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Bristol RELL 2415 2415 was new in late 1980 and was one of a batch of 30 delivered into the early part of 1981. When new this batch, like most of the previous Bristol RE buses delivered to Citybus, seated 32 and featured a large area for standing passengers. The exceptions were vehicles in the batch 2306 - 2320 which were 50 (later increased to 52) seat single-door vehicles. The dual-door vehicles were upseated in recent years to 43 with a much reduced standing area.This particular batch of vehicles (2401 -2430) was delivered new to Short Strand and 2415 has also served at Ardoyne (now closed), Falls Park and Newtownabbey depots. Some of these vehicles have also operated on loan to Ulsterbus where the dual-door layout would have been very unfamiliar. Indeed only 43 of Ulsterbus’s large fleet of REs featured that style of bodywork. 2415 was withdrawn at the end of January 1997 and passed to the Reserve Fleet. It was acquired by the Irish Transport Trust for preservation on 2 May 1997. An interesting statistic is that of the 205 dual-door REs delivered new to Citybus over 70% were maliciously destroyed. New: 21/10/80 (Short Strand), 01/02/84 (Short Strand - Ardoyne), 30/06/84 (Ardoyne - Short Strand) , 20/08/84 (Short Strand - Ardoyne), 31/11/92 (Ardoyne - Falls), 31/12/96 (Falls - Reserve), withdrawn 31/03/96, acquired by Irish Transport Trust 04/96. |