Iarnród Éireann (Irish Rail) has ordered 68 new infrastructure maintenance wagons from UK manufacturer W.H. Davis, in a deal valued at approximately €23 million, as it moves to renew an ageing engineering fleet dating back more than half a century.
The wagons will be built at W.H. Davis’s manufacturing facility in Nottinghamshire and will be used to transport rails, sleepers and track panels across the rail network in Ireland. Designed with a tare weight of around 18–20 tonnes, each wagon will offer a payload capacity of roughly 60 tonnes, representing a 33 per cent increase over the LX and LP wagons currently in service.
Speaking at the contract signing, Éamonn Ballance, Infrastructure Director at Irish Rail, said:
“This order for maintenance wagons will ensure the sustainability of our maintenance program for generations to come and guarantee the efficiency and reliability that my teams working across the network need to keep the infrastructure safe and well maintained.”
More than 50 years old
Irish Rail maintains around 2,400 kilometres of track and carries out thousands of hours of planned maintenance each year, including renewals and repairs. The new wagons will replace the existing fleet built at Dublin’s Inchicore Works more than 50 years ago, much of which is now approaching the end of its operational life.
The order follows a previous purchase of 150 intermodal freight wagons placed with W.H. Davis in April last year under the same framework agreement. Prototypes from that earlier order are currently in production, with deliveries expected to begin in summer 2027 and entry into service later the same season.