Bus Éireann school bus fleet

I was travelling into Tralee from Listowel last Wednesday morning on board a Bus Éireann DVH class bus, the same type involved in the Kentstown crash last year. These were roughly 1990-93 buses and it reminded me of the time - people were freaking about the buses being too old. I did the leaving in 2002, and I was being brought to school on VS-48, 1981 reg for my entire 5 years in secondary school. So I would have been happy to go on a 1993 bus!

Anyway, my question is, does anyone know if any VS class buses are still in service on school runs? Just curious since I haven't seen any around for a while. I know the one on my former run has been replaced with a 1990 bus, don't know the class though.

Here's a shot of a VS class if people aren't aware of the codes:

Red Alert

AFAIK the VS's were bought second hand.

I think the current school bus lineup is AD's from DB. KCS's are gone (what a shame!) and i think the last KS's are set to go too.

BuffyBot

K-class busses are still around. There aren't enough cascaded AD's to replace them all. Bus Eireann have also bought in a load of former UK buses to replace the older onces

John R

BuffyBot wrote:

K-class busses are still around. There aren't enough cascaded AD's to replace them all. Bus Eireann have also bought in a load of former UK buses to replace the older onces

There are still some KR around but not for much longer, they will all be gone within a year.

They bought a number of 3-5 year old coaches from the UK earlier this year exclusively for the schools service, many of them are ex-leased coaches that they had before on express services and a few are ex-Aircoach.

Large numbers of ex service VC class coaches (1994-1996) are being transferred to the schools service this year.

Coaches, particularly modern ones are completely unsuitable for most school bus duties and most of those bought in coaches would be better used on express services but one of the main reason these have been quickly acquired for schools services is because they all have seatbelts.

All of the other buses that are expected to stay in schools for several years such as the ex-Dublin Bus AD class are all being retrofitted with seatbelts.

20 brand new purpose built school buses of 4 different types have been bought, the best of these will be likely to get a large order in the future.

The VS pictured above were bought secondhand, they were former Singapore citybuses, pretty easy to spot where the rear door used to be.