Enterprise replacement and Connolly station based trains generally.

SeanW

I've read bit about planned replacements for the Enterprise trains that run from Connolly up to Belfast in other threads. I decided to start this thread to follow developments on this specifically, but also how this connects more broadly with train services based out of Connolly more broadly.

I'd expect that whatever is decided upon for a new Enterprise set will be designed to take advantage of the 1500VDC overhead catenary, which will hopefully be extended to Drogheda with the DART upgrades. It would also go without saying that said trains will be designed to be comfortable for long distance passengers.

Which brings me to another thought: both of the above are issues for other services based out of Connolly Station, the Sligo/Longford and Rosslare line services. That is, I know that those godawful 29000 rattle boxes are commonly used on the Sligo line and though I don't know about Rosslare, I wouldn't be surprised. Additionally the Rosslare line as far as Greystones is and hopefully soon the Maynooth line will be under catenary wires themselves.

My question is therefore, would it make sense to get a common trainset for Belfast, Sligo and Rosslare line services, including in-between commuter destinations like Dundalk and Longford, on the basis that all these services could benefit from having proper long distance trains using the overhead wires when they are available? I think this might make more sense that just getting a small number of Enterprise trains, then a few years later thinking about what to do with the other Connolly based services and maybe having to get another small number of yet another different type of trainset. Is anyone at Irish Rail thinking about what to serve Sligo, Rosslare, Dundalk etc services with in say 5 or 10 years?

dowlingm

I thought (and said here) that Enterprise should have been converted to 22K years ago. They would have had better timekeeping than 201/DD and a higher top speed than 29K. They bought those few trainsets with NI train control and it took years for any to run up there, continuing to send 29Ks instead. But the joint ownership model of Translink and IE would likely have complicated that since some way would have been needed to swap 201/Mk3EGV/DD for 22000s and some kind of financial settlement, and assuming it didn’t trigger any procurement protests due to the value of the transaction - or require the deeply dysfunctional assembly to approve. Also, the NI fitted cabs weren’t from first class trainsets.

bk

First of all, yes the tender for the new Enterprise replacements specify the following:

• bimode/trimode operation, 1.5kv DC (DART lines) + Diesel engine/batteries initially.
• The option to later remove the Diesel engine/batteries and to switch to 1.5kv DC/25kv AC dual voltage operation once the line has been completely electrified.

I suspect whatever wins the contract for the Enterprise, would also end up a strong contender for an eventual Mark 4 replacement on the Cork route, as it faces the same timing challenges with electrification of the line.

Citizen Six

This diesel/battery combo is going to be a disaster.

afatbollix

They are doing very well in the UK at the moment. As the trains are lighter these days it's not an issue carrying around an engine. Its probably those trains that will win this tender.

AngryLips

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121923977#Comment_121923977

Isn't Irish Rail the first to tender for tri-mode sets?

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121925108#Comment_121925108

The class 756 a tri-mode train made by Stadler FLIRT will start entering service this year in the UK. They are based on the Class 755 which are bi-mode trains from FLIRT, so clearly they are quiet happy with them:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_756

CAF have also won a contract for intercity trimode trains:

https://www.electricandhybridrail.com/content/news/lner-to-roll-out-first-tri-mode-long-distance-trains-for-east-coast-main-line/

Italy already has Tri-mode trains for more then a year now:

https://www.railway-technology.com/news/hitachi-rail-blues-train-service/

A1ACo

On some positive notes at least that is three different companies (Stadler, CAF, & Hitachi) all offering tri-mode rail products, are already operating, or are about to start operating, and Europe based, that can be chosen from. There are also some Bi-mode systems that maybe not too far from possible upgrade to tri-mode operation e.g. Talgo (Talgo 250)/ Bombardier - RENFE 730, and Newag Impluls models. Some of the Enterprise discussions last year under below covered some of this:

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2057135436/enterprise-refurbishment-comes-closer

end of the road

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058341796/enterprise-replacement-and-connolly-station-based-trains-generally

29 heaps of scrap rattle and belch their way to rosslare quite regularly.

they are in quite a state these days as well, they need a heavy refurbishment but will have to hold out for whichever of maynooth or droghida dart+ comes on stream first.

andrewfaulk

controversial opinion but could the CAF mk5 sets(Nova 3) be a quick and cheap solution..

Due to COVID and the shambles that is rail policy in the U.K., they are barely used and available now.. Given CAFs background, I’m sure they could produce Irish gauge bogies relatively quickly to put under them.. Also, as the U.K. government is likely on the hook for substantial lease fees, the lease could be transferred to NIR to save wasting what is otherwise dead money while the coaches sit in Long Marston in storage..

The benefit of loco hauled of course being that your power source is easily changed by swapping out the loco up front, so they could be hauled by the 201s for now and the loco could be replaced with a 25KV/1500V DC dual voltage once the wires are up all the way from Dublin to Belfast..

A1ACo

Obtaining some of the UK's Mk5 sets (Nova 3) might not be a terrible idea, though they are a bit narrower than most Irish stock, and not sure how much converted(?), or new bogies would cost… and the idea (floated by the NTA?) of taking excess UK stock, was floated a few years ago for additional Enterprise services - the Class 222 Meridians (according to Wikipedia!).

Today's Railways-Europe magazine is reporting for example that Denmark's DSB is starting to delivery of Talgo 230 loco-hauled intercity stock, and it seems that Germany's DB made a large order for same loco-hauled carriages last year also. With Austria running modern, loco-hauled inter-city trains too, at least Irish Rail is not too much of an outlier still running the Enterprise loco-hauled inter-city (and Mk.4 to Dublin-Cork, etc.), but haven't previous noises been made for multiple-unit stock i.e. DMU/EMU for the future Enterprise?

L1011

The NTA told public reps they were looking at UK stock, I think the 222s were the only plausible option.

That faffery, along with the idea of refitting the 2700s and even converting the 8200s to a carriage rake, delayed the 29000 intermediate order significantly. I don't think they have the resources to handle this so maybe looking at the Nova3's is a really bad idea from that perspective!

Hibernicis

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2024/04/09/dublin-belfast-train-to-take-less-than-two-hours-and-run-hourly-after-multimillion-euro-investment/

Mention of this on this morning's IT

The scale of their vision and ambition is spectacular………..

Department for Transport Minister Eamon Ryan TD also welcomed the initiative. “This is another indication of the ambition we have to put the island of Ireland on track for a new age of rail, connecting more cities and towns and opening up quality rail service to more people.”

Northern Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris said the “fantastic investment” in the Enterprise fleet would lead to the transformation of cross-Border rail services.

European Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms Elisa Ferreira said….. “The investment will bring concrete benefits for the local communities. Citizens and businesses will have easier and quicker access to Dublin and Belfast and be more connected. This will help the local communities grow and create opportunities, while delivering on the net-zero carbon emissions goal,”

Difficult to believe that these fine words are about an improvement of between 10 and 20 mins (reducing the 185km journey from 2:05/2:15 to 1:55) that is going to take at least 5 years.

Truly woeful.

Losty Dublin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121996134#Comment_121996134

As I understand it, these savings in time are based on improvements using multiple units over loco hauled on the route. The 22000's kill rather a lot of time at stations when covering links on the route, especially on the quieter services. No reason why 10-15 minutes couldn't be saved as is.

goingnowhere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121972990#Comment_121972990

NTA has zero knowledge of railway ops, the last time they were going to lease trains from the UK. Got offered 142/143 Pacers. 2 years wasted and eventually they approved the 41 ICR fleet order

222's are already being snapped up in the UK, the conversion costs would be frightening and as its an old design would it meet requirements today with the CRR??

UK Mk5's are dreadful, poor quality and have been impacted by a structual cracking issue. Odds are Chiltern will take the bulk of the Mk5 based on a recent tender

Mk5's also us a UIC push pull system, no AAR and require ETH, so no good with a 201 class so you are into buying a new wonder locomotive as well so there is no time advantage either

Better focus on getting the DART+ fleet here and inservice to release ICR stock off commuter and get the contract in for Dublin Belfast

Geuze

Are there any suitable trains in the UK that we could buy to expand our stock in the short-term, while waiting on new stock to be built?

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122004738#Comment_122004738

No.

The UK has a huge rolling stock shortage; most of what may be available is 25kV AC and anyway; they would all need to be re-bogied. Re-bogeying carriages isn't terrible hard, doing it on trains with underfloor motors, engines, fuel tanks etc etc is much harder.

highdef

Plus the UK has a very restrictive loading gauge with the maximum allowed being 9' 3" with some rolling stock being less than 9' wide. It's not all that long since we got rid of the narrow UK specced loading gauge stock (Mk II and MK III carriages) and it would be good if we didn't have to use such narrow carriages again.

Whilst the Irish loading gauge is rather restrictive versus the track gauge, we can still accommodate wider carriages than those in the UK. The likes of the DART trains are 9' 6" wide but we can go wider with some carriages in the past being up to 10' wide and as much as 10' 2" wide (Laminates and Park Royals). Obviously, a longer carriage will mean width will be more restrictive but for the likes of the new DART carriages, which have carriages that are shorter than both laminates and Park Royals, I can see no reason why we can't make full use of the Irish loading gauge for that new stock.

Sorry for going slightly off topic!

Rain Spreading From The West

What train sets will IR & Translink use when the Enterprise service is due to go hourly at the end of this year/2025?

Citizen Six

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122060423#Comment_122060423

22000

Rain Spreading From The West

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122060883#Comment_122060883

Would we be looking at reallocation of existing 22000's for this service?

goingnowhere

IE will provide a mix of 3 and 6 coach TPWS fitted sets. Since the new 41 centre cars have started to enter service the priority has been to get the 5 coach sets back to 6 coach config. The bulk of the 41 will be in service before the hourly service kicks off

NIR has no choice but to use C3K stock as thats all it has

I'd guess we are looking at, the allocation rules historically have been that Belfast provides 2 sets and Dublin 1 so that will likely even up, but the onus is on IE for the 4th, NIR 5th, IE 6th if that makes sense

1 6 First TPWS ICR

1 3 TPWS ICR

1 C3K

Citizen Six

First train out of Dublin in the morning is 6 x ICR at the moment. Short term though.

And I've heard they are already training up a bunch of new drivers for the new services coming in October.