Dublin’s Heuston Station, February 2003.

Here are a few photos from a roll of 35mm B&W film that for all intents and purposes has never seen the light of day until now. Why? Back when I exposed them, the trains pictured were the most mundane-sort to be seen in Ireland. Really, it was just the routine parade of passenger trains that arrived and departed Dublin’s Heuston Station every day. The light wasn’t especially good, and at the time I was primarily experimenting with my Nikons using some telephoto lenses. I was just playing around, and I didn’t deem the pictures sufficiently interesting to print. After processing, they went directly into the file without second thought. I came across them only today while searching for some views I made in Dublin on Christmas Day 1999 for use as a Christmas card. In the interval, over the last ten years, the Irish Rail passenger scene in Ireland has completely changed, so what were dull and routine now look pretty interesting to my eye. I’ve scanned some choice images on my Epson V600 for presentation here.

Looking toward platforms 6, 7, and 8—opened in September 2002—with the Heuston Station headhouse making for a distant backdrop in this February 2003 view. I was playing with a Tokina 400mm f5.6 lens fitted to my Nikon N90S (equivalent to the F90X sold in Europe and Japan).
The Guinness sidings west of Heuston Station were used to load kegs of beer from the St. James Gate Brewery. This traffic left the railway in 2006, and today beer is road-hauled around the country. These sidings are now used to store passenger trains and per-way (maintenance of way) equipment.
Irish Rail 2700-series DMUS
Irish Rail’s 2700-series diesel multiple-units were built by Alstom and delivered in 1999. In recent years they largely worked branch line services in the west of Ireland, but back in 2003 some were assigned to Dublin suburban service. This entire class of equipment was withdrawn in mid-2012 and is now stored out of service.
Irish Rail class 201 diesel
Irish Rail class 201 number 213 leading Mark3 carriages on approach to Heuston Station in February 2003.
Class 141 number 154.
This is one of my only images of Irish Rail 154 at work. While I have thousands of images of the 141 class ‘Bo-Bos’, old 154 was among the most elusive. I’m glad I captured it this day working as the Heuston pilot, seen here shunting Mark II carriages toward the station platforms.
Irish Rail 202 departs platform 8 in a cloud of its own exhaust. 400mm view.
Irish Rail’s General Motors-built Class 201 diesel-electrics were standard on most passenger intercity runs in 2003. Today, they are only used from Heuston passenger services with push-pull Mark IV trains to Cork. (However, they are also assigned to Dublin Connolly—Belfast Central Enterprise trains, and some freight services.)
Irish Rail’s General Motors-built 071 class diesel-electrics were still regularly used in passenger service; while most of these rugged locomotives remain in traffic in 2012, they are largely relegated to freight and per-way services.

My choice of film was Fuji Neopan 400, which I processed in Agfa Rodinal Special (not to be confused with ordinary Afga Rodinal) which was a highly active developer sold in liquid form, difficult to obtain  in the U.S. When working with this developer I tended to use a relatively dilute solution that allowed me a 3.5 minute development time with the film rated as recommended by the manufacturer.

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