The Last of the Conyngham Road Overflows
The late 1990s and early 2000s saw the Dublin Bus fleet expand steadily - especially as a result of the Irish Government's National Development Plan. This plan was jointly financed by funds from the Government and the European Union and included a significant investment in public buses.
However, not every garage could manage to house all of its share of allocated vehicles. Conyngham Road Garage took to the practice of parking many of their buses on the main road outside the depot. Anybody traversing the road during night hours was witness to an impressive line-up of buses that had just been cleaned and fuelled, ready for the next day's work. The hazard lights of buses at both ends of the queues were usually activated to alert oncoming traffic to the extra buses parked on the carriageway.
In the interest of possible health and safety issues associated with such overcrowding, a number of Conyngham Road's buses (and routes) were re-deployed elsewhere in conjunction with the commissioning of the new Harristown Garage in late 2004.
The above pictures (with thanks to Mick Hughes) were taken in the week before these transfers were finalised.