Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 24 January 2024

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport

Capital Projects and Operations: Iarnród Éireann

Mr. Jim Meade:

Those new trains are going to create capacity to have more trains across the network and that allows us to add services. The other thing we are doing this year is that we have 41 new carriages for our existing trains coming in - what we call our intercity railcars, ICRs. We have ordered 41 of them. That will add capacity. They were originally for the greater Dublin area for commuter capacity. We will be spreading them across the network. We have a plan for where they will go. That may add some capacity to the Rosslare line, but the real relief will not come until we start adding more trains. Today, we have a live fleet of 629 vehicles across the network. We are adding 41 carriages to that. Then, we will start with the first new trains coming this year and they will be rolling out through 2025. We will, therefore, have 19 trains coming through in 2025. We will have a further 18 coming in 2026, all of which are five-car trains. All those trains will be added capacity. That will allow us then to cascade and put in bigger trains. It will allow us to take some of the trains that are on commuter routes now and put them on the likes of the Rosslare line and Waterford, Limerick, Sligo, Westport, etc. That is when the step change will come in late 2025-early 2026.

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