The "Eyre Lee Bird" railtour Cork-Galway-Return 5th April 2025

[Niles]

Táilte Tours CLG are happy to announce their first mainline railtour of 2025, “The Eyre Lee Bird” from Cork to Galway and back via the Western Rail Corridor. This will be worked by a classic Iarnród Éireann 2600 class railcar set, these days very rare visitors to the west of Ireland. Heritage livery “Arrow” set Nos.2601+2602 has been requested as part of the formation. It also hoped to cover the various passing loops between Limerick and Athenry.

Passengers will have plenty of time for lunch at their own leisure in Galway; the station is conveniently located in the heart of the city at Eyre Square.

Bookings now open at https://www.tailtetours.com/event-details/the-eyre-lee-bird-railtour

Edited February 14 by Niles

[Mol_PMB]

Excellent route - I am very tempted! 

2600s wouldn't be my first choice of railtour traction but sadly the days of Cravens and baby GMs are long gone, and I suppose the 2600s won't be around much longer either.

[Flying Snail]

12 minutes ago, Mol_PMB said:

 

... sadly the days of Cravens and baby GMs are long gone, and I suppose the 2600s won't be around much longer either.

The RPSI have both Cravens and baby GMs so you never know ... maybe one day! 

Hopefully when the time comes a 2600 set will find its way into preservation too

[Niles]

Everything has its time... if you suggested a 2700 class tour 20 years ago you'd have been laughed out the door, I guarantee one would sell out now though if by some miracle it was even possible. Even the much lamented mk3s were uncommon on tours until the very late 2000s, bar the annual IRRS Executive Train tour.

[Mol_PMB]

Joining the dots...

I've just scanned this print which was given to me by the Ennis stationmaster over 20 years ago.

Apparently it was the first Arrow of any type to visit Ennis and therefore the first on the WRC.

[Niles]

3 hours ago, Mol_PMB said:

Joining the dots...

I've just scanned this print which was given to me by the Ennis stationmaster over 20 years ago.

Apparently it was the first Arrow of any type to visit Ennis and therefore the first on the WRC.

Looks fresh out of the box - I think the smaller numerals were changed early enough.

[Bob229]

Tickets booked, looking forward to the tour and a well chosen route have not been on the Western Rail Corridor 

[Westcorkrailway]

I made sure once I got notification to get in. It’s not often us corkonians have the luxury of a tour starting and ending in Cork. Some notable examples from memory 

 

West Cork Farewell 1961

the Midletonian 1984

Sea Breezes 1985

loco 90 trips 1990

IRRS trip to Midleton 2009 

suir-lee-knot 2023 

times arrow 2024

 

i couldn’t name all of them, was there many RPSI ones? Do expand 

[Niles]

21 hours ago, Westcorkrailway said:

I made sure once I got notification to get in. It’s not often us corkonians have the luxury of a tour starting and ending in Cork. Some notable examples from memory 

 

West Cork Farewell 1961

the Midletonian 1984

Sea Breezes 1985

loco 90 trips 1990

IRRS trip to Midleton 2009 

suir-lee-knot 2023 

times arrow 2024

 

i couldn’t name all of them, was there many RPSI ones? Do expand 

@jhb171achill will know better, but I think some of the former May Three Day tours may have offered trips to Cobh for the locals? Though arguably they weren't "Cork based" as a whole. 

Technically the 2014 Blue Train tour started in Cork but it was really a balancing working off the one way Web Summit charter from Connolly to Midleton.

 

Edited February 15 by Niles

[jhb171achill]

19 hours ago, Niles said:

@jhb171achill will know better, but I think some of the former May Three Day tours may have offered trips to Cobh for the locals? Though arguably they weren't "Cork based" as a whole. 

Technically the 2014 Blue Train tour started in Cork but it was really a balancing working off the one way Web Summit charter from Connolly to Midleton.

 

Correct - some RPSI and later IRRS tours (eg Youghal) did cover the area and did indeed have trips to Cobh, but no RPSI May Tour ever actually started from Cork.

 

Edited Sunday at 16:14 by jhb171achill

[Mol_PMB]

Again, a bit of a marginal case, I went on an RPSI Dublin-Cork tour with Merlin which went south on Saturday and north on Sunday. I recall it was possible to book tickets for just one day and return by scheduled train, so there was an option starting in Cork.

The climb out of Cork on a damp and slippery day with 7 coaches was quite spectacular: despite plenty of sand the loco barely exceeded 10mph through the tunnel in simple mode and hadn't accelerated much more by Rathpeacon. She crested the summit 12 miles later at a healthy 50mph though, and rolled down into Mallow looking more black than blue after giving the tunnel the first good clean it had had for half a century. Fun times!

 

[TheSeanRailWay]

On 14/2/2025 at 2:39 PM, Mol_PMB said:

Excellent route - I am very tempted! 

2600s wouldn't be my first choice of railtour traction but sadly the days of Cravens and baby GMs are long gone, and I suppose the 2600s won't be around much longer either.

There is no direct replacement to the 2600 class so I think they will stick around for a bit longer like the DARTs

[jhb171achill]

I would agree with this. Despite rumours that 29s displaced by Dart pluses will end up in Cork, I am informed by a highly reliable engineering-background source that this is highly unlikely. Thus, unless the 28s go down to replace the 26s, and if so what would replace them?.... then the 26s will be there until some sort of battery / vegetable juice burning things appear.

In my youth, talk was of closures, closures and more closures, and the complete replacement of ALL steam traction by diesel.

Now, it seems to be about the complete replacement of ALL diesel-powered trains and locomotives by customer tubes which have battery-clockwork-hybrid engines fuelled by jojobi-juice vegan extract, water, eco-friendly air, or calorie-free biomass juice.

And no toilets, despite suburban area line speeds of a 46A in heavy Friday evening Christmas traffic.

Edited Thursday at 16:20 by jhb171achill

[Niles]

I believe a potential stickler for sending 29000s (back)* to Limerick is that they're too long for the sheds.

 

*Back, well they were based there for testing back in 2003. Who remembers that?

[Mol_PMB]

1 minute ago, Niles said:

I believe a potential stickler for sending 29000s (back)* to Limerick is that they're too long for the sheds.

 

*Back, well they were based there for testing back in 2003. Who remembers that?

Was that a lack of foresight by the Waterford and Limerick Railway back in the 1850s?

[Niles]

4 minutes ago, Mol_PMB said:

Was that a lack of foresight by the Waterford and Limerick Railway back in the 1850s?

Ha. Though in fairness, I believe they were the first railway outside America to use bogie carriages, so marks for innovation.

[Westcorkrailway]

29s fit in cork shed…..they don’t fit in limerick. If this is going where I think it’s going I’ll be quite sad as a 2600 fan 

[Darrman]

I've my tickets booked: I'm a Corkman, I'm hardly going to pass up on something starting in Cork, am I?

As for the fate of the 2600s, I wouldn't know any solid information, so I'll speculate based on fleet sizes.

The first order of new Darts will be made up of 6 electric and 13 battery units, five coaches each. The only place the electrics are going is the currently electrified line. That leaves 13 battery units most likely going to Drogheda at first. The Dart+ North page mentions at peak times wanting 5 Darts, 2 commuters from Dundalk, and 1 Enterprise per peak hour departing from Drogheda. Current Dart services have six trains an hour south of Howth Junction: three to Malahide, three to Howth. Dart+ plans for this to go up to nine an hour during the peak: 5 Drogheda, 2 Malahide, 2 Clongriffin, 0 Howth as it will be relegated to a shuttle.

Right now at peak times there's three commuter trains an hour up to Drogheda, and these would be turned over to the new Darts. Some of these extend to Dundalk, though, and would remain under the 29s. Combined with a more regular Dundalk service, might the 29s just end up running there instead? A new Dart is roughly equal to the current 4 car sets, so I wouldn't rule out Irish Rail coupling up some pairs of the battery Darts to have greater capacity. Realistically, those are ultimate ambitions and the first wave of battery units wouldn't reach them. Four 5*2, five 5 with one kept as a spare for eight diagrams? Drogheda-Bray direct trains take two hours, but I wouldn't rule out some Connolly terminators as a temporary measure considering the current service pattern.

So with at most about 12, realistically probably about 8-9 29s freed up. This does neatly line up with a 1:1 replacement with the 26s. But they and the ten 28s are still in decent working order.

On 20/2/2025 at 4:16 PM, jhb171achill said:

Despite rumours that 29s displaced by Dart pluses will end up in Cork, I am informed by a highly reliable engineering-background source that this is highly unlikely. Thus, unless the 28s go down to replace the 26s, and if so what would replace them?.... then the 26s will be there until some sort of battery / vegetable juice burning things appear.

Irish Rail do have the intent of having electric services on Cork commuter lines - this presumably means batteries to pinch a few pennies. Going by the above, they might keep the 26s around until a bunch of Cork electrics (Carts?) turn up.

There's 29 29s, coincidentally. Assuming the sheds get lengthened somehow Limerick would take at least 10 29s, probably a few more if they decide to open Foynes to passenger services again. Would it be unreasonable to have somewhere in Waterford for hypothetical South Wexfords or Galway for longer WRC services? Probably. A few 29s would still need to stay in Dublin to handle Longfords and Dundalks that would fall out of electrification range.

It would be easier to analyse these with the proper diagrams, but I could speculate all day. Even if there's no great cascade of 29s after wave 1, the next 18 battery Darts in the second wave will largely replace 29s to Maynooth, and that will trigger a cascade. But that won't be for a few years yet, and by then the new Enterprises will have arrived - though I assume the De Dietrichs will have shuffled off to the scrapyard and won't be a factor.

The 2600s won't be cascading anywhere. Their replacement will probably be some battery vehicles so they can score some green points as part of the upgrades going on in Cork. Anyway, I'll probably turn up come April with some literature about the WRC and daydreaming about actual service Cork-Galway trains.

 

[jhb171achill]

19 hours ago, Niles said:

I believe a potential stickler for sending 29000s (back)* to Limerick is that they're too long for the sheds.

 

*Back, well they were based there for testing back in 2003. Who remembers that?

And Cork.

Those CAFtle trucks will remain in Dublin, and the naughty of Maynooth, Drogheda and the DSER will be condemned to travel in them for years, as the even naughtier of Belfast suburbia were condemned to MEDs and 450s in turn, for some four and a bit decades!

Oh! How these townies must suffer!

Then there were the plastic seat ex-AEC, pre-DART things. But, I digress; purgatory is for a different website.

Edited 5 hours ago by jhb171achill