Throwback Thursday (174)
It is 1998 and a low-emissions trial is taking place with Dublin Bus. The previous year saw five low-floor single-deckers delivered to Dublin Bus. These in themselves were a novelty as they represented some of the first wheel-chair accessible buses in the fleet. The W-Class minibuses were another example. VL 1-5 were operated out of Donnybrook Garage and were mostly confined to routes 1,2 and 3. Passengers could identify which services they were on by the departure times in the timetable being written in red.
VL 6 arrived in 1998, and unlike the other 5, used natural gas as a power source. The trial was run in conjunction with Bord Gáis and the bus was used in service on routes 1,2 and 3. Whereas the other VLs survived with Dublin Bus until 2009, this one left the fleet in 2000. 19 years later, in early-2019, a number of buses have been on trial in Dublin and Cork to test alternative fuels to diesel that could reduce emissions. At least one of these trial buses involved natural gas.
Route 2 was a shortened version of route 3, providing extra capacity on the southside and only going as far as Parnell Square on the northside. It was merged into the new route 1 under Network Direct in 2012. O'Connell Street, 09/05/1998
Throwback Thursday (174)
It is 1998 and a low-emissions trial is taking place with Dublin Bus. The previous year saw five low-floor single-deckers delivered to Dublin Bus. These in themselves were a novelty as they represented some of the first wheel-chair accessible buses in the fleet. The W-Class minibuses were another example. VL 1-5 were operated out of Donnybrook Garage and were mostly confined to routes 1,2 and 3. Passengers could identify which services they were on by the departure times in the timetable being written in red.
VL 6 arrived in 1998, and unlike the other 5, used natural gas as a power source. The trial was run in conjunction with Bord Gáis and the bus was used in service on routes 1,2 and 3. Whereas the other VLs survived with Dublin Bus until 2009, this one left the fleet in 2000. 19 years later, in early-2019, a number of buses have been on trial in Dublin and Cork to test alternative fuels to diesel that could reduce emissions. At least one of these trial buses involved natural gas.
Route 2 was a shortened version of route 3, providing extra capacity on the southside and only going as far as Parnell Square on the northside. It was merged into the new route 1 under Network Direct in 2012. O'Connell Street, 09/05/1998