TONY MILES REPORTS ON IRISH RAIL’S CELEBRATION OF FLEET RELIABILITY
Delayed from April due to Covid-19, Iarnród Éireann held its ninth Golden Spanner Awards in early November, in a virtual event led by Chief Mechanical Engineer Peter Smyth and joined online by Modern Railways.
The awards reflected performance in 2019 and had been much anticipated during the extended wait. Whilst the Irish Spanners cover a wider number of categories than just fleet excellence, the first two awards emulate those handed out by Modern Railways to British operators for most reliable and most improved fleets.
For the most improved category, the highly commended award went to the Class 2800 DMU fleet based at Limerick with an improvement of 46,664km between Service Affecting Failures (SAF). The winner of the most improved fleet was the Class 2600 DMUs based at Cork, with an improvement of 97,697km between SAFs over 2018. Produced by the Tokyu Car Corporation, the fleet entered service in 1994, and on announcing the award Mr Smyth noted ‘no matter what approach we take with the scoring the Japanese fleets still win, and this is one of our oldest fleets’. With the company’s various Japanese-built fleets having scooped the awar…
