Ireland's Operating Bus Museum

CITYBUS TIGER 2620 ARRIVES SAFELY IN CORK.
October 16, 2007. Citybus Tiger 2620, which is another superb machine, arrived safely at the depot today driven as usual by Barney Yourell with Stephen Payne following to provide backup. She drove superbly, apart from throwing a compressor belt, which Stephen replaced quickly.

There is one other Citybus Tiger to come, which will give us four, two Citybus and two Ulsterbus. We also will replace the starter motor in 340 next weekend. We do not know if we will get more Tigers or not as they are superb machines and we may decide to expand the fleet to ten machines. Ulsterbus machines are just like new and it would be a pity to scrap them. Views welcomed.

On the dual carriageway.

Approaching the depot.

A full view arriving at the depot.

Parked alongside three Leopards in our Ulsterbus depot.

Two Tigers and others!

Inside. Rather unusual seat arrangement.

Drivers Area.

FUTURE COLLECTIONS.
October 15, 2007. We have decided to add three good CVH's to our fleet. We would like to have four fully operational and in good condition. The new arrivals should be collected shortly. We have CVH 14, CVH 15 and CVH 19 at the moment and of these, CVH 15 is total scrap and just a shell without engine or gearbox or axle and which will be scrapped fully shortly. CVH 14 and CVH 19 are not bad but need parts and it may well be that the three new ones will be the survivors. We will see what they are like when they come in but they look good. We also have just got a very good BG, one of the very early Ulsterbus machines which will be a welcome addition. Those plus eleven Ulsterbus Bristol RE's are going to keep us very, very, busy.

ME AND THE SOUTH POLE!
October 14, 2007. To my regret I have not had time to get up the photos from the recent Ecuador trip as I am going to Cape Horn - I joke not - this week and will be away for a while. There is a steam railway down there, believe it or not, I think only twenty miles from the Cape! This in turn will mean photos from about twelve more railways so all I can say is that Christmas will be busy trying to get all the photos up. It takes much time and effort. With our moving the entire business to the depot in January it will be a little easier to devote time.

FIRST PHOTOS FROM ECUADOR.
September 28, 2007. Here are a few photos to whet your appetite and there are many more to follow. The steam was superb! We now have three serviceable steam engines out of seven and by the end of 2008 hope to have five.

The webmaster at his day job!!

Coming Out of Duran Station

Testing a new type of trackless train. It did not work!

Everyone had a great time!

RETURN FROM ECUADOR.
September 27, 2007. Finally back from Ecuador where the railway is still alive. We had three serviceable steam engines out and the photographs were fantastic. As I took some 3,000 photos it will be some time before all is sorted out but but should not take too long as I want to do it before I go back there next month.

MUSEUM PLANS FOR WINTER.
September 26, 2007. We have a lot of plans for the winter. First we plan to move permanently in there shortly from Tramore Road. Then we are putting in enhanced security consisting of recording cameras plus additions to the gate area. We are hoping to instal a powered sliding gate remotely operated.

In the interim we have cleared the base for the 1,200 square foot office building which will house all the administration. The maintenance shed should arrive shortly also.

As regards buses we are hopelessly behind in collection but shortly we expect a National, twelve RE's, maybe a CVH or two, a Titan, a few Leopards and Tigers and of course DF 454 accompanied by another D and ten to twenty KR's. That should be enough to be going on with! We will keep you posted.

A GREAT WORKING WEEK SO FAR.
August 22, 2007. We are getting great work done this week and have made a rather amazing discovery. Ross and Kenny and Stephen and Aaron are down.

We discovered that Bombardier have over engineered their KR's quite considerably and as can be seen from the attached photograph most of the supporting pillars are surplus to requirements and one pillar in the middle is all that is needed.

Interestingly Ross and Kenny then took for a drive and hit a horse and strangely the roof collapsed due to the impact. The following photographs shows the result! On investigating the horse it had six legs, also unusual - it had fourlegs in front and two behind - and the happy group had their photo taken as can be seen.

Definitely over engineered!.

After the Horse!

The Happy Group!

JIF 211 STARTED.
August 21, 2007. Another terribly sad accident, if not a very strange one occurred when we went to start 211 JIF our Murphy bodied Ford. It started on the button but the brakes were locked. Unfortunately it seemed to run over Michael and we have a photo of him in his last moments after been hit by the bus!So many people have been waiting for this day so here is the photo!

Why did Ross run over Michael?

76 C 248 MOVED.
August 20, 2007. We decided to use this bus, an ex Cork County Council Leyland National 1 also ex London Transport as LS 57. We are going to make her a temporary parts store as it is fully fitted with shelves. She actually started on the button after sitting for over a year and we moved her over near the office as the photo shows. The body desperately needs a wash and paint and we propose painting her in her original London Transport livery. Does anyone know the code for the paint?

A Bit shabby but we won't be long curing that!

FLEET LIST UPDATED.
August 18, 2007. The Fleet List has been updated and is believed to be correct as of now. No doubt someone will find errors and if they will let us know we will be grateful as it is very difficult to keep such a large file correct. Previous registrations of vehicles and previous history are always welcome. When I look at the list I can only be amazed at the way the collection has and is growing. If I told anyone five years ago that we would have this collection, the men in the white coats would have collected me.

TO VIEW THE FLEET Click on "OUR VEHICLES - Fleet List" on the menubar on the left.

Where do we go from here? Hard to tell. Certainly in the near future we expect six or seven more RE's and anything between twenty and sixty Tigers. We would like a few VR's as we have none of these. Anyone know who might donate a few? Apart from one more Nottingham Atlantean due shortly I would think we will not be getting any more of these as we have a pretty representative collection. Olympians will probably start figuring soon and we would like a fleet of twenty. We expect the usual addition of Leopards, Lynxes and Swifts although we will be getting more selective. We plan twenty to forty Lynxes. We will start on Dennis also, possibly during the next year.

What has frightened me is that I have been reading some of the recently published books on buses and we really have only a very small proportion, there are so many different variations of every model. A rough calculation indicates that in order to have a proper representation, up to say 1996, will require a collection of about one thousand buses! Think of that! I think our realistic space capacity is about 600 to 800 so I would think 800 will be as far as we will go and I would expect us to have that many in two to three years.

I would be very interested in the views of our readers as to what variations and models we should have. Our UK readers have a very valuable perspective which we do not have in Ireland. Likewise we would welcome comments from our Northern Ireland friends as to what we should aim at from that area. In particular we want to have a list of the twenty best Tigers. Can anyone help?

A SWIMMING WEEK AT THE MUSEUM.
August 17, 2007. Ross Aitken and Kenny Baird arrived today for a week at the museum and we are most grateful to them. The week is certainly going to go swimmingly to judge from the amount of rain we have. We were planning a swimming pool to provide water in case of fire but right but it looks like nature will do the job for us! We will keep you posted on the weeks work.

VISITING THE MUSEUM IN SEPTEMBER, OCTOBER AND NOVEMBER.
August 16, 2007. Please note that the museum will be unable to have visitors from September 1 to 24 and from October 16 to December 1 due to my working at the other end of the world. Other than that we always welcome people but do please let us know that you are coming.

ANOTHER GREAT WORKING WEEKEND AT THE MUSEUM AND THE CASE OF THE RELUCTANT KR.
August 12, 2007. We had another great working weekend at the museum with Stephen Payne and Aaron O'Donoghue.

We moved Brighton 12 and Fleetline 6965 down to the lower yard. We then cleared the space for the two further new offices arriving. Having done this we found we were a few feet short so we had to move KS 181. To say that she did not want to go anywhere was an understatement and she dug her wheels in, more or less literally, by adopting the simple expedient of pointing the two front wheels in opposite directions. Inspection revealed that she was missing the track rod on one side and the steering wheel in the cab did not seem connected to anything in particular, in that it spun round and round absolutely beautifully, without any effect on the wheels.

So we just got mad at her and told her to move or else and the Lothian towtruck was not long persuading her to move across the yard thus clearing the site for the offices. KS 181 is actually being scrapped as it is missing some small items such as an engine, not to mention an inside! However it has valuable glass and other spare parts. The following pictures of the memorable event were taken:

The operation underway! Left to right : Michael, Stephen and Aaron.

Lothian ready to pull. The left wheel pointing left is clearly visible and the other side had the right wheel pointing equally determined in the opposite direction. However she was no match for the Lothian and move, she did!

Stephen demonstrating that one should not pull reluctant KR's by the front crossmember as it may come off if both front wheels point in opposite directions: However he is holding our first KR spare part!

INTERESTING INFORMATION ON PLAXTON TIGER 86 C 1636 (NDW 146X).
August 11, 2007. I was privileged to visit Alan Clarke of Tredegar who is restoring sister ship NDW 147X. You may recall how we were puzzled in that 1636 in her original delivery photos had a Plaxton Supreme VI body yet now looked like a Supreme IV.

Alan solved the mystery. Apparently the windows were smashed in her after she arrived in Ireland and the owner - unkown at this stage - had a set of IV windows. Now Plaxton made the Supreme VI by inserting a horizontal panel along the side thereby reducing the depth of the windows to make a VI and what our friend did was remove this panel and hey, presto! the openings took IV windows perfectly. In my view, the VI was an ugly body anyhow. When we looked at 1636 this weekend it was clear that she was a Supreme VI and all the original panel fittings were there. So that solves an apparent mystery.

Now can anyone throw any light on who might have done the modification or even her history while in the UK or Ireland?

CHANGES TO WEBSITE.
August 6, 2007. The website is once again getting unwieldy. In an effort to deal with this problem the railways section will be split off entirely. A new website www.railwayinternational.com has been formed and gradually all railway items will go over to this. First to go in will be Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand to be followed by Ecuador.

Recognising that people have different interests the bus section on this site is being re-organised. MUSEUM BUSES is now a main section with sub headings for Museum happenings during the year listed chronologically. Then comes New Arrivals which will cover chronologically the arrival of buses in the museum.
We are then going to try sections for each of the main fleets as many people are only interested in one or more types. Our current fleets of size (over five vehicles of type) are currently Bedford, Bristol RE, Ford, Leyland Atlantean, Leyland Leopard, Leyland National and Leyland Tiger. Each section will have news devoted to that model. A problem arises with Ulsterbus and we have decided as the Ulsterbus fleet is so large to keep all news relative to its vehicles together. This fleet could approach between fifty and one hundred vehicles shortly.

It will take a short while to make the changes but in the meantime everything is there - if you can find it! It is always a major problem with a large website such as ours to try and make material easily accessible. There is no simple answer and in most cases it simply evolves. We hope readers will like the changes.

KEN DUFFY, DF 454 AND MY LOGIC.
August 5, 2007. Ken Duffy - assuming that is his real name - has raised a number of points - which as usual I do not agree with - but nevertheless need reply and this follows.

First his letter verbatim:

what i have seen is not nice first brian was only asking question instead he was attacked . what i see kells transport museum should stop attacking bus eireann it,s all because of kells transport museum that bus eireann came in with the new rules for scrap buses . joe and others at bus eireann are only following the rules of the board of cie, and that kells transport stop attacking them , kells transport museum has made worse for others in perservation who do fine job in perservation getting buses ready for shows . if kells transport loose i wood not be surpised if bus eireann will look for scraping order after case on 454 to do away with the buses that are there know on his site . i was passing l.c kd 156 still parked up kd184 for get that bus plus 711 gone . what i see kells transport museum is trying grab as many buses and leave nothing for others they should stop buying and start building this all i will say on this matter i whanted to get of my chest who supports i am write

My reply is as follows:

Ken is obviously under a few delusions so let me get a few things straight.

1. The last tender - and probably a few before - were rigged, fixed, call it what you will, and no preservationist stood a chance.

2. If I do not take a stand then nobody has any chance in the future either.

3. Bus Eireann do not have the right to turn down €80,000 for buses and sell them for €1,500 with or without kickbacks. It is pure fraud - a fraud on the taxpayer.

4. I do not believe the Board either knew or sanctioned the fraud.

5. I bought DF 454 and paid €1,210 for DF454. Is Ken saying I am not entitled to have her, having paid for her with my very hard earned money? There is a little matter known as the law of contract.

6. In the Court case neither Joe Neiland nor anyone else on the Board or otherwise of Bus Eireann has backed Samantha Matthews. She either did it herself or has been hung out to dry.

7. Samantha Matthews reads this board on a regular basis so I invite her to give her side of the story. As long as I have known her she is not a liar and does not tell lies so if she wishes to say she had nothing to do with selling something for which she was offered €3,610 for €50 then I will believe her. That then will beg the question as to who did.

8. I extend the same invitation to Joe Neiland.But at the end of the day somebody has made the decision and I want to know who and will not stop until I find out. If Samantha is being wrongly blamed while others cower and hide then they are pure and simple bastards to allow her to be hung out to dry.They are the sort of people that would be afraid to cross the road in front of my car in case they might show they had guts!

9. To make matters worse it now appears that someone in Bus Eireann called Erin Recyclers and blackmailed them into taking a course of action which they had no desire to take. I will find out who and when I do they will be very, very sorry. The court had made an order and someone in Bus Eireann deliberately went out of their way to make the court order meaningless. So who did?

10. It is my intention to make sure the next tender is open, fair and preservationists will get a fair shake. Is there something wrong with this? One thing is sure. If this was allowed to continue they would never get a bus again.

11. As regards a comment to go on radio and TV, yes. Not alone that but I am writing every paper, every TD, every County Councillor, in fact everyone who can help. You just watch!

12. I ask a further question. Do Bus Eireann have the right to spend €250,000 of the taxpayers money to fight to have this bus scrapped? I say, no, and that that would be a further fraud on the taxpayer. What have they to gain? What is the point?

13. Do philistine bastards have the right to destroy our heritage. Again I say no. The foreigner never conquered us. We always did it ourselves to perfection and this case proves the point.

I welcome further discussion as so far nobody seems to agree with me. Lets hear from other preservationists in particular or is everyone afraid to stand up and be counted? At least I cannot be accused of that!

Michael Grimes

RAILWAYS OF AUSTRALIA, TASMANIA, NEW ZEALAND AND ECUADOR PHOTOS.
August 5, 2007. At long last the photos of Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand railways are now uploaded and will be out on public view this week and, even though I say so myself, they are well worth waiting for. The Ecuador railway photos are updates and I plan a complete update of the entire railway in September when I plan a complete inspection. I will keep you informed.

ADVICE WANTED RE MAINTENANCE SHED.
August 5, 2007. We would very much appreciate some advice on the correct size for our maintenance shed. Our current plans are to allow ten feet for every bus and four feet either side which means there would be about 9 feet between buses. The question is whether or not this is enough. Does anyone know what is the optimum space for a maintenance garage between vehicles so that one can work easily? What is best practice? Equally the optimum length to allow for buses. We think 40 feet which at double length bays gives 80 feet for two vehicles, thereby fitting say an M and a BM, for example. Does a paint bay need more space?

NOT MUCH SUPPORT FOR SAVING DF 454.
August 3, 2007. I find it very interesting that there is a deafening silence on the discussion board about saving DF 454 and nobody seems to want to have it saved or is otherwise afraid to say so. I was expecting a lively discussion so it looks like, other than myself, that nobody cares. In my view there is something terribly wrong about a crowd, otherwise known as Bus Rireann, who are willing to spend over €100,000 of the taxpayers money to make sure she is scrapped. Somebody please tell me why because I cannot figure it out.

DF 454 SAFE - FOR THE MOMENT.
July 24, 2007. In the Cork Circuit Court yesterday July 23, 2007 in the case of Michael Grimes v Samantha Matthews, Joe Neiland and Bus Eireann, an Order was made adjourning the matter to at least October and that Bus Eireann were to preserve DF 454 while her fate is decided. This now gives us time to do something about the matter, which we will! But at least she is safe for now.

For the full history of the battle to save DF 454:

CLICK HERE FOR THE COURT PROCEEDINGS TO SAVE DF 454