National transport museum

R1. Leyland Titan

Back when buses were favored over trams, Leyland promoted their Titan bus range with the slogan ‘When you bury a tram, mark the spot with a Titan’. It worked; 220 of them replaced 330 Dublin trams from 1938-40.

P347. LeyLand Tiger

The real Celtic Tiger is alive and well in the Howth transport museum — where its throaty purr can be heard regularly as it revs up before heading off to appear in yet another movie.

438. AEC Regent.

Introduced in 1929, and designed by the famous J.G. Rackham, the AEC Regent double-deck and single-deck buses became particularly well known in Ireland as they plied their routes around the countryside

D44. Atlantean

It was the Atlantean that saw off the front-engined double-decker, and while CIE were initially unimpressed with the new concept, it wasn’t long before they ordered a massive 341 of them — all of which were assembled in Dublin

Bedford School bus. EZL 1.

Bedford "Bus Scoile" SS1, 1967 to 1990. This bus was the first of 770 built following the introduction of free school transport from 1967. Being the prototype, it was built by CIE at Spa Road Works in Inchicore. The other 769 were built by various builders for CIE, including McCairns of Santry and three vehicle builders in Dundalk, McArdles, Duffys and Murphys. Familiar to hundreds of thousands of school children and adults throughout the country, these vehicles played a significant role in the nation's educational, transport and social development. SS1, currently on display in the Museum, is therefore of major historical and cultural importance. It was presented to the Museum in 1990 and restored by museum personnel in 2008.

Bombardier. GSI 353.

C.I.É/Bus Átha Cliath/Dublin Bus, 1983 to 2000. This is one of the most recent additions to the Museum collection and its significance is the fact that this was the final design of double decker bus built in the Republic of Ireland and unique to Ireland, although one was sent to Baghdad as a demonstrator. Altogether, 366 KDs were built in Shannon, Co. Clare. KD353 was allocated to Donnybrook garage and this type also went in to service in Cork, Limerick and Galway. The original colour scheme introduced by CIÉ had a thin black stripe separating the two shades of green, later changed to a reflective orange stripe by Bus Átha Cliath on its formation in 1987. It is powered by a Detroit Diesel 6V.71 two stroke engine with a very distinctive sound and is also on display in Howth

GNR Gardiner 390

The Great Northern Railway operated its first buses in 1929 and over the succeeding years built up a feet which in the mid-thirties settled down at a strength of about 160 vehicles. The GNR's operating territory lay roughly north of a line between Dublin and Sligo, an area containing more than its fair share of very bad roads. The AEC, Albion, Dennis and Leyland buses operated by the GNR were all more or less satisfactory However, they were not quite what the company s engineer, who worked to the most exacting standards considered ideal. There was also the reduction in punitive import
taxes on vehicles and parts, making Irish manufacture and assembly an attractive proposition. Finally, employment at the famous Dundalk Railway Works would be expanded