Excellent video of a variety of Irish trains, locations and weather! Good capture of the Belmond Grand Hibernian at Clara. Like the soothing background music which is not too loud and intrusive. Thanks for posting.
I find it amazing that we use many different variants of train rather than just one main model, out here in the country they use the intercity trains. And I heard they got 12 or so new trains in from Germany about a week ago.
Well on the Galway to Dublin they use new trains but on Galway to limerick they use an older one then everywhere else it’s very old ones and a bit of the newer ones
Tho the DD Enterprise set is now about 1/2 way thru its design life, having already had a refurbishment. In the end, electrification on the main Dublin Belfast line, will have to be considered.
Historically Irish rail did not receive the level of investment that railways in Poland received , in the UK where I live this is also much the same, hence no domestic high speed rail to date except for Hs1. As I pointed out the nations population makes a difference to the potential viability of any service against financial investment Ireland’s population is very low and the potential for profit very low.
Hi Keith. Yes you're right about the population of Ireland. However, if we look at the statistics, Irish rail carried about 45 million people in 2017 while PKP Intercity (Polish Rail) carried about 42 in the same year. While Irish population is about 4.8M and Polish population is about 38M, I think the viability of the service is self explanatory?
And funny enough if it wasn't for the Brits we'd have no railway at all, the Dumb Irish Government ripped out a good tram system in the 1960s the British installed back in what, the early 1900's maybe ? and spent billions putting in a new one 15 years ago. If Public transport is good enough People will use it but it needs to go to the offices and industrial areas, if it was good enough we wouldn't have the sheer gridlock we have on our roads today but of course another issue with public transport is that little investment was made to create jobs outside of Dublin so too many people flood the roads all to head to Dublin in the mornings and out in the evenings. But apart from Population GDP calculates wealth from companies and is a poor way to determine a countries wealth, the Big Multinationals do provide jobs but the Irish People get saddled with the majority of the tax.
@@o00scorpion00o Irish owned railway companies built the railway system here not the British. The tramways were dismantled in Ireland for the same reasons they were dismantled everywhere else during that period. London was completely absent of trams after 1952 until the turn of the century.
Thanks for posting the video! Train is my favourite mode of transport just after an airplane and I've also been traveling on a train quite a lot lately especially between Limerick and Dublin. My only question is, why aren't most of the lines in Ireland electrified?
@@keithewins992 from where I am (Poland) most of the tracks are electrified. If we take GDP as the measure of wealth and development then Ireland beats Poland by miles. Hardly the economic reasons are to blame?
Unfortunately politicians in Ireland have had a blinkered view of rail travel for many years, investing instead in new roads and motorways. For example, in 1958 they closed what would have been a very profitable line. This was the line from Harcourt Street in Dublin city centre to Bray. It was a double track line that went right through the south Dublin suburbs. Anyone with even a little foresight would have at least kept the route intact but no, roads were the way to go. So there was little chance of electrification while this mindset existed. And also, as already mentioned, the population is small compared to most European countries. Freight services are sparse. In recent years however there has been a large increase in passenger traffic, so I think the government is at last taking notice. A new line to Dublin Airport is planned and also new trains are to be purchased but I fear that this may all be put on hold due to the upcoming economic fallout from the Corona Virus pandemic. Nice video, by the way.
@@kacperpawlowski1149 GDP is not a way to calculate a countries wealth as it includes the wealth of companies and they pay very little tax in Ireland especially the big multinationals, now if they were taxed like they should be then maybe we could do a lot more for our public infrastructure which is very bad. The Irish Government tax the working people hard and house prices and rent is sky high, fuel taxes etc. Not so wealthy people in Ireland when you see how People have to struggle today to put food on the table and pay bills after they pay a mortgage or rent + Child Care, that's even if both Parents can afford to work. I know people who have a pre pay electric meter to stop their electric company sending a big bill, if they have no money for the meter they have no electricity but they have more money for food and rent, there are lots of people with the same system for their Gas heating yet the Government want to keep increasing taxes on energy to combat Climate change while people go cold and sit in the dark. Welcome to Ireland 2021!
Class video, im trying to learn the different types of trains Irish Rail have, is there anywhere online where I can learn the names of them by any chance?
Excellent film shot in 2019, showing how well restored and maintained stations in Ireland are now. Please go back to Ireland this summer 2022 now that the covid restrictions of the 2020 and 2021 summers have gone and film again... traffic should be back to pre-2020 levels and people aren't wearing masks any more... The Enterprise sets and locomotives have a special livery and branding with no distinction between IR and NIR sets, and no Irish language used. The previous generation Enterprise sets and locos differed between IR- and NIR-owned although both railways used the same GM locomotive type, with minor differences.
I have just released a new video” A look at Irish railways, May 2022” which was posted on RU-vid on the 18th of June. It was great to come back to Ireland. I hope you enjoy it as much as my previous one.
An interesting statistic, but Poland carries a lot of freight traffic. Ireland has very little freight,only three or four at the very most on any weekday. Electrification would be a huge investment that the Irish government is not in a position to take especially after spending heavily on motorways in recent years. I have enjoyed our interesting debate.
Jessica Tracey it’s a two car diesel unit built by Tokyo car co. And forms the branch train that runs to and from Balina to connect with the mainline trains.
It is an Irish rail mainline express on the Dublin Cork main line. The leading vehicle is a Caf built driving van trailer which leads the train in the Dublin direction. A 200 class General Motors locomotive is pushing from the rear
Tokyo car co. Two car sets,new in the 1980sat about the same time as the British 150s. They are based at Limerick and Cork and operate local trains out of Cork and secondary services from Limerick.
@@keithewins992 thanks Keith! It did strike me that the first one looked very similar to the DARTs we got in the mid 1980s, and I think they were from Tokyu Car Co as well. What about the very streamlined-looking one at 7:15?
Keith Ewins they are class 2800s at 6:50 and don’t operate out of Cork they only operate out of limerick and the train at 7:15 is pushed/hauled by a 201 not 200
Simply because the traffic volumes do not justify it. Nothing to do with any government policy or the economy. We've hardly any rail freight, for example.
