hauled carriage ;-)

corktina

is it the LOCO bit that sways you in their favour? I'm afraid the days of the loco in passenger service are numbered...shame, but there you are, we need to have the most efficient railway possible

davidlacey

A bland but, efficient railway cannot wait for the second part to catch on!

dowlingm

I don't know who "supporters of CIE" would classify as. Mostly CIE employees and pensioners who would fear for an attempt to mess with what they contracted for after a privatisation or other breakup.

Certainly I don't think most rational transportation advocates would call for a conglomerate whose most visible manner of multimodal activity is in property ownership while their constituent local bus, regional/national bus and rail operations co-operate in only the slightest fashions. CIE is an accident of history.

Cookie_Monster

corktina wrote: »

is it the LOCO bit that sways you in their favour? I'm afraid the days of the loco in passenger service are numbered...shame, but there you are, we need to have the most efficient railway possible

tell that to the Swiss. Probably the best system in the world and heavily reliant of loco based haulage.

IE123

They should keep the 8200s for a few more years, and refurbish them. Then, they will not have to buy as many new trains once Dart Underground opens.