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Coras Iompair Eireann 1967 to 1970

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Having commenced the building of its first Leyland Atlanteans in late 1966, CIE’s Spa Road works continued with producing these buses in 1967, with the hot summer of that year bringing a problem with them. As built they featured forced air ventilation and sealed windows on both decks, but lack of air led to the design being revised to include eight windows with top slider vents (two per side, per deck), this being standard from D132 onwards, and being quickly fitted to the earlier buses. This would be the first of many modifications to be made to these buses during their lifetime. The late 1960s also saw the entry into service of the last 11 metre Leyland Leopards with the company, comprising ten C class coaches, ten Van Hool bodied ones and 40 with Plaxton coachwork, the first ten of the latter being the first large vehicles bought since 1949 which were not bodied in Ireland.

Greater developments in 1967 saw an unexpected reprieve and return to service for several of the half cab AEC Regals and Leyland Tigers, while a further 38 Leyland PS1s and 12 Leyland PS2s were acquired from the newly formed Ulsterbus (the first time that used buses had been imported by CIE). This was to meet the need for a new free school transport scheme introduced by the Minister for Education during that year, and funding was also provided for a fleet of Bedford VAS5 and SB5 school buses. Once these entered service in sufficient numbers, the half cabs were withdrawn again. These Bedfords introduced yet another livery (yellow and white) to the increasingly colourful fleet. Due to Spa Road works being heavily involved with Atlantean production at the time, just one Bedford VAS5 was assembled there, and the remainder of the first 100 schoolbuses were assembled by three coachbuilders in Dundalk, all to the same design. Being short of service buses around 1970, a number of SS class buses spent their first months as red and cream service buses, their return to the school transport fleet being effected by the introduction of the next batch of Leyland Leopards. The first of 78 Ford Transit minibuses also arrived in 1968, and most of these lasted until the early 1980s on school runs, several of them achieving 13 or 14 years service.

Driver only operation, which had been introduced to the single deck fleet some years earlier, was planned for the Atlanteans from 1969, and the body design on these buses was altered to dual door 74 seat layout in line with this. However trade union opposition to the idea delayed the changeover, and it would be a further 17 years before a CIE decker would operate without a conductor. In a similar vein, an unusual bus strike occurred in Drogheda in 1968 (unusual in that it didn't occur in any other garage), when conductors refused to work on then recently arrived open platform R class Titans, their return to work being made possible by converting the said buses to platform doors.

The delivery of Atlanteans and Leopards in the 1970s co-incided with the ever worsening industrial relations problems in British Leyland, and this was to lead to some interesting rebuilds of these buses as the decade wore on.

Photos relating to the vehicles on this page can be viewed at these links:

CIE Tiger, Titan, Regent and Regal photos.

CIE Leopard, Atlantean and Bedford photos.

Further contributions are of course welcome, as are any corrections to the data below.

1967

1968

1969