Irish rail fleet and infrastructure plans

BTW can I just say bravo for these comments from the judge:

There is a very significant public interest in not unnecessarily delaying publicly-funded projects which reduce emission levels, he said.

Another public interest attaching to the project are the significant benefits of the new trains, particularly regarding access for people with disabilities,over and above those provided by the existing trains, he said.

There was also the issue of the reduction of emissions by the new trains which might be regarded as "badly needed", he said.

All very sensible and well thought out by the judge, looking at the bigger picture and the social good for the public. Makes me hopeful for the various Judicial Reviews underway if this sort of common sense thinking is being applied.

I'd assume it being tri-mode initially, ICE - Battery - 1.5 kV DC OHLE, with the ability to be converted to dual voltage OHLE at a later date is a fairly unique and complex requirement.

Because they are two very different projects at very different stages.

project Connect was basically announced because they got funding from the EU for it. To be clear at this stage it is simply an early stage study into how this might be done, works for involved, etc. just a study, we aren’t even talking about detailed plans yet here.

If Project Connect does eventually get go ahead, you are likely looking at a phased, multi decade project.

Dart+ SW is much further along, it now has a railway order and is almost ready to go. Realistically Dart+ West likely needs to go first. It is certainly disappointing that DART+ isn’t moving faster but project Connect has no impact on it.

I’ve seen the 177kph mentioned in reddit too, but see no confirmation in any article or spec.

As Jamie says, understandable if running on Diesel, but I’d really hope it can hit 200kph once fully converted to EMU.

Completely different type of trains, these FLIRTs a very much an intercity type train, the Alstom ones are a commuter/s-bahn type train.