Created 17-Jan-20
Modified 8-Mar-24
These services provided a link from the Rhondda Fawr into the lower Rhondda Fach and for many years where characterised by back-tracking over the approach to Porth on the way out again, over the section between the centre of Porth and the depot. Nearly all the route had once been served by trams but this story will begin with the replacement bus services. The routes remained almost unchanged for many years but in later years as the need for efficiencies arose the service patterns changed frequently and these services were very much a victim of that.
Buses started to run from Porth to Maerdy on 1st January 1934 with the remainder of the route being bus-worked from 2nd February 1934. There were two variants which ran Maerdy-Porth-Tonypandy and Maerdy-Porth-Llwynypia, the latter terminus often referred to as Partridge Road. The services remained virtually unchanged for many years. In the June 1957 they first were given route numbers:
R30 - Maerdy-Ferndale-Porth-Trealaw-Llwynypia
R31 - Maerdy-Ferndale-Porth-Trealaw-Tonypandy
The basic service was every fifteen minutes alternating between the two services and this was still the case when the services were renumbered on 3rd January 1971 with the R30 becoming the 530 and the R31 the 531. With the withdrawal of the special 514 service from Maerdy to Maerdy Colliery from 9th July 1973 certain journeys on the 530 and 531 were extended to and from Maerdy Colliery on Saturdays and Sundays.
The first major changes came on 1st December 1975. The 530 was largely unchanged but the 531 no longer ran from Porth to Maerdy and was extended beyond Tonypandy to Clydach Vale. Some morning 530 journeys ran beyond Llwynypia to Tonypandy and this also happened on Sundays. Apart from on Sundays there was no evening service to Maerdy (this was provided by the 332). The extensions to Maerdy Colliery had also ceased by this date.
The services continued like this until the Market Analysis Project revisions introduced on 24th May 1981. The 530 ceased to operate in its previous form and became a Pontypridd to Blaencwm and Blaenrhondda via Trealaw service (dealt with in the R20-R23 service histories). A new Penrhys (just one journey started from Blaenllechau) to Porth service which ran through Llwynypia to Tonypandy then back to Llwynypia before continuing to Porth via Trealaw was numbered 526 and covered part of the old 530 route. The 531, which had been half-hourly, was now hourly and ran from Maerdy to Clydach Vale via Porth, Trealaw and Tonypandy. It didn't run on Sundays.
In about January 1985, there was further service rationalisation when the 531 became the 526 (replacing it), running between Trealaw and Tonypandy via Trinity instead of Llwynypia as the previous 526 had done. At deregulation on 26th October 1986 the extension to Clydach Vale was replaced by the new T1 'Bustler" service and revised services were introduced:
126 - Maerdy-Porth-Trealaw-Llwynypia-Tonypandy
127 - Porth-Trealaw-Trinity-Tonypandy
From here the story becomes unclear but I suspect that the 126 and 127 ceased with the introduction of the T4 Bustler service through Trealaw from 22nd November 1987 with the exception of journeys on the 126 from Maerdy to Porth which ran Mondays to Saturdays to ensure a fifteen minute frequency along the Rhondda Fach in combination with the 132 and the X8. This service seems to have briefly become a Bustler service T6 in the last year of National Welsh, from 28th July 1991. This didn't last long and it became the 131 by 1993, continuing then until the takeover of Rhondda Buses and the end of this story.
© David Beilby
