Dublin Bus route 86?

VG31 · 22-08-2014 6:58pm #1

I was using the NTA journey planner and I found this route 86: http://www.journeyplanner.transportforireland.ie/nta/TTB/EFA02__00005652_TP.pdf I have never heard of this route before, I assume it's a mistake.

Banjoxed · 22-08-2014 7:20pm

VG31 wrote: »

I was using the NTA journey planner and I found this route 86: http://www.journeyplanner.transportforireland.ie/nta/TTB/EFA02__00005652_TP.pdf I have never heard of this route before, I assume it's a mistake.

There has been a thread before about this. No route 86 running to any timetable for some years now, and it seems that the timings posted don't work anyway. Closest equivalent to the 86 now are the 84/a buses that turn off to the roundabout at Cherrywood and provide a kind of connection from almost the end of the Green line to Bray station.

the groutch · 22-08-2014 8:37pm

I remember the 86 well, aka The Magical Mystery Tour.

Banjoxed · 22-08-2014 9:27pm

the groutch wrote: »

I remember the 86 well, aka The Magical Mystery Tour.

Remarkable route. Just for curiosity once I did the run out to the terminus and then 45a to Bray Station. Just the once.

Losty Dublin · 23-08-2014 12:15am

Banjoxed wrote: »

Remarkable route. Just for curiosity once I did the run out to the terminus and then 45a to Bray Station. Just the once.

The 86 was introduced to pick up for the cancelled Harcourt Street line, hence it's odd and rambling route. It was a route which was of it's time.

Banjoxed · 23-08-2014 12:22am

Losty Dublin wrote: »

The 86 was introduced to pick up for the cancelled Harcourt Street line, hence it's odd and rambling route. It was a route which was of it's time.

Yup, that's pretty much why I griced it, so to speak.

VG31 · 23-08-2014 11:43am

The 86 timetable has been removed and the site no longer includes the 86 in the planner.

MGWR · 23-08-2014 7:38pm

Losty Dublin wrote: »

The 86 was introduced to pick up for the cancelled Harcourt Street line, hence its odd and rambling route. It was a route which was of its time.

I sometimes wonder if CIE wasted more money ultimately by creating the 86 versus keeping the Harcourt Street Line open, including the rebuild as light rail. The railway back then was once an almost-DART operation, what with using the Drumm battery-powered electric trains.

I also sometimes wondered if a form of the 86 would be viable if operated via most of the 44 route to Kilternan and then running via Ballycorus Road and Rathmichael to Bray.

Losty Dublin · 23-08-2014 9:10pm

MGWR wrote: »

I sometimes wonder if CIE wasted more money ultimately by creating the 86 versus keeping the Harcourt Street Line open, including the rebuild as light rail. The railway back then was once an almost-DART operation, what with using the Drumm battery-powered electric trains.

I also sometimes wondered if a form of the 86 would be viable if operated via most of the 44 route to Kilternan and then running via Ballycorus Road and Rathmichael to Bray.

When it replaced the train service, the 86 was well able to cover demand on the line. The buses ran about every 15 minutes versus the once an hour and rush hour specials for the trains; stand by buses could be called in for the races, football games in Milltown and other busy days. That the 86 ran into the city centre was a big plus; Harcourt Street's location means that trains suffered a lot from not getting people that bit closer into town. While it took longer than the train to get into town, at the time it's plusses outweighed it's minuses. While hindsight is good let's bear in mind that the city wasn't as big or as busy as it had gotten by the 1970's, which was when the Government began to realise that road was not alway the answer.

On the Drumms; something that isn't noted a lot about the passenger demand on the line was that it was not at all high; even it's regular freight trains had been dispensed with long before the line closed. Their presence on the line was as much a cost cutting measure as it was an experiment on the ability of battery powered traction; the minute the batteries needed renewal they were done away with. When AEC railcars came into traffic they took on the bulk of the lines traffic to try and cut the lines costs but the writing on the wall was already there.

Your proposed 86 sounds interesting BTW

Banjoxed · 24-08-2014 4:37pm

Losty Dublin wrote: »

When it replaced the train service, the 86 was well able to cover demand on the line. The buses ran about every 15 minutes versus the once an hour and rush hour specials for the trains; stand by buses could be called in for the races, football games in Milltown and other busy days. That the 86 ran into the city centre was a big plus; Harcourt Street's location means that trains suffered a lot from not getting people that bit closer into town. While it took longer than the train to get into town, at the time it's plusses outweighed it's minuses. While hindsight is good let's bear in mind that the city wasn't as big or as busy as it had gotten by the 1970's, which was when the Government began to realise that road was not alway the answer.

On the Drumms; something that isn't noted a lot about the passenger demand on the line was that it was not at all high; even it's regular freight trains had been dispensed with long before the line closed. Their presence on the line was as much a cost cutting measure as it was an experiment on the ability of battery powered traction; the minute the batteries needed renewal they were done away with. When AEC railcars came into traffic they took on the bulk of the lines traffic to try and cut the lines costs but the writing on the wall was already there.

Your proposed 86 sounds interesting BTW

It would be interesting to see what the private car/bus modal split was for former Harcourt Street line patrons. If the car got the lions share of former passengers from Foxrock or Dundrum for example, then the 86 would have been more than adequate to meet remaining demand.

Shifting affluent commuters into cars could well have been the rationale for closure.

Losty Dublin · 24-08-2014 8:48pm

Banjoxed wrote: »

It would be interesting to see what the private car/bus modal split was for former Harcourt Street line patrons. If the car got the lions share of former passengers from Foxrock or Dundrum for example, then the 86 would have been more than adequate to meet remaining demand.

Shifting affluent commuters into cars could well have been the rationale for closure.

From what I gather the majority of patronage on the line were school children and professionals and civil servants. Harcourt Street was something of a favoured area for legal firms at the time while within a short distance of the terminus were Alexandra College, Synge Street CBS, Wesley College and the High School, three of the biggest private schools in the city.

While the students obviously didn't drive the solicitors may have taken to the road over the years as cars became readily accessible to more and more people. Certainly, passenger figures dropped steadily throughout the 50's and bus competition hurt it as well it would be fair to say that Daimler's iron horse was a massive influence in the lines demise.

Conway635 · 25-08-2014 9:09am

The 86 route was still doing reasonably well when I was using it regularly in the early 80s - at that stage iot was on a roughly half-hour frequency all day.

I left for the UK in 1984, and when I returned in 2000 the 86 was a skeleton service with few passengers.

C635

Dublin Bus route 86?

Comments