As Citybus celebrates 50 years, PAUL SAVAGE looks back over the challenges the Belfast operation has faced and how it has changed
Belfast in the early 1970s wasn’t the best place to be running buses, but run they did despite the disruption caused by what is now referred to as The Troubles, which had erupted in August 1969 with street disturbances including rioting, hijacking, burning, bombing and shooting. Belfast Corporation’s Transport Department (BCT) was the main provider of city bus services and bore the brunt of much of the street violence, losing 94 buses between August 15, 1969 and March 10, 1973.
Services outside Belfast, including to the new housing developments on the city’s outskirts, were in the hands of Ulsterbus, which had taken over the ailing bus operations of the Ulster Transport Authority (UTA) on April 17, 1967 and which was led by the inimitable Werner Heubeck who, along with his new management team, had begun to turn losses into profits. The new company, too, suffered attacks and destruction, losing 139 buses between its creation and the end of March 1973. The Troubles, which decimated Belfast nightlife, along with increased car ownership and changing social trends, were …
