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Ardvarna wrote:

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Perhaps the point CR was making is that both locations were chosen because they were in the BMW region where the expenditure on their construction was drawn from the rail allocation attributed to the BMW regions using therefore BMW funds for what were intrinsically South and East needs.

I'm not sure I understand this point. Laois Traincare Depot now maintains all services on the Westport line bar a Friday and sunday service and all bar the 0915 service ex Galway therefore serving towns such as Castlebar, Claremorris, Roscommon, Athenry and the largest conurbation on the Western seaboard-Galway City. It also maintains the sligo line sets as does the other BMW located Depot at Drogheda which supplies the Ballina Branch set, and also extra capacity on Sligo services on Sundays when there aren't enough 22000s to work everything. Surely therefore both depots intrinsically meet the needs of the travelling public of the west of Ireland?

Portlaoise as a location for an Intercity Depot....Its a tough one to call. At the moment its very inefficent with the empty workings no question. However lets turn the clock back over a year and two empty trains worked from Heuston to Portlaoise to form the 0630 and 0720 to Heuston. Both these now form passenger services. As a MK3 the 0820 Westport sat in Heuston burning diesel until departure time, as an ICR the sets are better utilised and work in a trip up from Portlaoise carrying commuters in the morning and a 2215 return for late night passengers. This shows what can be done when the services to and from the depot carry passengers. At the moment from my observations theres a glut of trains in and out not really serving any passenger need effectively, I'd hope a much more spaced out service carrying passengers should be introduced in the new timetable. The current set up is a Dublin based timetable which has lingered on nearly 18 months rather than the usual 12 into which Laois Depot has kinda been thrust into from what I can see.

As for local employment. There are lots of people from the town employed in cleaning the trains whether that is I.E or contractors I'm not sure, in supplying services such as tools and facilities such as utility supply and maintenance as well as quite a few people from the Laois/Offally/Kildare area working in there that I know of working as Electricians, Shunters, Fitters and administration jobs I'm sure. No doubt some transferred from other I.E depots but from a friend of mine who attended a visit to the depot at the time of opening the were quite proud of having a young and skilled workforce with a mixture of existing and newly recruited staff.

If it gets a timetable that complements it Laois Depot could truely benefit the entire network and squeeze valuable extra revenue out of sets that have traditionally stabled in Heuston overnight and during the off peak during the day.