Iran on track with 'help' of Irish Rail

godtabh

Emaield to me earlier

IT'S a ringing endorsement of Iarnrod Eireann from the most unlikely quarter.

Controversial Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is campaigning to be re-elected on the plank that his country is advancing as rapidly as a train, only the train in question is Irish, almost as old as he is and until 2007 was delivering freight around the country.

An Irish tourist visiting Iran couldn't believe his eyes when he spotted the locomotive fronting an election poster in the centre of Tehran, and forwarded the photo to a friend working for Iarnrod Eireann.

The General Motors 181 was scrapped two years ago, although two of its number are still working. That said, it did have a 43-year career, entering service in 1966.

Yesterday, Iarnrod Eireann said while it didn't support any candidate in the presidential elections, it would have preferred to see one of its new trains on display.

"We fully expected Irish public transport, and our plans to develop the rail service, to feature in our own election campaign last week, but to feature in Iran was a bit of a surprise," spokesman Barry Kenny said.

The Farsi script on the poster says: "The country is advancing as rapidly as a train."

The Iranian Embassy said it could not comment on where the image of the locomotive came from, and the office of the president could not be contacted last night. The embassy reminded Iranians living here to vote on Friday in the presidential election between 9am and 7pm in the Iranian Embassy at 72 Mount Merrion Avenue, Blackrock, Co Dublin.

IIMII

And here's the original picture..!




I can tell 'em where it came from!

Winters

Does Iran not have any trains of its own?

godtabh

Winters wrote: »

Does Iran not have any trains of its own?

Read the question wrong!

As in why dont they use a photo of their own RS?

murphaph

How strange. Reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Homer sees his face on a japanese detergent box.

IIMII

I'm more interested in why Roy Keane is standing for election in Iran..

Winters

kearnsr wrote: »

Read the question wrong!

As in why dont they use a photo of their own RS?

Yeah, I mean their own trains cant be any older looking that the one pictured I would have thought.

IIMII

I just can't stop laughing at this. The picture was from the old Navan railway campaign

I love the translation that the country is advancing as fast as a train - it was doing less than 40mph because of the speed restrictions on the line. Something to aspire to in Iran, I hope not!

KC61

IIMII wrote: »

And here's the original picture..!




I can tell 'em where it came from!

And can you tell us where it came from?

EDITED - AH! Meath on Track!!!

IIMII

The very one!

Sponge Bob

Meath on Track LIVES but only in Tehran . Dempsey killed them off in Meath though

IIMII

There's still a record of the promises though!

Stroke Politics

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Meath on Track LIVES but only in Tehran . Dempsey killed them off in Meath though

Is it true that Dempsey bought the domain name for the original Meath On Track website?

IIMII

No! The domain is still active, but Meath on Track is I suppose, either dormant or redundant depending on whether you believe the political promises. If you belive them, it's redunant. If you don't, well we won't know the actuality for a long time. All of the political promises are in the public domain, they have given a never, never date. All you can do is archive all the promises and wait for that date. Given the date of 2015 was given in 2005, we are nearly half way there already. Jeez, time flies

SeanW

definately one of those WTF moments :rolleyes:

Sponge Bob

Any chance they can get Dempsey to be their next minister of Transport what with his legendary organisational skillz and charm and bonhomie .

greener&leaner

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Any chance they can get Dempsey to be their next minister of Transport what with his legendary organisational skillz and charm and bonhomie .

Is Iran advancing as rapidly as an Irish Rail train?

There are interesting parallels.

Yoda

When I was in Iran and took the overnight train from Tehran to Yazd, the train cars were Portuguese. I don't know about the engine.

IIMII

greener&leaner wrote: »

Is Iran advancing as rapidly as an Irish Rail train?

There are interesting parallels.

And that was before the relay! It was 30 - to 40 mph on the line

Metrobest

I've always wanted to visit Iran!
The association with the Irish Rail 'axis of diesel' has put me right off though

IIMII

I just rang the Iranian embassy looking for a copy, and they just left me on hold..

Metrobest

IIMII wrote: »

I just rang the Iranian embassy looking for a copy, and they just left me on hold..

Are you sure they weren't on strike?

donvito99

WTF didn;t they use this ( Iranian )

weehamster

WTF didn;t they use this

I agree, it looks much better.

However I have a theory. It may be a shot in the dark but I think they picked the IÉ loco as it closely resembles his political party (Abadgaran) colours. :rolleyes: What do ye think?

Davy

Maybe Iranians prefer diesels rather than electrified trains

Chris_533976

kearnsr wrote: »

The Farsi script on the poster says: "The country is advancing as rapidly as a train."

There is so much irony in this (both against Iran and Irish Rail) that I dont even know where to begin

IIMII

Rawr

IIMII wrote: »

..but Irish Rail don't......anymore

IIMII

Ha!

Before the 2007 election big posters with a diesel loco appeared around Navan with 'Dempsey Delivers' on it, by way of explanation..

IIMII

Well, it looks like the poster worked, three cheers for Iarnród Éireann:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0612/breaking2.htm

Run_to_da_hills

donvito99 wrote: »

WTF didn;t they use this ( Iranian )

Useless, The General Motors 180 series were a real powerful loco's not like those pansy looking Iranian EMU sets that couldn't pull their way through a wet paper bag.

Scrapping the 180 series was a grave mistake by IR, they may yet need them again for push pulls when the 22'000;s wear out.

dermo88

Yet again, we encounter a minor strange fringe on the outer limits of knowledge and experience of rail transport. The 181's were/are built in 1966, so they were definitely at the end of their shelf life, and as for power, they'd hardly pull the head off a pint whenever I was behind one on the Rosslares. Probably late was the best thing I could say whenever I was behind one in the early 1990's.

How can people who wants the rail network to thrive wish for the 22000 Class DMU's to fail, and need to be pushed around by a locomotive is beyond me.

Over the past few years, DW Commuter, myself, Schuhart, amongst others, have had to counter strange notions of rail transport with logic. I was cheap, and did engage in an underhand insult of the poster. But without the "wisdom" of such posters, the world would be a duller place.

I have to thank Tom Bibby at railusers.ie for managing to archive old posts from 2005, which I will willingly reference in the future to discredit nonsense such as wishing the 181's could push around modern and perfectly servicable rolling stock.

Captain Chaos

Not really, IE are now starting to see the value of the 141/181s, they were all ment to be gone this year but they have decided to keep the few 141s that are left as they are proving to be very reliable lately. There have been a good few 071 failures over the last few months and 141s have been used to to rescue them and drag them back to the depot.

They are also used to haul the 22k sets from the docks to Portlaoise depot and when they are were out on testing and they are used every week on DART transfares to and from Fairview.

dermo88

Theres logical sense in retaining a small number of the Baby GM's for lighter uses. Their fuel consumption is definitely less than that of the 071's and 201's, which go through 2 gallons of fuel per mile on average, whereas the Baby GM goes through less than half that amount. This is because the engine is not turbocharged.

If the 071's are failing more frequently its because they are not being maintained to the same regime or standards as before. They were also the most intensively worked engine in Ireland for almost 20 years on top link duties, which have now fallen to the 201 class, and even then both classes of Large GM are being relegated to lesser duties.

The 181's were not as reliable as the 141's for a variety of reasons, the key one being the standard of construction was not as good as the 121's and 141's

The Iranian DMU's look like a real high speed train. The 141/181 is just a glorified shunter. It always was. But it did the job well enough when it did.

crushproof

Sorry for bringing up an old thread but it reminded me of a Coca Cola poster advertisment I saw in Croatia, my friend and I had a glance and couldn't believe it was a Bus Éireann bus in the background! So perhaps even global corporations are using Irish public transport to promote themselves!

Run_to_da_hills

IRISH RAIL wrote: »

Whats all this about me keeping iran on track???
feck them into hell i say with there vote rigging president!

We can blame IR for railroading him into power. :P