Throwback Thursday (399)
This week we are going back fourteen years to 2009, and to VT 33 in Skerries on route 33X. Route 33X was an Xpresso route that started operating between Skerries and Dublin city centre (later UCD) around 2000. It was not a long-lived route and ceased to operate in 2002. It then made a return in 2007, using the M1 motorway from Lissenhall (north of Swords) and the Dublin Port Tunnel. When it came back it was not a very frequent route, with one departure in each direction, Monday - Friday. That changed in August 2009, when part of the viaduct at Malahide Estuary collapsed, and the railway line into Dublin from Drogheda / Belfast was closed. An emergency timetable saw a 33X running nearly every ten minutes in the mornings and evenings, with some during the day too. When the railway line reopened in November 2009, the 33X retained a good service frequency and today in 2023 it has about five return trips eeach weekday. 2009 also saw the evening departures from the city operate to Balbriggan (as the buses went via Balbriggan from Skerries to access the motorway on their return trips to the garage). As part of the expansion in services during the railway line closure, nearly every Dublin Bus garage provided buses to operate these services. This is how a tri-axle VT that was normally found on the Blanchardstown / Lucan routes ended up in north County Dublin. VTs became very common on the 33X for a while. VT 33 in this pictures was actually working into Dublin and not to Skerries as the destination suggests.
VT 33 was new to Dublin Bus in 2007. Originally allocated to Phibsoro Garage, in 2010 VT 21 - 35 moved to Donnybrook Garage as part of Network Direct changes to routes 46A and 145. VT 33 was withdrawn from service around December 2021.
14/09/2009
Throwback Thursday (399)
This week we are going back fourteen years to 2009, and to VT 33 in Skerries on route 33X. Route 33X was an Xpresso route that started operating between Skerries and Dublin city centre (later UCD) around 2000. It was not a long-lived route and ceased to operate in 2002. It then made a return in 2007, using the M1 motorway from Lissenhall (north of Swords) and the Dublin Port Tunnel. When it came back it was not a very frequent route, with one departure in each direction, Monday - Friday. That changed in August 2009, when part of the viaduct at Malahide Estuary collapsed, and the railway line into Dublin from Drogheda / Belfast was closed. An emergency timetable saw a 33X running nearly every ten minutes in the mornings and evenings, with some during the day too. When the railway line reopened in November 2009, the 33X retained a good service frequency and today in 2023 it has about five return trips eeach weekday. 2009 also saw the evening departures from the city operate to Balbriggan (as the buses went via Balbriggan from Skerries to access the motorway on their return trips to the garage). As part of the expansion in services during the railway line closure, nearly every Dublin Bus garage provided buses to operate these services. This is how a tri-axle VT that was normally found on the Blanchardstown / Lucan routes ended up in north County Dublin. VTs became very common on the 33X for a while. VT 33 in this pictures was actually working into Dublin and not to Skerries as the destination suggests.
VT 33 was new to Dublin Bus in 2007. Originally allocated to Phibsoro Garage, in 2010 VT 21 - 35 moved to Donnybrook Garage as part of Network Direct changes to routes 46A and 145. VT 33 was withdrawn from service around December 2021.
14/09/2009