It'll be first battery powered trains in Ireland since the 1930s when the Drumm battery trains we're made by professor Drumm. There was charging place in former Harcourt street station and another charging place in bray was very innovative for the time. The Drumm batteries ran on the Harcourt street line which was closed in 1958 and today parts of it are now used by luas green line
Honestly innovation hasn't changed since, but just a constant degrade towards building motorways and expecting rail and other public services to turn a profit
There will be no improvement in journey times and these will be human controlled for the time being very little innovation but still extremely prohibitively expensive
@toyotaprius79 Hopefully they will as these trains will be a thing for the future and hopefully forever as well and hopefully the commuter trains will be electric also should irish rail decide to continue getting these trains
Theres actually an issue with irish rail trying to get a depot in Maynooth for the dart+ west programme as there's not enough capacity to store the new trains entering service whenever this line is fitted with overhead wires as Malahide will be getting that line extended to Drogheda hopefully by the end of this decade with a bit of luck and then the batteries thats stored in the trains wont be used anymore as they'll be powered by the overhead wires from then on
Planning delays for the Maynooth depot, and by extension the implementation of DART+, is outrageous, An Bord Pleanala is not fit for purpose for a country trying to de-carbonize, First it was the Mayo gas pipeline terminal, then the wind turbines in Co, Galway now it's the Maynooth depot.
It will be good in the next few years when they can extend the DART to Navan - all they need now is a DART underground to the Irish Ferries & Stena Terminals via Dublin Docklands and a connection from the high speed tunnel line under the Irish Sea from Holyhead to Dublin
Will Irish Rail/govt be leasing these carriages and completely on contract with Alstom forevermore instead of using their own maintenance and engineering ?
As I understand it, Irish Rail are buying the trains outright. Alstom are providing some of the maintenance under contract, but they are Irish Rail owned trains.
I have to say the quality of these new trains are absolutely amazing and I'm so excited to get a ride on these new trains hopefully by the end of next year if the starting of these trains are brought forward rather than waiting until early 2026
I hope that they don’t prove to be such a disaster as the last Alstom trains turned out to be. Both the 8200 Dart and the 2700 DMU fleets had to be scrapped. Will Irish Rail never learn?
thats why they're more than likely going to be constantly tested and re-tested before entering services. have to admit I agree with you about the DART 8200s never understood why they were withdrawn so early.
How long has the man worked in Ireland and mispronounce Drogheda so awfully. He should've done a better job at actually specifying the battery from the individual cells' voltage, C rate, cycle life and capacity total kWh, just saying it'll last 9yrs and an 80km range is not enough info.
