Irish Rail (IE) will purchase the additional coaches at a cost of €150m to extend Hyundai Rotem 22000 class InterCity DMUs. The coaches will enter service in 2021 and the longer trains will be used to increase capacity by 34% in the morning peak on the Kildare, Maynooth and Northern lines in Dublin.

The project will be overseen by the National Transport Authority (NTA) and funded as part of Project Ireland 2040.

This order is in addition to a tender launched earlier this year for up to 600 electric and battery-electric EMU cars to be supplied over 10 years to replace the Dublin Area Rapid Transit (Dart) fleet of 76 trains, which are nearing the end of their life.

“Public transport in Ireland is a success story, with the numbers of IE passengers increasing every year since 2013,” says Ms Anne Graham, NTA CEO. “However, this has led to capacity becoming a real issue, particularly on commuter services.”

“At a time when more and more commuters are switching to rail, this order of 41 additional carriages will bring a welcome boost in capacity for some of our busiest commuter routes,” says IE’s CEO, Mr Jim Meade. “We are set to break the 50 million passenger journey barrier for the first time ever in 2019.”

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