Copyright Brendan Smith

CIE (Coras Iompair Eirann)
1959/60
Leyland Titan PD3/2
CIE H41/33R

Seen in the dark blue and cream livery introduced for double-deckers in 1961, RA62 shows the final version of the CIE double-deck body, which is said to have been originally influenced by the prewar Leyland bodies supplied to Dublin United Tramways. The body design certainly had character, but was beginning to look dated by 1959, with its six-and-a-half bay construction, and Thomas Tilling-style three window arrangement at the front of the upper deck. Originally, the RAs were fitted with one-piece destination displays, but on overhaul the class later received the three aperture layout modelled here by RA62. The Titan PD3/2 chassis had semi-automatic transmission – and air brakes, whose fading characteristics have been so well described elsewhere on this website. Maybe the CIE versions had a holy statue in the cab as a back up system in case of emergency. Even then, the statue would probably have covered its eyes with its hands….

Photograph and Copy contributed by Brendan Smith

17/04/13 – 07:24

The "pseudo Birmingham" livery. Very nice!

Pete Davies

18/04/13 – 07:34

It has hitherto been my understanding that CIE double-deckers from this period had a position on the gear selector for fully automatic operation – or, at least, the ones used on Dublin City Services did, if that made a difference. Although the buses could theoretically be driven in semi or fully automatic mode, there was apparently a notice in the cab to the effect that drivers found selecting the gears manually (i.e. ‘semi’) would be dismissed.
This information came from a driver I once knew who had worked for CIE in Dublin.
Is it correct, do you know?

David Call

18/04/13 – 08:19

What an interesting question about the transmission! When I first moved to Southampton in 1970, I was working with a fellow who was in his last few months of work before retiring. He had a "mid 60’s" car which had the usual three pedals, but he hardly ever used the clutch, saying that his car had this same arrangement as David reports. He’d slip the car into that gear and move off. It was a Wolseley of some sort, if I remember correctly.

Pete Davies

18/04/13 – 16:51

I wonder what the reasoning for that gear selection instruction was….During my time on London Transport (1975-1978 at New Cross and Walworth) I only ever drove manually in spite of the RMs, RMLs and DMSs having the same gear selection arrangement. I found that I could drive the buses more smoothly in manual, and it was useful when driving up steep hills with a full load of passengers (like Shooters Hill) to be able to keep the bus in the correct gear until the gradient lessened.

Norman Long

18/04/13 – 17:41

Not quite the same, Norman, because the vehicles were then becoming quite elderly, but the instruction – when I drove for Reading Mainline – was always to drive in semi-automatic mode.

David Oldfield

19/04/13 – 06:49

Wolseley, Pete… Didn’t the big ADO minis & even the originals have a sort of semi automatic box where you could choose to change or just drive… or am I imagining that…. very clunky & jerky… with a crude straight gate and change…?

Joe

20/04/13 – 11:47

Joe, I think the car my colleague had was getting on for the size of something like the Austin Princess, but not quite as big, certainly not one of the Mini, 1100, 1800 family.

Pete Davies

20/04/13 – 17:11

The 1800 "Land Crab" was a deceptively spacious car, predecessor to the atrocious Princess: like the Princess it had a 6 cylinder option but the Princess had a standard automatic box. The Wolseley versions had Wolseley names like 18/85.
Some of this generation did have a semi auto box, though, but I think only the Mini and 1100- so it could have been a Wolseley 1300? These cars seemed big!
Googling seems to confirm.

Joe

20/04/13 – 17:13

A Wolseley 6 maybe?

Stephen Ford

20/04/13 – 18:18

Atrocious is the perfect description of the Princess – a company I worked for foisted one on me which I refused to use and was very happy to have exchanged for a second hand Cortina. BL gave the Princess a sex change and brought out the Ambassador, just as bad and equally loathed.
The 1100 and 1300 were a breed apart from their larger outgrowths which were, the original 1800 apart, appalling.

Phil Blinkhorn

21/04/13 – 08:01

Sorry, Joe. I can’t have expressed it properly. The Princess I had in mind was not the item which I have seen described as a sewage farm on wheels. From looking at Wikipedia, my guess is that my colleague’s beast was the Westminster, with Wolseley badges.

Pete Davies

21/04/13 – 09:56

Consensus has it that the 1100/1300 and "land-crab" 1800/2200 were essentially good cars – if a little bit underfunded on R & D or quality. One disgraceful aspect of English manufacturers at that time – especially BMC and Rootes – was badge engineering, but they also recycled model names. The Austin Princess was an honourable name by a fine (traditional) manufacturer. [Again, don’t confuse the real Austin/Morris et al with their shadowy and shady British Leyland personas.] The BLMC Princess was not the same beast.

David Oldfield

21/04/13 – 11:12

In 1966 when I was 19 I was employed as a management trainee for a major UK company. One of our jobs was to "sub" for area reps if they were ill or on holiday. Our South London, Kent and Sussex rep had a stay in hospital and I was sent from Manchester to sub for him. I travelled in my upright Ford Popular which I expected to use for the duration of my stay and did for the first few weeks.
When the rep came out of hospital he had a six week convalescence and during the last two weeks he came around with me instead of "being bored at home". He couldn’t drive until signed off but gave me the keys to his car. Our reps could have a company car or use their own which was covered by the company insurance. For two weeks I had the great pleasure of driving a 4 litre Princess R around the South East. Vanden Plas body, Rolls Royce engine and BMC engineering at its best!

Phil Blinkhorn

22/04/13 – 07:53

A coach operator friend of mine in Sheffield also ran private hire taxis and wedding cars for a while. [He "did" one of my brothers’ wedding.] He had a RR Princess 4 litre. Apparently the engine was never used in a RR car – it was derived from an engine used by the Army in an armoured car! My driving instructor had the predecessor 3 litre Princess as his private transport.

David Oldfield

22/04/13 – 10:16

We had a complaint a year or two back from someone who thought we got off the point too much. Much as I have enjoyed this thread, and joined in, I think that we probably are naughty little boys and have strayed a little far off the appointed track. [I don’t recollect ever seeing a half-cab Austin Princess or one bearing an "O" licence.]

David Oldfield

22/04/13 – 10:16

The FB60 engine was a smaller version of the RR Military B. The Princess R was the only civilian vehicle mass produced by another manufacturer using a Rolls Royce engine.

Phil Blinkhorn

22/04/13 – 14:35

David, whilst I fully understand your point, one of the joys of this site is the way we can wander down memory lane, taking the odd side path which leads who knows where. Of course being well experienced in finding our way around we all eventually seem to get back on track!

Phil Blinkhorn

22/04/13 – 18:24

So, as we were saying, AP made a semi automatic box for small cars (Mini, 1100) in the style of these bus transmissions. Why, though, were CIE drivers (allegedly) fired for using it? It seemed to be the norm on rear engined buses in those days. I would have thought the power available on a bus of this age would demand some intervention… any drivers know?

Joe

23/04/13 – 07:57

Didn’t Northern Scottish use an Austin Princess licensed as a PSV on an airport service? I think it was an E-suffix registered car, so would have been new in 1967. Of course it wasn’t a half-cab, and nor was it in Northern Scottish yellow/cream livery – but standard black I think. Memory says it was even numbered "NX1". So if my memories are correct, there is a link between the meanderings on this topic!

Michael Hampton

23/04/13 – 07:58

Interesting comments relating to fully-automatic ‘boxes with semi-automatic over-ride. It’s fascinating how operators seem to have had such differing views on how they should be used. From observances riding on LT Routemasters over the years, their drivers in the main seemed to prefer controlling the gear selection themselves. On the few occasions where the transmission had been seen to be left to its own devices, the progress seemed more stately. One thing still intrigues me though. Drivers of semi-automatic vehicles were usually instructed to pause in neutral when changing up, in order to let the engine revs drop and effect a smooth change. This also prolonged gearbox brakeband life. Semi-auto gearchanges carried out under power were frowned upon by engineering staff, yet the Routemaster, with a broadly similar transmission, actually operated like this in fully-automatic mode. Can anybody work it out?
Meandering back off piste, didn’t the Austin Champ (a would-be challenger to the Land Rover) also have a Rolls-Royce engine? Going a little further off piste, Wolseley versions of the Austin Westminster were the 6/99 and later 6/110. They sported that delightful Wolseley feature – the illuminated radiator badge. A lovely touch on a decidedly handsome car. Today, no doubt this would be ‘cool’. We simply called it class.

Brendan Smith

23/04/13 – 07:58

Phil. My friends will also tell you of my ability to stir it!

David Oldfield

23/04/13 – 13:56

The Austin Champ was designed to reduce UK military reliance on US built Jeeps but it was eclipsed by the Land Rover. Initial production models had Rolls Royce built engines but most vehicles had a modified version built by BMC under licence. The relatively few vehicles built for the civilian market had the licenced built engine as an option but the majority had an all BMC engine.

David, I bet my stirring spoon is bigger than yours.

Phil Blinkhorn

Copyright Paul Haywood

CIE (Coras Iompair Eireann)
1970
Leyland Atlantean PDR1A/1
CIE/MSL H43/31D

Ireland’s national transport authority – CIE – came late to the rear-engine bus scene. Although they had been wooed by Leyland from an early date (and even trying a Guy Wulfrunian), the first buses from an initial order for 341 Atlantean PDR1/1′s did not enter service until late 1966, known as the ‘D’ type. Subsequent batches brought the total number of PDR1’s to an amazing 602 by 1974, followed by a further 238 AN68/1’s by 1977.
To reduce costs and to give work to CIE staff, all the chassis came in knocked-down form for local assembly and, because CIE were unimpressed with the box-like shape of early Atlanteans, they were fitted with these unusual CIE/Metal Sections bodies. The first 218 were fitted with a front-entrance 78-seat body but the remainder had 74-seat dual-entrance bodies in the certain expectation of one-person operation which, because of local union objections, never materialised until 1986, by which time many of the early examples had been withdrawn.
Leyland’s notoriously unreliable vehicle performance, spares availability and after-sales service during the 1970s finally exhausted CIE’s patience, and many Atlanteans (and Leopards) had to be re-engined by DAF and GM. In a desperate attempt to break away from their reliance on British supplies, and to create a totally home-grown bus industry, CIE came up with the unique German-designed, GM-engined Bombardier buses in the early 1980s which were built in Shannon – but that’s another story.
This photo of D353 shows one of the 1970 batch of PDR1A/1’s on Dublin’s O’Connell Street in 1984, two years before CIE decided to split its bus and train divisions into separate companies (Irish Bus, Dublin Bus and Irish Rail). It is seen wearing the thankfully short-lived tan livery which replaced the smarter blue and cream scheme, before giving way to a smart two-tone green as seen on the Bombardier in the photograph.

Photograph and Copy contributed by Paul Haywood

26/10/12 – 07:37

A cast iron contender for the Ugly Bus page.

Phil Blinkhorn

26/10/12 – 10:11

Exactly my reaction, too, Phil! Looks like CIE’s experience with Atlanteans mirrored M&D’s experience, also.

Roy Burke

26/10/12 – 10:12

Yes, Phil, but how high would it be in the ratings, bearing in mind what ugly ducklings are on that page already?
Too new for this site, but I have a view of one of the tan-liveried ones (Van Hool/McArdle body) on parade in Southampton for "Committee Inspection", alongside the usual East Lancs product in July 1975.
I was under the impression that CIE had a green and cream livery – the one with the flying snail logo – before the tan, and then they went to the blue and cream one which I’ve seen at Duxford a couple of times, before going to two-tone green. Liverpool and Birmingham respectively spring to mind, but whose livery inspired the tan? More important, how far adrift from reality is my memory?

Pete Davies

26/10/12 – 10:20

Amazing Phil – I read that bit about CIE/Metal Sections bodies, but I didn’t realise the metal sections were cast iron!

Stephen Ford

26/10/12 – 14:26

Pete,
The double decker liveries were: pre war and into the late 1940s mid green with three white bands
Late 1940s to 1961 the green was much darker and the bands were painted light green.
From the 1961 the colour scheme was gradually changed across the fleet to a blue and cream one reminiscent of Birmingham’s, including the sandy coloured roof, though this feature was deleted on repainting. The first Atlanteans appeared in that scheme before the adoption of the scheme shown above, which was not applied to front engined double deckers.

Phil Blinkhorn

26/10/12 – 17:27

Baffling, isn’t how in Dublin the buses were ever Black and Tan? This body had the bookends look with sloping front and back- a precursor of the Olympic "Routemaster"? Works no better…. but then a sort of nod to Liverpool with the peak. The side window frames slope one way, and the upper front deck the other. The strong (that’s the answer) green now looks good, as did the original green- with those Gaelic bus stop signs.The old CIE logo was (also?) a circle of segments (if you follow). If you want to see lots of buses (no wonder the fleet is huge) go to Dublin: the only way to get around is the bus.
Off topic but still Leyland: what were those two Titans tantalisingly in the background in the Antiques Roadshow last Sunday? Beautiful greeny/goldy livery on one, despite what I just said….

Joe

27/10/12 – 06:23

Thanks, Phil.

Pete Davies

27/10/12 – 06:25

The titans were a Massey bodied PD2 late of Birkenhead in blue and cream and the other one with an MCW body once belonged to Wallasey.

Phil Blinkhorn

27/10/12 – 06:27

Sorry, Joe, I cant give you a definite answer as I didn’t see the programme. However, it came from Port Sunlight so the most likely answer is that the blue one would have been either one of the two preserved Leyland’s from Birkenhead Corporation fleet. Both are Massey bodied, BG 9225 is a 1946 Titan PD1/A and FBG 910 is a 1958 PD2/40. I don’t know where the green/gold vehicle would be from, unless of course it was both of them and one had been given a repaint for some special event and will be returned to its correct livery at a later date

Ronnie Hoye

27/10/12 – 09:36

Joe, you’re right about the strange choice of liveries used by CIE over the years. The original green was logical enough considering their history, but to go black and tan for the buses (and – don’t forget – the railways) always seemed perverse considering the baggage that those colours carried. You say the only way to get around Dublin is by bus, but don’t forget their two superb tram lines and the extensive Dublin Area Rapid Transit railway which have transformed the city’s transport network in recent years.

Paul Haywood

03/01/13 – 13:02

As an Irish person (and transport photographer) I feel I have to correct comments made here. We never had a black and tan bus livery anywhere in Ireland. The buttermilk tan livery, as shown in the picture at the top of this page, replaced a livery known as monstral blue and cream, which looked very similar to black and white, the blue was very dark and the cream was very light! Then of course when C.I.E was spilt in 1987 the Atlanteans took on red and white Bus Eireann livery or Dublin Bus Green, depending on which of the 2 companies they were working for.
As I can’t post links here check out my flickr page, under the name irishmanufan, in the collections fotopic rescue and rallies and preserved buses to see pictures of Irish Atleanteans in monstral blue and cream, butter milk tan and Dublin Bus Green. 2 are standard D’s (PDR1) and one is an AN68.

Linda

Just include the url if you want to post a link. Irishmanufan

03/01/13 – 15:29

Fair point, Linda, but "black and tan" has been a description long used for this CIE livery (and particularly for the railways of this period) by many enthusiasts both British and Irish, rightly or wrongly. As you will know better than me, the shade of "tan" on the bus illustrated here varied considerably between batches and overhauls and some were distinctly darker (and more "tan") than shown here. The point of the postings is to say "good riddance" to this livery, regardless of how it’s described, when we consider the more attractive liveries that were used before and since this period.

Paul Haywood

03/01/13 – 15:30

The blue CIE livery was in some ways a copy of the Birmingham livery and was applied in similar manner. No operator would dare to run buses in the Republic in black and tan!

Chris Hough

04/01/13 – 14:07

I’m still baffled. If you were going to use "buttermilk tan", it is hardly tactful to team it with "Guinness black" wheels. The original West Yorkshire Metro livery was, if I recall, Buttermilk (lighter than this) with a gentle (emerald) green- and red wheels? That would have done the trick.
Fortunately, caramac clearly didn’t last long: could have been worse: pink & blue with fuzzy bits.

Joe

08/02/13 – 06:40

This livery was NEVER described as Black & Tan on C.I.E buses…The correct livery was Middle Buff made by British Paints Ltd and its reference no. is BS 350…I know this as Liam Dunne, no less told me when I did stand work with him at the Commercial Motor Show in Earls Court in 1974 and later at the NEC in 1978..Liam was C.M.E of C.I.E Road Services and later M.D of Van Hool McArdle in Spa Rd Dublin.. Hope this helps..

David O’Connor

14/04/13 – 08:02

Well I never heard the original D class Atlanteans described as ugly before. They were a significant advance on other bodies back in 1966.

tarabuses

Vehicle reminder shot for this posting

18/10/13 – 18:35

I’ve just bought a new scanner and got a far better scan of the CIE Dublin Atlantean. This shows a more accurate "tan" which may or may not settle the "black and tan" controversy.

Paul Haywood