Inchicore works 175 years open day

Thanks a mill.. Got them booked :-)

Brilliant day. My only gripes are that I wish it was run more often and the amount no shows. With the limit of 6 tickets it seems everybody claimed 6 and then didn't use all of them.

I was there in the company of two "proper" rail enthusiasts, who knew what an 071 is and were well able to have a good moan at the state of the 201s. Enjoyed the workshops but what struck me was the near total absence of actual staff, to explain the processes. One chatty guy was "doing" gearboxes, but there was no-one in the engine teardown area, as I'd have loved to pick their brains.It was well organised, as my pals were well impressed to see so much rolling stock from other parts of the country and NI, that they would not normally see, as well as a display of old and new buses, the most popular being a Leyland with the rear platform. The general public seemed to appreciate the railcars that had grub for sale and the icecream vans were doing a brisk trade. There were two stands of railway model displays in two locations, possibly from two different groups as well as a stand displaying old number plates and signal lamps and so on, as well as a stand of railway books and another about Railway Records. There was also a Wurth trade tool stand as well as a comprehensive display from the Apprentice school. No mention whatsoever about how the actual railsystem is worked and maintained, although a track and ballast machine was on hand and being explained by Rhomberg staff. It was clear that considerable effort had been put in by the company to give decent access to facilities that are normally unseen.

As an aside, one chap said that most of the land holdings were being reduced and a huge quantity of new housing was to be built. You could yet see a lot of the old buildings and the rolling stock scrapped or moved away.

Any sign of the Mrak iii 3 trees? 😭🤬

I commend IE for the initiative. Fraught with headaches have thousands of the public plus kids wandering around a massive industrial site like Inchicore in this age of litigation and compo culture. Others such as ESB, Bord Na Mona, Dublin Port even the Defense Forces should take a cue from IE in opening up such sites to the public. Nice little touches with the food carriage and brass band etc.

I went expecting the worse i.e. a once great industrial enterprise withering away but perhaps rail has turned the corner and better times ahead? I couldn't get over the massive scale of the place and got different figures from staff on actual staff numbers left. Staff are understandably cagey...I coulda been a dreaded journalist (lol). Obviously the halcyon days when thousands of technicians and specialised trades did everything are not coming back since only a handful of companies worldwide now build rail and rolling stock. I had an interesting chat with others about the new hybrid engines and whether IE should go full speed ahead to electrify the entire inter city network (which I favour) ...but that's one for the experts.

Only thing "main media man" related that I saw was when I spotted a lad with a TV camera over his shoulder at around 5 when I was finishing up my tour.