Cross-border review of rail network officially launched

Agreed. The cryptic phrase "The additional resourcing will allow for increased capacity for Iarnród Éireann and Translink NI with their respective fleet networks" doesn't sound like "New train-sets being bought"; much more a case of stretch what you already have a bit further. Anyway 2 x €12.5m wouldn't get you a lot in terms of carriages etc.

To be honest, reading the press release both Taoiseach and Tánaiste wax lyrical on the €600m going on the A5 and on the Carlingford Narrow Water Bridge. The bit about ramping up the Enterprise to an hourly service has the feel of crumbs from the table to give the green third wheel something to point to. Which is a pity as an hourly Belfast-Dublin service is very welcome. Now all they need to do to make it really useful is it to speed it up.

Still pending the ministerial order, RWO require a SI to be signed and recent history shows the minister is very slow to sign off on anything

Given that they have more trains as a result of the recent ICR fleet deliveries, it is now possible to deliver the hourly service.

It wasn’t possible beforehand.

The fact that the Taoiseach is announcing that they are committed to providing the necessary money to fund it this year tells me that this is going to happen.

Any previous statements have been aspirational.

That's going to be a higgledly piggedly mess of sets - will the ICRs be the few AWS-equipped ones with Premier (and if so, which services are losing Premier as a result - Waterford where it runs unclassified I presume) and have any catering in this case? 3000s certainly won't.

The last southbound Enterprise is a miserable experience compared to the daytime ones already.

Going to lead to a lengthy description on Seat61 anyway!

I would think that they will be ICR premier sets yes.

As for the mixed stock, well until new Enterprise stock is ordered, it's the best that they can do if they want the increased frequency.

It's not that congested for this not to be possible, but there won't be accelerated journey times.

There will presumably still be a trolley service on the CAF operated departures.

they may have stock available, but do they have drivers? Any request for increased services in the timetable consultation seems to be met with the response "we don't have enough drivers". If they do have drivers, what exactly are they doing currently?

The Belfast terminus is moving from lanyon place to the new central station, that will likely take about 5 mins off the trip. Making it an even 2hrs, with hourly departures. These are good improvements for now without spending serious money.

What it really needs long term is a new Newry to Belfast alignment, new dedicated tracks between Drogheda and Dublin, electrification, rolling stock capable of 200kmh and half hour frequency. Pretty much what is proposed in the review. In my view this is much more important than the A5. The same money could have gone an awful long way towards providing the above

The A5 is a critical safety concern. Also it is much closer to actually needing the funding than any Newry-Belfast realignment.

The improved Dublin-Belfast service north of the border cannot be funded by ROI right now. There is nothing to throw funding at other than what has already been funded.

You frame it as if there is an opportunity cost here, whereby funding the A5 means less funding for Dub-Bel line. This is completely false. Any works to improve the alignment (or lay new alignment) between Belfast and the border is ultimately a matter for NI's DFI. Until they progress it enough, it cannot be funded by us.

The Northern Line is already the subject of an EU funded feasibility study looking at possible capacity enhancements.

Any investment in the railway line will follow from that.

The A5 is a project that has been put back time and time again, and with 52 deaths since 2006 needs addressing in the here and now.

Would I be right in thinking that the extra services (hourly) can only be accommodated by the new Grand Central station? Lanyon seems pretty restricted as a through-station for terminal intercity services. Any ETA on when the new station is due to open?

Yes you’d be right in that.

The rail element is definitely planned to open well before 2025 - Q3 2024 is the latest I’ve heard.

This might not be as far away as people think

The tender for the Enterprise replacement was relaunched having had no takers last time round (as far as I can see)

The spec reads:

Couple of take aways, the contract is to start with DC OHLE and a Diesel Motors / Batteries and eventually migrate to either full OHLE or OHLE / Batteries within the 8 year contract.

The only issue I can see with this is that Irish rail want trainsets as opposed to locomotive + passenger coaches. This is going to be a problem as I don't think anyone really makes them with multiple traction power options/combinations.

It also says replacement with "dual OHLE power supply equipment" so one would assume the new supply will be AC, that tightens up options even more.

I think the only company that offers a locomotive that ticks all those boxes is Stadler (EURO9000) but its a bit long 24m, which will impact the 200M limit for the train.

I think Irish rail will come to the realisation that the OHLE will need to be installed and running first (Which could expedite this even faster) before they can purchase new rolling stock, as the battery/ICE/AC/DC combo on a trainset is far to complicated and niche for any manufacturer to invest in given we just want 8 sets.

It's hard to buy inter-city trains that can't do 200km/h these days. I suspect IÉ will have an eye on using this procurement as a trial for replacing the 201-hauled trainsets for passenger service.

One perennial bugbear with Enterprise was the need for special trains with special signalling. Is NIR adopting the same system (ETCS) that we're going with down here? That alone would make it much easier to keep service levels up: while I know the reasons why, it's still madness that a Cork-Dublin trainset cannot fill in on the Dublin-Belfast route

But the all Ireland rail review calls for about 60% of the route to be built on a new alignment from scratch by 2040 so not catering for 200kmh would be short sighted.

An awful lot of our railways could do with being built on new alignments, or at least having their alignments straightened out.

When we built the motorway network we built on new alignments - can't see why we couldn't do the same for some of the railway lines.

It’s somewhat nuts that NIR isn’t able to decide its own standards for this kind of thing: it’s already an non-interoperable rail network with the rest of the UK due to the break of gauge. If the signalling issue is being fixed for new stock, then the sensible thing would be to develop a common set of requirements between NIR and IÉ so that both operators would save on procurement (let alone allowing stock to cover services on each others’ networks) - NIR would be the big beneficiary of this, but it would also help down South.

Logically, they should, but "Logic" and "Northern Ireland" don't meet often.

Actually, I read recently that whatever entity runs the British rail network these days has also mandated ETCS, but because the service operators have had difficulty retrofitting existing trains (or, as this is modern Britain, "have been starved of the money to do it"), the policy there is that new stock will use ETCS, but the existing signalling will run alongside the new ETCS system for a longer period until those older trains are either converted or retired.

Don't the FLIRTS use a Jacobs Bogie? Will they work on our railways?

I know they can be outfitted with a Diesel Generator but don't think they can have battery packs. (Could be wrong) I cannot see them being developed for just 8 sets either.