Remembering the City Imp

Ah, the City Imp; one of Dublin's most beloved bus services. Those cute red buses with their shade windows and carpeted interiors, nipping in and out of the suburban roads and taking Dubliners to schools, shops and socials at speeds unheard of for an urban bus service in these parts.     

A pair of Imps, led by ME4, are seen outside Easons in O'Connell Street on route 123 to Marino, 15th May 1995. This is one of the original Imps were built in Donegal by Eurocoach. Photo: George Walker.

Much loved by passengers, City Imp buses have their own story to tell.   How did these buses come into being? How come they were so successful? Why were they red and yellow, and more importantly, where did all the routes go to?   

The story starts in 1991 when Dublin Bus appointed Bob Montgomery to the position of Managing Director.  Montgomery, a Scot, had worked his way up from conductor right up to senior management in bus companies in the UK and was seen as the man to revive a then lowly bus company.  Bob had a lot of experience with different operations and backgrounds and quickly began a wholesale review of Dublin’s routes and services.  A comprehensive on-board survey was undertaken by an experienced market research firm to see what the passenger wanted and needed; something never before done before in Ireland .

The City Imp as featured on Dublin Bus publicity artwork in the1990s.

Montgomery had seen the use of small buses turn around many routes in the UK, and reckoned that something similar could work in the city.   These routes used brightly coloured min buses operating on a more intensive timetable.  Being smaller, the buses were more nimble than their double-decker counterparts and could go into new places and roads, even stopping for passengers on the road instead of at bus stops.   

The ailing 83 route was selected as a trial, with a fleet of small Mercedes mini buses especially purchased for the route.  Bus stops were dispensed with, with a novel new system of stopping the bus en route, called Hail and Ride. To aid this, the fleet was painted yellow and red to improve visibility for passengers, with bus shelters along the route adorned with posters advertising the new service.  Service levels were also increased to 8-12 minutes per day, a drastic improvement from the 2-3 buses an hour of old.  

But it was not without its challenges.  Bus driver unions were suspicious of the route proposal, seeing it as a prelude to a sweating down of services pending privatisation of the city bus services.   Their cynicism was not helped when working proposals for the Imps involved lower wages for the drivers on the basis that the buses carried fewer passengers and thus afforded less responsibility for drivers.   

New working practices for Hail and Ride were deemed unsafe by Union officials, with co-operation duly withdrawn along with threats of strikes and work to rules.  A stand-off ensued for several weeks, with a compromise eventually  being reached whereby senior drivers retained their going rates and allowances if driving the new services The Impish 83 was eventually launched in April 1992 and proved to be an instant and dramatic success, tripling loadings within a month.   Passengers loved the concept of Hail and Ride, the small buses being well praised for their smart and tidy interiors.  They were also extremely nimble in traffic, outpacing both buses and cars, while the new frequent schedules took a lot of worry out of waiting for a bus.  Dublin Bus had struck gold.Before long, more bus routes were converted to Imp.  The 55 was converted with a slight route tweak to the 155.    A cross-city 123 replaced the 24 in 1993, and due to the small buses used, it was able to serve both the narrow streets of Marino and St James Hospital.  The 150 came into being in April 1994 as part of a wide revamp of Tallaght services, while a year later the 30 and 44A became the 13,0 and the old 34 was reinvented as the 134 in the summer of 1995.   New routes also came to the suburbs. Tallaght and Blanchardstown got local Imp based that delved deep into housing estates via their new shopping centres.  

Closer to An Lár, another route loosely fashioned on the old 22A, the 120 began in 1993, while in December 1996, the south inner city got the 121, a route that covered the old remit of the 81 as well as much of the old 22A.   Once again, unions were unhappy with staffing proposals on these two services, and delays were experienced in opening the services.  The 22 and 22A were still routes that utilised conductors and, given the success of the Imp elsewhere, staff rightfully worried about employment and working conditions.   Eventually, compromises were reached and a second new reimagined route, the 122, came into being in June 1998, along with extensions to the 120 and 122

However, by this stage, the wow impact had gon,e and City Imp began to get, dare I say, just a little bit too successful.   Dublin Bus were introducing other new concepts such as branded City Swift routes and Nitelink, so the unique nature of the services had begun to lose its special feel.

Imp MV60 inside Donnybrook bus depot. Photo: Karl Oakley.

Th Mercedes Imp mini buses were unable to cope with the job, both with the amount of passengers that they were expected to carry and that the buses were not as physically able for the gruelling duties expected of a city bus.  Mechanics also found the new buses a lot harder to work with, being more like road cars than buses, while servicing facilities regularly ran short of spare parts.   

Senior management found that larger, hardier, more serviceable units were required for the city's routes, and duly began to order larger buses instead.   Drivers and unions never quite trusted the units, given the industrial issues that came with them, not to mention being unhappy with the cramped cab and harsh gearboxes.  

A 2000-built WV class bus is seen in O'Connell St in July 2003. Photo: John @hamster!

Soon enough, the fleet of over 100 Mercedes vehicles were phased out and retired, some having seen as little as six years of service in Dublin.   A few routes, such as the 121, 123 and 150, saw slightly larger WVs covering some services while regular-sized AV and RVs were called in elsewhere, such was the need for larger buses to cope with the increased demand.   

On 6th June 1998, City Imp bus ML18 is seen in its Bus Éireann days at Waterford, with now preserved 121 class loco 124 in the background. Photo by Niall O'Brien, courtesy Cathal O'Brien.

While a few units soldiered on as duty buses and some also worked for Bus Éireann in Cork and Waterford, the majority of them were sold to private operators.  Amazingly, only a few Imps have been preserved privately, and some occasionally make appearances at enthusiast events and rallies to share the life and love of one of Ireland’s more loved transport brands. 

MA7 is one of very few lucky Imps to survive into preservation. It has been restored by its owner to immaculate condition.