Irish Explorer
June 2005
This is the story of two Irish breaks undertaken in 2005.
Christine, Rowan and I left home soon after seven on June 24th to cycle the seven miles to Bangor station and loaded our bikes on board the Virgin dmu. The door to the cycle stowage are was either locked or jammed but we were only travelling the one stop to the end of the line so we left them wedged in the vestibule. A party of young Japanese people spent the entire journey photographing each other. The ferry crossing on the Dublin Swift was smooth and uneventful and soon we were cycling from the port to Connolly station.
Class 141 locomotive number 155 was the station pilot, seen
here at the head of the Sligo train.
155 was detached and beetled off back to the shed. Apart from the two surviving
class 121 locomotives, the class 141s are the oldest locomotives on Iarnród
Éireann, built in 1962 by General Motors. Wikipedia
provides a good introduction to the Irish rail network and the locomotives
and stock we will encounter.
073 was the locomotive assigned to our 13:35 service to
Sligo,
similar in appearance to 155 but dating from 1976 and more than twice as powerful.
A DART unit can be seen behind 073.
Alongside our train is a Belfast service headed by 224, a
representative of the 34 strong class 201, dating from the mid nineties. These
locomotives have displaced the 071s from most Inter City services from Dublin
but are not permitted on the Sligo line.
This is the interior of our Mk IId coach, built by British Rail in 1972