Flashback to 1981 and I as a young
schoolboy took my first journey on a coach for our primary school tour, back
then I didn’t realise the lasting effect the sound of the heavy diesel engine
would have on me. Some years later whilst looking over old pictures, I was able
to discover the coach in question was a Ford with Plaxton Supreme bodywork.
The years rolled on and I became even more
interested in all things mechanical and I managed to get a job as ticket
collector for a local coach company. By a strange twist of fate it so happened
the first coach I worked on was also a Ford Plaxton Supreme.
I began collecting buses and coaches in
1:76 scale to indulge my hobby, since I didn’t have the resources to purchase a
1:1 scale coach as a plaything.
Corgi, EFE, Brit Bus and Oxford Diecast are
among 4 of the most familiar manufacturers to those of us among the 1:76 scale
hobbyists. Model choice for Irish
collectors has improved dramatically in recent years with a number of Bus
Eireann and Dublin Bus models produced. My most recent purchase is PD5 produced
by EFE. PD5 is a DAF coach with Plaxton Paramount 3500 bodywork and the real
vehicle entered service with Bus Eireann in 1990. EFE is headed up by Frank
Joyce and they have been producing quality models for over 25 years now.
Another Bus Eireann model in my collection
is DVH 14 by Corgi under the OOC brand. DVH 14 is a Dennis Van Hool coach and
entered service in 1993. In the early days as CIE a wide variety of buses and
coaches featured in the fleet but sadly many of these were never produced by
diecast manufacturers but all is not lost. A number of the more popular models
have been produced as resin kits which you must then build and paint yourself.
I have purchased 2 such kits, a KC class single decker city bus and a D class
single door double decker which were both produced by Jim Poots in Belfast.
They are a winter project and will be my first attempt at kit building since I
glued myself to an Airfix Spitfire many years ago. Hopefully the bus projects
will be much more successful.
I hope that I have succeeded in sharing
some insights to my hobby and the world of scale model buses and coaches and
look forward to sharing more with you over the coming weeks and months. I have
included some images to give you a better idea of some of the Bus Eireann fleet
that I mentioned earlier in the article.
If you want to see more pictures of my
model buses, then click here
Photos and Text: Ultan Burke
