I’m sure you’ll all have seen this piece on the end of an era at Ulsterbus, but this statistic jumped out at me.
228 Leopard buses out of a total 1,300 vehicles were destroyed maliciously during the Troubles.
And we wonder why the public transport infrastructure is so poor..
Colin Neill’s first novel Turas peeks into a world in which many Ulster Protestants feel uncomfortable. It’s 2020 and the Irish unification that unionists and loyalists confidently predicted would never happen has become a reality. President Adams is ensconced in Phoenix Park. The newsreader reported that … a short ceremony at Stormont had confirmed the [...] read our review »
It’s not published until 3rd March, but one book I recommend you place an advance order for from Slugger’s Bookstore is James Harkin’s Niche. Belfast émigré Harkin examines a number of stories from business, culture and politics and comes to a single insight: everywhere the broad middle is collapsing. He offers Woolworths as an iconic exemplar [...] read our review »
I’ll miss those old buses. Especially the way my legs would stick to the hard plastic seats when I wore shorts in the summer.
Just thinking though, 1,300 in total during the entire troubles seems a rather low figure. Do they mean 1,300 Ulsterbus vehicles? Didn’t the french burn nearly 9000 vehicles in just 20 nights of trouble??
The BBC report states, “The remains of the fleet are being sold off, some will be converted into other vehicles…”
That’ll be the new buses.
yep. they’re going to stick one ontop of another one and call it a double decker.
does any one know why there are always 2 seats pointing back down the bus? is it just to make whoever sits on them really paranoid? everywhere you look you are staring someone in the face, and ofcourse the rest of the bus is watching everthing you do…..
Garcia, I think they mean that Ulsterbus has had 1300 Leyland Leopard buses over the years, and 228 were destroyed maliciously during the troubles. There were plenty of buses of other types destroyed too…
presumably like Citybus they’ll get the funds for the new buses from the Programme for Peace and Reconciliation!
eranu,
“does any one know why there are always 2 seats pointing back down the bus? is it just to make whoever sits on them really paranoid?”
It’s a DUP thing.
“does any one know why there are always 2 seats pointing back down the bus? is it just to make whoever sits on them really paranoid?”
Where those seats not for the hijackers?
Cheers Gavin, that makes more sense!
Happy to see them go. The new buses are more comfortable.