ONE IN TWELVE – New Old Bus

To celebrate the 12th anniversary of the founding of the site, every day during November I’ll be bringing you one of my favourite photos from the past 12 years.

Today we look at a Cork KC with a surprisingly young registration.

As always, you can click on this picture for the fullsize version.

KC169 was the last of the 848 K-family buses to enter service

The entry into service of the very last of the K-family of buses, GAC city bus KC169, did not happen until 1992, by which time the bus itself was 7 years old. Originally delivered with a UZG registration, the KC gained a 1992 plate on finally entering service, following years stored and cannabalised at Capwell depot.

Sadly, the modern registration did not prevent KC169 from being withdrawn along with the rest of Cork’s KCs at the start of this decade.

KC169 was a regular on the 14 in Cork for a long time, and it is seen thus employed on a wet Wednesday afternoon in Patrick Street.

AV167’s de-roofing (in 2001)

FROM THE ARCHIVE: After only a couple of months in service, AV167 was deroofed in a low bridge accident in May 2001.

Above: a rear view of Dublin Bus Volvo B7TL/Alexander ALX400 AV167 awaiting repair following a low bridge accident in May 2001. Nobody was injured in the incident, despite the fact that the bus was in service on route 19A at the time.

The bus driver became lost while on diversion off the normal line of route due to the St. Patrick’s Day parade, which was taking place in May having been cancelled in March due to Foot & Mouth restrictions. I can’t remember which exact bridge was responsible, either Sandwith Street or Macken Street is possible, as the route had been diverted via Merrion Square South and Clare Street.

AV167 was more or less brand new at the time, having been delivered and put into service early in 2001 (despite the 00 registration). It was based at Broadstone, and worked the 19/A along with the other AV160s.

AV167 was off service for almost a year, but eventually returned to traffic and can now be found at Harristown, working various routes, including recently the 102.

The upstairs of the bus, showing how it had been stripped of seating and prepared for reconstruction.

This shot gives us an unusual opportunity to see the “double-skin” construction of the outside shell of the ALX400 body.

Were this accident to happen now, the bus would probably be converted to an open-top tour vehicle, but at the time there was no question of a brand new lowfloor bus not being put back into normal passenger service.

As a result of this accident, the company tightened up on the marking and supervision of diversion routes during big public events, and paid special attention to drivers who might not be familiar with the city.

AV7Xs repaint cycle

As Donnybrook’s early AVs go through their third repaint cycle, AllAboutBuses presents some “then and now” photos.

At Donnybrook Garage today, AV74 is undergoing body refurbishment as preperation for its slot in the regular three year repaint cycle. (click on any picture for fullsize version).

All panels are indspected and any damaged ones replaced, as well as any neccessary structural work or internal refurbishment. Delivered in October 2000 as part of the batch AV69-92 to Donnybrook, this is the third time through the cycle for this bus – first done in 2003, it just missed the start of the new livery programme, and was done again in 2005 to get into the new colours, now being due again.

AV71, done a couple of weeks ago, shows how the finished product looks after respray. This time round, although the colours stay the same, the new corporate branding is being applied, ditching the italitcs in favour of a cleaner, bolder look.

It doesn’t seem like 5 years ago that I took this shot of AV73 at Donnybrook, finished preperation and waiting to be driven to the contractor for it’s first cycle respray.

AV77 above, just back from its first respray in summer 2003, showing how smart the original “core” blue and cream looked.

At the same time that this batch of Donnybrook AVs were getting their first repaints, Dublin Bus were coming to move to a new corporate colour scheme, to replace the then existing Core, CitySwift and City Imp liveries.

Thirty one different variations had been designed on paper and rejected, but the thirty-second design looked promising, and AV76, which happened to be in for respray, was to be the bus which would get it in trial version.

It is seen above on its first day on the road in the new colours. Although it looks unremarkable now, its arrival at the time evoked a lot of comment and interest. There were to be a couple of other trial liveries, and AV76 itself went back to the painter to have the shade of light blue changed slightly, so it was 3 months before any other buses got the new “fleet standard” colours, and in the meantime more new buses (AV331-362) had been delivered in blue & cream and CitySwift liveries.

When full repaints to the new scheme commenced, Donnybrook’s AV134 was the first routine repaint, while RV412 was the first Olympian to wear the new colours.