The Classic Irish Buses website

Ulster Transport Authority 1957 to 1961

Home    Email    North Midland Transport Collection    Links    COMPLETE SITE MENU    Henry’s Coastal Tours     Classic Buses Website     Morris Oxford car site

Northern Ireland menu: Belfast Corporation   Citybus   Leyland   Lough Swilly   Lough Swilly photos   NIRTB 1935 - 39   NIRTB 1940 - 48             UTA 1948 - 56   UTA 1957 - 61   UTA 1962 - 66   U'bus 1967 - 72   U'bus 1973 - 76   U'bus 1977 - 82   U'bus 1983 - 88   U'bus 1989 - 2006

With increased demands on the bus fleet as a result of railway closures, a total of 119 Leyland Tiger Cubs were bodied in Duncrue Street works and placed in service in 1956 and 1957. As these were entering service, 158 of the Leyland Tiger PS2s were stripped of their 34 seat bodywork and rebuilt as Titans, receiving new Metro Cammell framed highbridge bodies completed by the UTA. The 119 Tiger Cubs had a total of 5,117 seats, while the 158 PS2s could have carried 5,358. In the place of this figure of 5,358, the company's new double deckers had now a total of 9,480 seats available. One curious thing about these PD2s is that Leyland allocated large consecutive blocks of chassis numbers, related to the age of the original Tigers, but for some unknown reason number 497119 was never used. PS2 C8851 was destroyed in Dungiven in 1957, so perhaps this bus (or one other which might have been retained to replace it) might have been intended as the source of the mechanical units for the missing bus. It was not quite the end of the road for the Tiger bodywork either, as seven of them were sold to Lough Swilly in 1956 for rebodying of three Leyland PS1s and four AEC Regals. As such they ran alongside seven PS2s which had been bodied for Lough Swilly by the UTA in 1949 and 1950, probably the only example where the UTA supplied new buses to another operator.

During 1957, the Enniskillen based eight strong fleet of Cassidy's Erne Bus Service was taken over by the UTA, the company having escaped the mass takeovers of the 1930s because it operated in both Northern Ireland and the Republic. The oldest bus acquired was a 1932 Leyland LT4, new to the Irish Omnibus Company in Dublin. The Erne services centred around Carrigallen in Co. Leitrim passed to a new Erne Bus Service, run by a former employee of Cassidy's by the name of Maguire, and survived in business until 1973, when it too was taken over, in that instance by CIE. Co-incidentally though, the UTA was later to sell six former NIRTB half cab saloons to Maguire in the mid 1960s. A further one off vehicle in 1957 was a Beadle-Commer TS3, which was to see eleven years service.

By the end of 1958, the programme for rebuilding of the Tigers had been completed, and 1959 was to bring another bus design into the fleet. Again using the idea of MCCW framing, the UTA constructed 142 full fronted forward entrance buses on the larger Leyland PD3 Titan, these entering service during the period 1959 to 1963. The PD3s introduced a new livery of lighter green below the windows on both decks, with the rest of the bus in an ivory colour. The single deck fleet was to become more varied, with the arrival in 1960 of 58 Albion Aberdonian buses with UTA completed bodies on Alexander frames. 1960 also saw the introduction of the first new AECs since 1946, with the arrival of two Plaxton Panorama bodied Reliance coaches. Like the PD3s, these also introduced a new livery for coaches of dark and light blue.

In 1961, three 20 seat Austin buses entered service, followed by a second pair of Plaxton bodied Reliance coaches. The 1961 batch of 45 PD3s included six fitted with power steering, intended for use on the Derry City Services, unusual in that with the low gates in the city walls, it was more common to find single deckers on these routes instead.

1957

1958

1959

1960

1961

Home    Email    North Midland Transport Collection    Links    COMPLETE SITE MENU    Henry’s Coastal Tours     Classic Buses Website     Morris Oxford car site

SB