MOGUL

It's a nice idea and it would be great to see some sort of rail freight in the Cork area.. But I have a few reservations: Where is the Bio Mass meant to be going to.. I can't think of any power plants that would be better served from Cork than from Dublin.. Ditto for Oil, where would be better served by Rail from Cork than by Road from the nearest port(Dublin, New Ross, Foynes and Galway all spring to mind) I think the most likely scenario will be North Esk being reconnected to handle container trains from Dublin.. I've lost count of the amount of times I have cursed the lack of a container train to and from Cork and then gone and paid a haulier a small ransom to do the job!

Battleship Gray 071 just passed Glasnevin with coach Donegal on transfer to Inchicore.. Does anyone know how many coaches have been delivered now?

I think the Tara's will still be the heaviest trains on a regular basis at 900 tonnes trailing weight(12 x 75 tonne wagons).. Even if the container trial ran with every single wagon loaded at 40 tonnes( 2 laden 20ft containers per wagon) it would only be 1080 tonnes so should be well within the capacity of an 071 or a 201... Likelihood is that the train will carry a mixture of laden 20ft bulk tanks( 30 tonnes each), 20ft imports ( 2 per wagon at 20 tonnes each), 40ft imports (24-26 Tonnes each) and empty containers ( 3-4 Tonnes each).. Did cement trains ever run at 1000 tonnes? I thought 900 would be the max made up of 12 Bogies or 24 Bubbles

Thanks Fran, Looking forward to your effort!

Hi Stephen, I think the thinking behind the extra siding was to accommodate some of the overflow from Ballina yard at busy times.. Up until about 6 months ago, the spare iWT set was stored in Claremorris from Thursday evening until the following Tuesday morning.. Funnily enough this stopped around the time the siding was installed! But it will still get some use, particularly if the biomass does go by rail or if Claremorris starts to handle freight again

Hello to all, Just thought I would share the details of this coming Monday's freight trial in case any camera toting members of the IRM community wanted to head out and catch it! The train will operate from Dublin to Ballina, not Waterford to Limerick as originally planned. The reason for the change was the low height of bridges on the south tipp line making the use of 9ft 6in containers impossible.. As the port of waterford only handles short sea services, the only cobtainers readily available were of the 9ft 6 variety.. The train will load in Dublin port on Monday afternoon to form the 20:40 departure ex North wall. The train will run as 27 wagons as far as Claremorris, where 9 wagons will be detached for the run onwards to Ballina.. Hope that this is of help to some and happy snapping! Mogul

Hi Ray, they're 1:76/ OO gauge.. Probably should have mentioned that in the original post!

Those cement wagons look the biz, any chance of a step by step on how to make the TDR?

Eucon containers are sold.. Any interest in the Stobart digger at €20 each or 2 for €35?

To add to what Ttco said, WED IWT departures are 08:15(as required) and 11:40( every week).. Also there is a Saturday service both ways depart ballina at 08:15 and arrival at 1600ish.. If you are still down there Monday week(27th June), there is a 27 wagon trial train going down to Ballina

Hi Rialto, Was looking to hold onto the one I painted (into the company colours, just need to make transfers) and just ship the 1 unpainted Eucon.. I don't have any pics of these as they are in a box at the moment so I will have to dig them out first! What are you planning in creating with the containers??

Think my thread has ended up a bit like the 46a bus, wait ages for a post and then two come along at once! Rialto PM sent Richrua, looks like Rialto might have pipped you to the post.. But I do have a 3rd EUCON container (from the same set of two but I painted the other one up as something else!).. Pm me if your interested..

Hello to all, Am selling these to makes some space and cash for new projects First I have an Atlas editions Eddie Stobart Digger, looking for €25 for this.. Comes in the original box with all the packaging.. I have 2 of these if there is enough interest! Second I have a set of Bachmann Oo gauge Eucon containers, also in the original box and in as new condition.. Will take €12 for these Am based in Dublin so can meet up around the city for a sale, or can look into postage if needed

I don't have any of my own I'm afraid, it's usually stored near the wagon shed in North Wall so getting a photo would be difficult. I have found a video on youtube where you can see this wagon being shunted around the yard, the title of the video is: IE class 201 (215) Shunting Pocket & IWT wagons at North Wall, Dublin

Interesting to know! Good to see it getting some use, even if it won't be moving very far

Any ideas why there was a shale wagon on the wagon transfer?

No Lx/LPs used on the DFDS, all three sets of flat wagons are used by IWT only on the Dublin service DFDS uses 1 set of CPWs for both of its weekly trains, think they stopped using the flats about 18 months ago now! Does anyone know what the purpose of the handrails on the CPW wagon in North Wall?

The Bell lines era was before my time unfortunately, they seemed to do a lot of business compared to any of the current short sea shipping lines(Eucon, Bg, Dfds etc)! As a port Waterford seems to be in slow decline, first the loss of Bell lines, then they lost the Banana business to Cork Port.. On the positive side the Dfds/Samskip ships going in and out of Belview seem to be doing well.. And they have a good set up with their cranes loading ships, trains and trucks..

There should be no issues with wagon availability for the forseeable future, plenty of em to go around! DFDS has increased from 1 to 2 trains, using 1 set of 12 CPWs, this set of wagons is now used on 4 days a week, Waterford-Ballina Monday Ballina- Waterford Tuesday Waterford- Ballina Thursday Ballina- Waterford Friday I am told the reason for the change is DFDS winning business with a large pharma company based in the west of Ireland at the expense of other short sea shipping lines that were carrying the business by road to Dublin. This is additional on top of the tanks and containers to and from Coke. Back to wagons, IWT uses 3 sets (18 flat wagons), with 2 sets being used daily and the 3rd set being used for the extra trains on a Tuesday and Wednesday. All 3 sets are formed of 16 LX(45FT) and 2 LP(42FT) wagons. So in theory the 3rd set could be used for extra trains the other 4 days of the week if required.

http://www.multimodal.org.uk/news/iarnrod-eireann-capacity-50-percent IE have released a press release about the trails, look like there is another few trials to come

thank you all for the replies! I read that Maersk started carrying the Fyffes traffic into Ringaskiddy in 2009, but does anyone know if the Bananas are now carried in Maersk containers or do the Fyffes ones still show up from time to time? Looking at a few of the images in google images, it looks like the Fyffes logo might be a big square decal applied to side of the container, maybe the transfers got worn off over time?

Hello All, First post in some time on the forum! I got a few of the excellent C-Rail containers for my Christmas present, including the 40ft Fyffes Bananas reefer: http://www.c-rail-intermodal.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&path=25_28&product_id=103 I've done some googling and have found out that these used to come into Belview on a special Banana boat:banana::banana:, but these seem to have ended around 2007/8. Does anyone know if they are still in use and do they still come into Ireland? My current thinking is to use it on a model of a Dublin-Waterford Liner with some CPWs:trains:

Hi iarnrod, I have nearly every rail express from the past two/three years.. Any in particular you are looking for?

There's a nice article in this months traction magazine about the history of GM locos outside the US. Irish rails locos feature prominently, worth a look!!

From my experience the service with IWT seems to be on a par if your shipping a 20ft but slightly more expensive (about €20) for a 40ft than road haulage. On a full container of products worth thousands of euro thats not really too much and chances are the logistics companies using the service would absorb the extra cost. The transit time is also slightly longer than using direct road freight to the customers door. Both these would be as expected but things may swing in rail's favour if theres any increase in road transport costs.