GSR Charabanc

[minister_for_hardship]

Spotted this on online wanderings...

 

http://blog.findmypast.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/fig8-1927-30-claire-dulanty.jpg

 

Fig.8 Great Southern Railways charabanc outing, Ireland c.1927-30 - click to enlarge. Charabancs were often used for group outings in the inter-war era and this snapshot shows colleagues or friends riding in a charabanc bearing the crest of the Great Southern Railways. The SVVS advised that the GSR was an Irish railway company formed in 1924 which also took over several private bus operators in Ireland between 1926 and 1929. They identified the vehicle as a 1927 Lancia Charabanc, offering the earliest possible year for the photograph, while the men’s appearance suggests a date no later than 1930 (Claire Dulanty)

[leslie10646]

Well spotted, Minister. A very nice shot - probably on the Ring?

 

You'll find lots of shots of early charabancs in "Transport In Ireland 1880 - 1910" (Patrick Flanagan). Many were associated with the railway hotels, both to deliver clients to the hotel from the railhead, or take them on tours, like the Antrim Coast Road, Connemara or The Ring. There's a particularly nice shot of one (really a bus) in Ernie Shepherd's MGWR book page 74.

 

Very much part of the early railway scene.

[minister_for_hardship]

Open to correction, but the one pictured may have been one of the ones purchased in the last days of the GS&WR and delivered to the newborn GSR with a GS&WR coat of arms on the side?

Judging by the state of the roads on the 'tourist routes' they must have had very short lives.

[minister_for_hardship]

Oops....presume this is a GS&WR owned or contracted bus doing the Prince Of Wales Route.