New website & new mission

Oh no, they had a great product, with great Merc buses with a fast, clean & hassle free service. It was cheap too, gave them DAA boys a run & made them cut the price of leaving 4 tyres on a piece of gravel while you got a tan.
Now they've ruined it with the most awkward & padded website, with pages of useless information & to get around will require a Tom Tom sat nav.
For QuickPark have launched a new website, obviously one of those "off the shelf packages ", with a little tweaking of orange & green. All the prospective customer wants is the online booking, insert credit card number & give me the code, yet its a maze of boxes & " our mission ", more like mission impossible.
Ever heard of the say, if it ain't broken....
Have a look for yourself, just bring a map & a deck of cards, so you can play...patience

Rent-A-Bike or Rent-A-Ghost

Those " bike stations " are sprouting up literally everywhere around the city & some in the most bizarre of places, at traffic junctions, narrow streets & worst of all, at current revenue generating car parking spaces, have the city fathers lost all their lust for revenue generation ?.

Who ever pedalled this idea, its going to be uphill keeping the bikes as bikes as vandals strike in the dark.

Rent-a-bike could soon become Rent-a-ghost as the bikes vanish into thin air, or the canal.

On yer bike with this while idea....

Hardly an RV to Ardlea ?

Whats weird is wonderful.
Former Harristown RV 558, now part of the furniture at The Hill puts in some evening hours tonight on the 20B to Ardlea Road. A route normally operated religiously by flat pained AV 110 to 115, something different is some light relief.
Elusive hybrid WH 1 has also been seen on the evening peak shift, slightly greener that the 10 litre Volvo or is it.....

The Team Bus

Launched earlier in the week, here's the new Croker shuttle.

A cool add-on to the current Croke Park Museum, for 2 euros, this bus will take you from the heart of Dublin City Centre to Croke Park & back, all wrapped up. Since the demise of the 51A, there's no direct bus to Clonliffe Road ( out of breath after that remark ) & its a long walk from either Ballybough or Drumcondra interchange, especially for wandering tourists.

The allover wrap is very clever marketing, especially when comparing with the other recent " Cultur " bus which has been brushed under the carpet & buried.

Dualway Coaches have the contract, using their Volvo B7R coach with Jonckheere body, collecting from various CitySightseeing stops along Trinity, Nassau & St Stephens Green.

Ugly

This week " ugly " is back in the EU.
For the 1st July marked the return of the ugly vegetable & fruit, whether is was a curly cucumber, crooked carrot or mottled mushroom, as the EU stops interfering in nobbles & dangley bits.
Nevertheless, here at irishbuses.com, we value consistency, quality & only the ripest bus. You wont find topless tops, dirty rears or unwashed bodies, as we pick only the finest for our website.

Off the rails

OK, its not a bus & trains don't really rock my boat, but it was something that happened today & unusual.

I always wondered about the rails on the Alexandra Road, no matter if you were driving or cycling over them, they would send you into a wobble yet never seen them in action. Being in the right place at the right time this evening, the roar of the GM engine ( oops, maybe I am a train anorak after all ), was a chance to get a few shots of a train...on a road. Its weird being so close to a train & yet not in a station. No passengers carriages, but the freight wagons were grinding along as the bogie's screeched along the tracks.

What was once a thriving freight movement through the port seems to be a rare departure these days.

That's it, back to buses on the next blog.

Another quicky

Round two for the Routemaster
After being thwarted by the sun on the last photo shot, it was 2nd time lucky today getting up closer & personal with the QuickPark Routemaster.
The lime green decker is causing quite a stir, the reaction of passing cars along the Old Swords Road has everybody turning like a giraffe to look back at this bus sensation.
Is it the very large " P " or just the bus itself, 10 out of 10 for the person who came up with this idea of parking the bus on the lawn, maybe Dublin Bus could park a few of their buses outside the garage ?

The Comeback Kid

The Hybrid has been making a comeback over the past few weeks.
After a draining start or finish, the batteries are now charging & all those glitches are being ironed out with a few software & indeed hardware updates.
From its original plan on the 16, its been making guest appearances on the 20B & 41 lately, so its loosing its title as GHOST BUS.
Future orders ?, that's a highly charged flat no.

Would you like a drink with that ?

Tickets, wallet, passport, food...........gotcha

Then luxury travel to the Airport starts on the bus, rather than at the stop.

Suffolk Street, one of the last bastions of southside snobbery before the coach heads over the Liffey, surely one of the premier hubs, given its glued to Grafton Street is not exactly luxurious.

For the current Aircoach stop, seems to be more concerned with flammin burgers than a meal ticket to the Airport.

Still, the A4 sheet is gummed into the snazzy TrueFrom stop, just like they do on Blue Peter, I hope they got an adults permission when cutting the paper, as this is seriously kids stuff. To a prospective luxury client, its just one big Happy Meal.

Enjoy your meal, coz you made a meal of that stop.

Wheely different buses

You learn something everyday.
Not the keenest of Bus Eireann's intimate operations, most things generally go unnoticed. The arrival of the VDL's last year came & went without much fun fare, the only feature standing out was the late arrival of the first batch of these LC class, namely LC 1 to 5, which featured a different wheelchair ramp arrangement, with "cassette " type ramps built into the stairs, with the wheelchair area placed just aft of the door, similar to the thinking of the Wright Commuter. However, the effect of the wheelchair location has a profound effect of the front styling of the LC class, with completely different fronts on LC 1-5 versus the rest of the batch.

Its good to learn & even better to get a photo of the difference.

Could they be a Red Setter Mongrel ?

A swish on Dawson Street

Its definitely a conspiracy, Bus Eireann are trying to grab all the Dublin Bus passengers.
From Custom House Quay, Wilton Terrace & now touting on Dawson Street, with their snazzy X rated routes, swishy swishes & INFORMATION bus stops, they are out fishing for customers. Is Ireland not big enough that they have to take over the Capital too.
VG 9 ( my gaud, even the same fleet numbers are Dublin Bus ) sweeps up a few unsuspecting customers on the enhanced 100X service from Dublin to Dundalk.

Lotto coverage

There's a new mega cycle on the go, as as the city fleet can appear drab in its monopoly of core colours, the mega rears can bring some life & variety, even if it is as the bus flies by.

Some ads while trying to promote their brand seem to do the opposite & promote the personality !

Derek bloody Mooney, hot on the heels of his tits, the blue tits that is & all that nest box fiasco, is scratching his way to bigger & better things, promoting the lotto's latest " Big Money ".

Lets just hope this scratch card isn't a red card & not the bat out of hell & into the nest box.

On the rack

What a complicated piece of bus infrastructure.
It looks more like a BBQ & with this weather, perhaps it could be unscrewed & plonked in a backgarden. Grubs up

Has the horse bolted

No sign of the Victorian Carriage Company this year so far. As the summer races have kicked off, there's no sign of the horses or their carriage along Stephens Green, nor the obligatory deposits along the circular track of the tour.
Was it another victim of the Celtic Tiger, when all sorts of weird & wonderful business idea's just hit the wall as the recession took hold.
The tour market has become very saturated, let alone the two big boys slogging it out with their open toppers & then the rock tour's tri axle pounding its way around, was the funeral speed tour really on its death bed last year ?.
Its only when something is gone that it will be missed, along with the missed opportunity to ride horseback on the streets of Dublin.

Coastal tour on coastal route

Whats this, another photo of a coastal bus, is there a conspiracy here.
Well, it is a different bus to yesterdays adventures at Malahide Castle. This time its newly sprayed Donnybrook AX 542 recently given the two tone green livery, hot on the heels of similar AX 545 in Wedding bus livery, humm, looks like 543 & 544 could be next, but that's just a conspiracy theory.
AX 542 is seen operating long haul route 84 to Newcastle. Ever been on an 84, it just seems to go forever, its like getting the bus to Galway, you reach Athlone & you think your over the hill, but its another uncomfortable stretch, Bray being the marker for the 84. Still it gets awfully posh down at Greystones & then as you pass through Kilcoole, you start reminiscing about Biddy & Miley, after all these years.

Blending into its surroundings, Donnybrooks AV 398 is parked up on the Coast & Castle tour at Malahide earlier today. The latest Coastal/ City livery restores the original two tone green livery originally devised for the KC/KD fleet & while Dublin Bus originally tried to shake off the poor perception of these colours, Dublin always should have had a green themed bus.
AV 398 is a daily visitor to Malahide Castle both for the morning & afternoon tours

Strike that

A coke view of Dublin.

Was there a strike on that day as there isn't one Dublin Bus, nor Aircoach or even a red setter in the picture, yet room for not one but two Darts, ever see two together ? There's not even a RED citysightseeing bus, so corporate ideals have really gone out the window & probably into the Liffey.

Its not easy squeezing everything in, yet public transport & coke don't seem to gel in this campaign.

There is also another serious flaw, have you ever seen the River Liffey an ocean blue colour.

Open happiness, just not on a bus with a can of coke.

Irish summer

The weather was back to normal yesterday, Irish style, at least it gave the buses a good wash.

Wasn't much to see out of them with the windows all steamed up, then again, nothing out there to look at apart from wind & rain.

It kept most indoors & roads all clear.

GreenPark

Just time for a QUICK photo.
Quickpark have recently parked their Routemaster ( ZV 36920 ) at their front entrance on the Old Swords Road.
While the corporate green seems to suit their snazzy Mercedes Citaro's, the green seemed very tacky on the Routemaster which had been languishing over at the pay points in the car park.
Still, the large " P " & new location, its QUICKly found its calling, in the new cut troat long term parking industry, with both Quicky & the DAA slogging it out by dropping prices & offering other discounts such as yearly spaces & weekender rates.
Now all we have to do its QUICKly chop down those traffic poles which ruined this QUICKly snapped photo.

a gaff or really golf

Its great to have a few cúpla focail but here's a word I never learned in Irish class...Galf.
Was it because northsiders never really played golf as a hobby, that the only club we had was Tamango's or perhaps golf was only for old people.
Still, its good to be learning new words everyday & new destinations too. I wonder where GALF is....

The fever is spreading

Forget that swine fever, its election fever & its spreading to every bus literally.
Hot on the bus wheels of the blog yesterday with the Patton Flyer, it seems another bus operator is going to the ballot box, this time Eugene Finnegan of Finnegan's Bray.
Eugene is also on the independent ticket & is looking for a Bray seat.
Still, if he fails to get elected, he's plenty of seats on his Southern Cross route.

A Patton Flyer....literally

How's about this for The Patton Flyer.
Its the boss himself, Trevor. He's been sort of elusive from day one, it was always a well kept Dalkey secret to call his new Airport to Dalkey run " The Patton Flyer " rather than the usual bus friendly names. Can you blame Trev for being elusive though, he's been at the front bumper of criticism from every critic in the transport game over not having a licence, every party taking a pop except the customers using the service. Have you seen the Patton Flyer lately, he really didn't need tinted windows to cover up any empty seats as the coaches are usually full.
Now Trev is going for the top job in the Dun Laoghaire ward & to quote a certain flyer on the issue...." if you can't beat them, join them- then beat them ".