Bid to Beef up Dublin link.

By Robin Morton, Business Correspondent
rmorton@belfasttelegraph.co.uk
21 February 2005

Translink and Irish Rail are in talks over a multi-million pound deal to provide new trains to strenghten the Belfast-Dublin rail service, it was disclosed today.

The two companies are in discussion with HSBC Rail in Britain over the acquisition of up to seven additional train sets which are surplus to requirements there.
The high-speed Meridian trains, built for a proposed new train service from London to Leeds, were priced at £220m when new.

The extra capacity they would provide would enable Translink and IR to realise their ambition of making the Enterprise an hourly service.
But the business case would need to be proved and the investment would have to be approved by governments north and south.

The diesel-powered nine-carriage Meridian units were built by Bombardier in 2003 for HSBC's rolling stock division.
They were to be leased to train operator Midland Mainline, but its plans to develop a new service from St Pancras in London were rejected by the Strategic Rail Authority.
The Meridians are in store in sidings in England, and HSBC says it will look at any reasonable offer for them.

Mal McGreevy, Translink's general manager (rail), said the company was developing a business case with IE for the development of an hourly service.
He said HSBC had offered a very good deal which included the Meridians being converted to run in Ireland.
But he stressed that this was just one of a number of options under consideration by the two companies in their review of the Enterprise service.

Two scenarios have been developed for the potential Meridian deal. One is to acquire four sets to augment the present service, which uses French-built carriages which date from 1997.
The second is to secure all seven of the Meridian trains and replace the existing rolling stock.
According to Rail, a specialist magazine, HSBC has offered to lease the Meridians to NIR and IE rather than selling them outright.

The trains would have to be converted to the broader Irish gauge, but this would not pose insuperable difficulties.
The present Enterprise, which is a joint operation between NIR and Irish Rail, has suffered periodically from reliability problems.

At present, eight services operate each way on weekdays, but there are significant gaps in the timetable.
Translink is taking delivery of 23 new Spanish-built train sets but these are all committed to the NIR network.
HSBC had no comment to make, but it is understood the company is exploring a range of uses for the trains.