Photo of the Week - Week 8:


Harristown's DT10 is seen loading passengers at the Custom House Quay terminus of Route 33X on the 22nd February 2013.

Another year, and another DT feature. Well one has to restrict the use of DT photos given they are so hard to come by. A class of only 10 buses in a fleet as large as Dublin Bus's means they will be hard to come by, however the big yellow "Euro" sticker says it all with the DT class all but confined to single gallops on peak hour services twice a day. The large front dashboard gives them away visually, even if otherwise they are another ALX400, and their "gurgling" Cummins engine means that you'll hear the difference as they go by. The DT class were delivered to Broadstone in late 2003, entering service on routes 19/A. However, they didn't survive long in all day service for long, being moved to Harristown in October 2004 and confined almost solely to Euro services since then.


Harristown's DT10 is seen on the Kilmore Road operating a peak hour departure on Route 17A on the 2nd January 2013.

DT10 is the last bus of the batch, and like all last buses in the batch is always a nice catch. The three photos show the DTs at work in the evening peak, one on the 33X, one on the 41X and a peak hour service on Route 17A. I thankfully was able to board DT10 on the 33X for what was a very enjoyable journey, the country roads after Lissenhall being an ideal opportunity for the DT class to show the ample power of their large engines. The 33X, in its present form, owes to the viaduct collapse at Malahide in August 2009. Dublin Bus showed huge dynamism in order to provide a highly frequent 7-day service to the commuters of North Dublin due to the cancellation of the train service for viaduct repairs. Though the 33X existed as a single return journey service prior to then, the highly frequent Xpresso service has no doubt taken passengers away from the train service. The Port Tunnel offers a quick exit from the city for passengers, the first stop after the O2 being at Lissenhall. The large suburban towns of Rush and Lusk are not well served by the Northern train line, which has proven to be the basis of the success of the 33X. Passengers numbers do reduce as the buses approach Skerries, no doubt the longer distance gives the train an advantage. However, the fact that such a service has proven successful in the face of competition from a regular train service shows the huge improvements made by Dublin Bus in peak hour service provision and also the huge improvement in the quality of the vehicles within the fleet over the past decade or so.


Still hanging onto the old Dublin Bus logos well into 2011, DT10 is seen operating an evening departure on Route 41X on Leeson Street Lower on the 16th June 2011.

N.B. This website is not affiliated with Dublin Bus. The information contained herein is intended for enthusiast reference. For all current timetable and route information please refer to the official Dublin Bus Website.