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Class 170s/185s to Irish Rail?
- Thread starter F Great Eastern
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Rumours that your avatar appears on the dartboard in the Forum Staff mess room are greatly exaggerated and certainly cannot be proved!
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dk1
Veteran Member
Love it!!
You beat me to it. If there are enough of them I'd send the 185s to either Southern or SWR, allowing 171s and / or 159s to be used in the north, Scotland or Wales, where the ability to couple with sprinter classes would be useful.
(171s would need new couplers, but that's presumably trivial as they've been changed before)
I doubt anyone would send a train to Ireland without "a customer" on the off-chance! (There is only one customer in Ireland of course)
F Great Eastern
Established Member
In October and November Irish Rail stated publicly that these things would not be a barrier and work to convert them could and would be carried out.
Which is cheaper and would be available sooner: new trains or new bogies?
Aictos
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Indeed there's only so much you can do with the existing infrastructure and you're quite right that all routes in and out of Birmingham need to be longer which is key to improving services NOT more trains.
I am quite aware that Train Planners try to compromise demand with supply ie they know which services should be 6 car operated in the case of the Cross City line but they also know which services can get away with being 3 car operated.
However saying that there is only so many trains that they have to play with so they have to ensure they make the best use of their resources, the fact remains that if Ireland is able to offer a better deal for the Class 185s for example then it's a no brainer for any ROSCO to agree to the deal then have a temporary deal of 12 to 18 months for a UK TOC to use them then uncertainly of what to do next with them.
I know that if I was in the shoes of any ROSCO faced with that, I wouldn't think twice about a deal involving Ireland as I would sign ASAP!
However Ireland could still go with new built ie CAF or Stadler for example who I'm sure would be only too happy to build trains for Ireland.
Yeah TBH i thought the same given it's multiple units involved rather then coaches which have been regauged and sent over to ireland before ( The mk3 international set and in the late 80s early 90s, irish rail did a swap of some of their scrapped c-class (original 201 class) locos with a uk scrap dealer for some mk2s in return) but irish rail don't seem to think it's a major job so perhapse it's not as complicated as one would think.
F Great Eastern
Established Member
The plan is to have new build trains to come on stream 2024, but capacity is realistically needed in early 2020 and by 2024 there's likely to be extra capacity needed still over anything that they potentially get from the UK as well as the potential of having to replace almost 80 EMU cars which will be approx 40 years old, despite the fact they have been very well refurbished in 2006.
There there is the plan to convert some of the commuter lines to DART which will also need new stock, so it's quite likely that any DMUs going over to Ireland will be needed post 2024.
Ireland is going to be going with new build stock along with this potential lease, some EMUS and bi-modes. However new build will of course take a few years to come on stream, and we are cronically short of stock as it is (we actually have been for a long time if i'm honest)
LOL The Irony
On Moderation
So when is CAF's South Wales plant supposed to open and will it be full of orders?
To be accurate, we have the wrong mix of stock rather than an out and out shortage - witness two year old Class 707s looking for a new home, 319s being converted to hybrid configuration, etc.
F Great Eastern
Established Member
He's talking about from an Irish Rail perspective.
Hiya, apologies for my comment not being clear. I was actually refering to ireland having a cronic shortage of stock in my comment.
Agreed about the 707s though. It is a complete waste them not having a home, but i'm sure one will be found for them. The conversion of 319s to diesel while not as good as more new build, is in itself actually not a bad idea on the face of it. If it actually works it would kill a couple of birds with 1 stone really, give them and possibly other similar aged or slightly older electric multiple units no longer needed for electric services a potential new lease of life until they are actually life expired, allows pure DMUS to be cascaded elsewhere and possibly removes the diesel shortage, and kills off the railbuses (which should have been gone years ago tbh)
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dubscottie
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I live in Dublin myself and know several IR staff that mentioned this to me about 2 months ago.
Any UK units would be based in Drogheda and kept on east coast/Sligo duties.
It would make driver training, maintenance and diagramming simpler.
Some of the staff are not happy (as usual).
One other rumour doing the rounds is that almost all of the Sligo services could go back to 29000 units as early as late Jan to free up a few 22000. The situation on the peak trains to/from Heuston is that bad apparently.
Ah. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
dubscottie
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New bogies, fitting IR signalling eqt. Thats it. Remember the leasing company had no issue with costs when the 9 car 222s were supposed to be heading our way.
I doubt they would change coupler heights. They would not be able to couple to other IR units but could still be rescued by a loco if needed.
thanks for the information.
If true, 29s being put back on sligo services again is very bad news especially for the users of connolly suburban services as they are hugely over-crowded as well and those 29s off those services means quite a loss of capacity.
No problem.
dubscottie
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Apparently thats why the new Sligo line timetable is the way it is. My flatmate travels home to his parents in Sligo and hates the new timetable. He has said he will start driving up if it does go over to 29000!
randyrippley
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Give the Irish the 442 fleet, fit them with the bogies from their scrapped MkIII squadron, convert to push-pull and use whatever GE diesels they've got left
dubscottie
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A few problems there..
All the bogies are gone, Ireland has no GE locos, they are GM. And the only locos that have HEP (class 201) are banned from the two routes that the imported stock is to be used on.
Penmorfa
Member
There will be a lot of Mark 4's and DVT's going spare soon, IE could probably get them at scrap price
craigybagel
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And the HEP on those locos was abandoned due to the wear and tear that using it caused!
But yes, apart from all of that.....
Yeah tbh he likely won't be the only one deciding to take an alternative form of transport should 29s come back to being regular on the line again. that will be the least of IE'S worries though as the connolly suburban passengers are already annoyed enough with the fall out of the issues caused by the 10 minute dart.
Tbh i'd be surprised if the timetable was specifically changed back just to facilitate reintroducing 29 running as actually 29s running the previous time table would in itself be quite an increase in capacity even where replaceing a double ICR and it would mean less 29s been taken from the suburbans to run it compared to the existing time table. the reason some services were cut in the first place was due to the recession so i'd be surprised if a return to a 2 hourly service wasn't on the cards at some stage but i may be wrong.
dubscottie
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I am not sure about the whole timetable but was told that was the alleged reason for putting the old 18.00 to Sligo back to 19:00 (as you know it goes a few mins later but people always call it "the 6 o'clock" ).
It added a extra service to Longford and would allow a 29000 to do a early peak out and back to Maynooth and then form the 19:15 to Sligo.
How much truth is in that, I don't know but its the first time I have ever seen the Sligo train not leaving around 18:00.
I know it was musical chairs sometimes as people would board before the seat reservation came up. And you always get people that refuse to move.
It added a extra service to Longford and would allow a 29000 to do a early peak out and back to Maynooth and then form the 19:15 to Sligo.
How much truth is in that, I don't know but its the first time I have ever seen the Sligo train not leaving around 18:00.
I know it was musical chairs sometimes as people would board before the seat reservation came up. And you always get people that refuse to move.
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ah i see. certainly longford on it's own merrits justifies an extra and later service so i'd well believe that a timetable change took place to facilitate that.
Northern are losing 30% of their fleet capacity, as their budget Pacer DMUs get scrapped. And that capacity is being replaced by decent, speedy, regional units in the 195.
The next step will be replacing the 150's ... but if they can't use things like the 170 and 185 to cascade down, what are they actually going to replace them with? They're starting to look top-heavy in the balance between regional and local.
Is something like Porterbrook's Flex experiment intended to make the 170 more usable on stopping services?
Or will the DfT's target of bi-mode force the next franchisee to take on another large batch of new units, with no real option for cascading down that low?
Let's stick to the topic. We have plenty of threads to hash out the various other rolling stock conundrums that plague the network. The future of Northern's fleet is definitely not the topic of this thread!
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