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'Enterprise' is the name of the cross-border inter-city train service between Dublin Connolly in the Republic of Ireland and Belfast Central in Northern Ireland and is jointly operated by Iarnród Éireann (IE) and Northern Ireland Railways (NIR).

Contents

History

Rolling Stock

Advertising and promotion

Gallery

References

External links

History

The service was introduced as the "Enterprise Express" on August 11 1947 by the Great Northern Railway (Ireland) (GNR (I)) in an attempt to compete with air and road transport which were challenging the railways. In particular, business travel was and is seen as an important market. Customs checks were limited to the Belfast and Dublin terminals in order to reduce journey times by ensuring that journeys were non-stop, and advanced booking was available. The service proved a success and in October 1950 was extended beyond Dublin to Cork.
However this proved unsuccessful and the Cork link ceased in September 1953 when the Great Northern Railway Board (GNRB), a joint venture between the Dublin and Belfast governments, took over the services of the GNR (I). Its unpopularity may also have been due to the six and a half hour journey time.^[1]
On October 1 1958 the GNRB was dissolved and its assets and liabilities were split between Córas Iompair Éireann (CIE) and the Ulster Transport Authority (UTA) — the predecessors of the current operators, Iarnród Éireann (IE) and Northern Ireland Railways (NIR) respectively.
The service was upgraded in September 1997 with a new timetable and new coaching stock from French train makers De Dietrich Ferroviaire (now Alstom DDF)
The service has suffered disruption over the years, particularly during the Troubles, when it was regularly halted by bomb threats. These became so frequent and caused such considerable disruption to the service that a campaigning group, the Peace Train Organisation was formed in 1989. Since the Northern Ireland peace process, however, such disruption has diminished. Renewed investment in recent years has seen the line upgraded to continuously welded track capable of 145 km/h (90 mph) running along the southern part of the route, as part of Iarnród Éireann's rail network upgrades. However, these speeds are not reached on the northern part of the route.
Journey times vary between 1-hour 55-minutes (with one intermediate stop) and a more typical 2-hours 10-minutes (with four intermediate stops), an average speed of 95 and 84 km/h (59 and 52 mph) respectively. Many trains actually fail to meet this schedule, and journey times in excess of 2 hours and twenty minutes are common. This reduces the overall average speed to less than 48 mph, making the Enterprise one of the slowest inter-city trains in Europe.

Rolling Stock

Each Push-pull trainset consists of eight coaches and a 201 Class locomotive. Originally, the 28 coaches were delivered as four sets of seven, but entered service as three sets of eight. The coaches were manufactured by De Dietrich Ferroviaire and ownership is jointly shared between both operators, however coach maintenance is provided by NIR and the locomotives are maintained by IE. The service has had reliability issues with these locomotives, which provides head end power to the train. The stress this places on the engines has led to Enterprise-liveried 201s being swapped with non-Enterprise 201s in order to minimise wear from operating in this mode. As a consequence, two further 201 Class locomotives have been allocated to Enterprise

Class	Image	Type	Top speed		Number	Routes operated	Built
			mph	km/h
Class 201		diesel locomotive	102	164	6	Dublin - Belfast	1994 - 1995
De Dietrich stock		Passenger Rolling stock	90	145	28	Dublin - Belfast	1996

Advertising and promotion

Translink has regularly promoted the Enterprise service with a '2 for 1' offer to readers of the Northern Ireland editions of the Daily and Sunday Mirrors. In January 2006, this promotion was undertaken in conjunction with a comprehensive billboard advertising campaign in Belfast, Newry and Portadown railway stations. The slogan, "Depressurise, Capitalise, Economise, Socialise...Go Enterprise; premier rail travel to Dublin," was used to encourage wide groups of customers to use the Enterprise. Discounted Internet booking for the service is also periodically offered by Translink.

Gallery

References

1. A Regional History of Railways (Volume XVI, Ireland), J.W.P. Rowledge, 1995, ISBN 0-906899-63-X

External links

★ Iarnród Éireann page on the Enterprise

★ Northern Ireland Railways page on the Enterprise