hexagon789

I think Cork is one of my favourite Irish stations, mixture of the overall roof and that graceful curve through the station - features of any truly great railway station! Though asides from much less traffic on the roads, there were fewer trains as well. I remember first seeing the 1933 timetable and having a double whammy shock of how few services even the "mainlines" had as well as the journey times. I suppose though that railway journeys truly were that then - journeys, you had a sense of actually going somewhere so to speak. Now we have the dual luxury of increased frequency and increased speed but along the way much of the luxury and delight to be savoured from such journeys has sadly passed us by.

I have a few myself, though all GB ones. The older ones, as you rightly say, have a whole host of interesting snapshots of working practices of the time. One of the things that interests me most asides from the specific practices particular to specific locations is the list of permitted speeds on each line. To me they provide as much a picture of the developing rail network as the other information contained within.

Could someone tell me what the previous timetable issue to the 2nd April 1973 was? Would it be the June 1972 issue or was there one in-between? Thanks

One thing I've never quite understood - why was the horse always called "Dick"? Purely tradition?

Reminds me of an accident which resulted in a similar situation at Largs in July 1995. A Class 318 electric unit from Glasgow failed to stop, ran through the buffers, the station and right out into the high street.

It may not be 100% perfect, but it shows the scale of the 800s well, the picture simply says "power"!

I've no idea I'm afraid, but that's perfectly possible and that would alter the sound. It's about the closest thing I could think of.

How about the proposed 4,400hp 'Super' Deltic in a highly appropriate 'Super' train livery?

You definitely can, simply the trains reverse into and out of Kilarney station to gain the line to Tralee. It was in my opinion one of the more interesting operations of Irish Railways, reversing long express trains in and out of Kilarney in the days of loco-haulage. Now drivers of ICRs just change cabs and continue on their merry way

A fascinating article, they remind me somewhat of the railcars British Rail fitted out with battery equipment as a trial in the 1950s at Cowlairs in Glasgow and trialled on the Royal Deeside line from Aberdeen to Ballater alternating workings with the more usual diesel units. Very much the same principles and the body side styling of the 1939 sets even looks quite similar. Not wishing to be pedantic and you may actually mean the same thing, but the central unit actually has only the diesel engines (I'm not sure if that's what you meant by motors), two on the 3-car and four on the 4-car, the traction motors themselves are mounted on the bogies under the driver's cabs. The idea being that to convert to pure electric operation you only need to remove the central unit eith the diesel engines.

I think that they might not have sounded too dissimilar to the British Rail Class 26, as they have the same Sulzer engine though it is rated at some 200hp greater.

That was my understanding too, one day I will find out when it went to 75 on the Cork Road prior to 90mph running being introduced. From the journals Westport was conventional stock until 1985, Sligo mid-1987 and Rosslare November 1987. I've seen a conductor use similar, though not quite as strong, language to get someone to remove their feet from seats Seemed the likeliest explanation to me. Weren't some Cravens "upgraded" to Super-Standards for a time? While in later timetables it certainly decreases in provision (even just going forwards to 1975), in this particular timetable very nearly all mainline services seem to have Super-Standard class accommodation.

My copy finally arrived today, and after a look through I can quite appreciate the comment in one issue of the JOurnal describing it as 'the spectacular timetable'. Two questions if I may: Firstly is there a way to tell which services are AC stock? On the catering pages, there are trains on Weekdays listed as "In-Seat catering for Super-Standard passengers," would I be right to assume these are the Mk II workings? (5 each-way Dublin/Cork and one each way Dublin/Limerick, Galway, Waterford and Tralee.) Secondly, linespeed was 70 on the Cork road then wasn't it? If so, there are some quite impressive 60mph+ averages on many services. Cheers.

Perhaps a use for some of the stored DART units?

Certainly there's a place for it, and I do appreciate the effort made to make passable models for certain trains that are more representations than highly accurate, correct models but personally I'd rather pay more for the proper thing than a different train all together simply painted up. Yeah, that was the one I was thinking of. Nice enough colour scheme, but side-by-side it ain't a 2700. Well railcars are supposed to be cheaper to run, though the tipping point here in the UK was traditionally 5 coaches. Above that loco-hauled was cheaper, witness the return of loco-haulage to the TransPennine route, though that was more because of the immediate need for stock. Not sure about looks, but most BR 158s share engine type with 2600, 2700 and 2800s all 350hp Cummins iirc. Transmission is different, I believe the IÉ railcars are all 3-speed hydraulics, 158s are two-speed.

I seem to recall there was a similar situation with a repainted of Bachmann 158s to masquerade as 2600s

It's interesting to note that one if the latest of the IRRS journals I have, with a mention of the beginning of the procurement process for the Mk IVs, had said they would run to Limerick and Galway, not just Cork. As well as pondering on that, ever since the dying days of the Irish Mk IIIs, I've wondered if they would have lasted longer if they had been push-pull? Our Mk IIIs over here are still in service (though numbers are now declining steadily), after as many as 45 years in traffic for some vehicles (some prototype vehicles are even older though other than the Royal Train, I don't think any remain in service now.) I will say, I would happily take one of IÉs ICRs over what was the staple of ScotRail's InterCity fleet since they were introduced from 1999, the Class 170 Turbostars, but with ScotRail having replaced those on InterCity runs with cascaded HSTs, I have to say there's nothing like Mk3 comfort, certainly the blissful peace of not having a 422hp MTU engine vibrating away under the floor is a godsend for a start, let alone the improved performance. I do hope IÉ keeps the Mk IVs going for some time yet, but I echo what others are saying about how the ICRs have played a vital role - they are what passengers want really, something modern which gets them from A-B without issue and that's applies to railways the world over. Definitely agree on the Mk IIIs but I think I prefer 071s over 201s, they just sound so damn good! Exactly, it would be a boring old world if we all liked the same thing and saw eye-to-eye on everything, it's far more interesting to debate and argue why we prefer certain things ourselves against that which others will swear blind are the bee's knees in the railway world.

The only double 121 I've seen on AC stock pre-071, was a photo with such on a Waterford-Hueston working in 1975, so to me it seems fairly rare. Ach, I can't count! ;) So 4 spare. Thanks BSGSV, I think I'm more looking to what the original intention for the sets with having nine composites was.

Can now confirm 7107 was converted to 64 seats in early 1986 with 7110 later in the year, though not all seats lined-up with the windows. Some airline seating remained at one end of the vehicle, but with more generous legroom than usual.

Managed to obtain a copy of April 2nd 1973 until further notice. Thanks for the comments again guys

Thanks for the details, presumably with a requirement for eight sets with four Standards each, that explains the conversion of 5 composites to Standards? As with only 36 built, you'd have no spares. Though that would also leave no spare Composites with a requirement for 4. I've seen a reference to pairs of 121s working some services in this period, but photos from pre-071 days seem to show A Class or Double Baby GMs from the mid-1970s or A Class or Single Baby GMs in the earlier years.

Thanks jhb, I knew it must be about then, but the trouble is too often timetables appear to be published with "until further notice", so it's not easy to tell if there is an interim timetable between different issues sometimes. Thanks for your comment, I think that's the one then. Regards, Ben That reminds me of Virgin Train's infamous Operation Princess...

I know the Mk2d appeared from December 1972 onwards, but could someone confirm when the new timetable was launched? The one with more services than before and a pattern of a pair of trains from Dublin to provincial towns in the evening and up in the morning. Was it April 1973? Thanks, Ben.

I was thinking how best to go about this, posting-up the information I've found on the Mk IIIs. Seeing as one of the original things which prompted that search was the opening question in this thread it seems appropriate to answer that. So I can now confirm that 7140 entered service as a "First" while internally being no different to a standard. Indeed, all First Class in Mk III sets consisted of a standard marshalled between Generator Van and diner until the first Mk III Super Standards were converted in 1986. 7120 and 7140 were both seemingly branded externally as "INTER CITY 1st", while internally having the same 72-seat arrangement as the Standards, for the launch of Mk III services from the 2nd July 1984, the first two rakes in service comprising: 7601, 7140 (First), 7402, 7126, 7125, 7128, 7129 & 7141 7602, 7120 (First), 7401, 7127, 7121, 7124 & 7123. I can also confirm that 7107 and 7110 did not enter service as Super Standards but were both later converted. 7107 entered service as a Conference coach and 7110 as a Standard.

Thanks @enniscorthyman, but I've got that issue (indeed I now have 1984-2003 inclusive). Appreciate the heads-up though. It was interesting to see proper plans of the internal layouts of the push-pull Mk IIIs as well as why there were only 19 intermediates rather than 25 which I'd wondered about. Enough for three 6-car and two 3-car sets as opposed to five 6-cars.