The Northern Ireland Bus Site has moved to a new server because of the unacceptable terms of service imposed by Yahoo on Geocities Homesteaders.
The L&LSR opened a narrow-gauge railway line between Derry and Farland Point in Donegal in 1863, and eventually extended the line to Burtonport, near Dungloe. It also had a line between Derry and Carndonagh and as far as I know, ran a steamship between Fahan and Rathmullan. You can see where all these places are on the Lough Swilly Route Map. One problem with the with the railway was that all its stations were situated a distance away from the villages they served, and in 1929 the company decided that its passengers' needs could best be served by providing a bus service.
So L&LSR started buying up all the local bus operators and also bought some new buses, and it ran these along its train routes between Derry/Letterkenny and Letterkenny/Dungloe. It was also able to provide a lot of connecting services to quite remote villages. The railway line eventually closed in 1953, but the company has retained its original name to this day. (Although it is more often known by other names such as 'Lough Swilly Buses' and 'The Swilly Bus Service', the original name appears on the legal lettering on the buses and on the passenger carrying vehicle licenses etc.) Lough Swilly is really quite lucky not to have been swallowed up or compulsorily taken over by other companies over the years. Having its operations straddling the border probably helped quite a lot in this, as I suppose it meant that neither jurisdiction (UK or ROI) could take control of all its operations.
Today the Lough Swilly fleet consists almost entirely of second-hand Leyland Leopard buses and coaches with the newest coach being 11 years old and the vast majority of the fleet being more than 17 years old. The oldest buses currently in service date from about 1970.
The photograph at the top of this page shows the old Lough Swilly depot at Pennyburn in Derry. This depot closed in November 1997, with bus operations in Derry being transferred to the 'Swilly Freight' company depot at Springtown Industrial Estate in the city. In the front of the photograph beside the stone-built maintenance shed we can see a Marshall- or Willowbrook-bodied bus which would have been new to a National Bus Company member company in England, and beside it can be seen the back of an Alexander (Belfast)-bodied Leopard which originally belonged to Ulsterbus. Plenty of buses of this type are still in service with Ulsterbus today (not as old as this one though they look the same)- photographs of them can be seen on the Ulsterbus page. These types of buses are usually used on school services by Lough Swilly.
In the background are parked some red-and-white liveried coaches which would have Duple or Plaxtons bodies and have been bought second-hand at auctions in England. This type of bus is used on normal passenger services.
The picture above shows some Lough Swilly buses parked in Foyle Street bus station in Derry. This station is used by Ulsterbus, Bus Eireann and Lough Swilly. The bus in the foreground is fleet number 333 (reg. no. 75-DL-508), a Duple-bodied Leyland Leopard coach which was new in 1975 and was acquired by Lough Swilly in 1992. Very few Lough Swilly buses have proper destination blinds; this one does but it isn't being used. It is set at TOUR, but has slipped down a bit so that we can see the bottom of the destination PORTSALON. The company doesn't operate route numbers, so buses with route number displays have these set to show their fleet numbers. I think that most of the services are always driven by the same driver, so for regular passengers this would be an easy enough way of identifying their bus.
The buses on all the main routes show their destination on a piece of card stuck up in the window. This bus has just come in from Letterkenny, and still shows the DERRY side of its card. (LETTERKENNY is probably printed on the other side.)
Although all the buses are old, most of them are in quite good condition for their age. The drivers are always smartly turned out, in green jumpers or jackets with a 'Swilly Bus Service' logo on them. A few of the very old school buses are in quite poor condition however, as would be expected for their age. The photograph below (taken before 4 O'Clock in the afternoon- in December) shows 322 (72-DL-39), a 1972 Alexander Belfast/Leopard ex-Ulsterbus (reg. DOI 1578), 1990. Seeing my first ex-Ulsterbus Leopard in service meant quite a lot to me, so I felt I had to include the photograph despite its poor quality. This bus had plenty of dents and holes in its bodywork, and probably was going to be withdrawn before long.
Withdrawal of most of the really old buses has been made possible by the purchase of approx. 40 'new' (some older than me!) Alexander (Scotland) / Leyland Leopard buses from Clydeside in Glasgow. These are all being used on school services and look quite impressive in their red, white and yellow livery with their fluorescent yellow Glasgow destination blinds set to SCHOOL BUS. (I haven't got a photograph of one yet.)
Since these buses arrived in the summer, all the withdrawn buses have been parked in Letterkenny depot, behind which there is a big field full of 'dead' withdrawn buses from years gone by. In time the latest round of withdrawn vehicles will probably join them. In the photograph below, you should be able to see part of the long line of most recently withdrawn vehicles.
Lough Swilly use 'Setright' ticket machines on their buses- an old design used by very few bus operators these days. Incidentally, Bus Eireann have Almex machines and Ulsterbus use those made by Wayfarer, so it is possible to see three types of ticket machine in one bus station which is very unusual (for me anyway). Students travel for half price with Lough Swilly, which makes it really quite cheap. It costs just £2.50 for a return ticket from Derry to Letterkenny for me. To travel from Downpatrick to Belfast and back, a similar distance, with Ulsterbus, costs me £4.65.
Lough Swilly is a very interesting bus operator. I've made two trips to the North West to see them now, and I really enjoyed my time there photographing and travelling on the old buses. If I go again or find out more I'll put more on this page, and I'll try to keep the fleetlist updated regularly.
Northern Ireland Bus Site |
| Index | Ulsterbus Page | Citybus Page | Lough Swilly Page | Links |