Created 17-Jan-20
Modified 8-Mar-24
The same site at Porth has always been used as a depot from tramway days to the takeover of Rhondda Buses by Stagecoach and even today it remains in use. The first buildings appeared with the tramways which opened in 1908. The bottom shed was significantly rebuilt at the end of the tramways to make it more suitable for the replacement buses. As the fleet grew space became rather critical and with the sudden fleet expansion to cope with wartime traffic a solution was found by utilising the site of the Cymmer Colliery, which had recently closed, in the centre of Porth.
After the war a new bridge was built at the top of the site which allowed access to hitherto unused land. Here was built a new main workshops which became fully operational in 1955, this allowed the old workshops in the middle of the site to be demolished creating the central parking area known as the Bull Ring. With this greater space there was no longer any need for the overspill storage at Cymmer Colliery.
This depot is believed at its peak to have been the largest in Wales with a fleet of around 200 vehicles. It was also a very long site - it was around a quarter of a mile from the entrance to the parking area just beyond the workshops.
In the 1980s the top garage was demolished, leaving an open parking space and by this time the space situation had completely reversed in that the complete garage site was far too big for current needs. This, along with National Welsh's parlous financial situation, led to the sale of the bottom garage and Bull Ring parking area in 1990 but this still left sufficient space for the allocation as it stood at the time.
When Rhondda established their trolleybus service in 1914 the vehicles were based at a new depot in Tonyrefail. This was retained by the company after the short-lived trolleybus venture and later used as a motorbus depot until about 1931. It was sold in 1935 and I believe was located on the site of the current Co-op store on Penrhiwfer Road.
Finally Rhondda Transport owned a building on the border between Treorchy and Ynyswen, alongside where the railway from Abergorki Colliery once crossed on a level crossing. This was once a depot and is referred to as such in the list of stopping places for the Rhondda Fawr trunk services. Latterly, though, all operational buses were kept at Porth and the Treorchy depot was used as a paint shop, a rather inconvenient arrangement which ended when the new workshops at Porth opened. The building was sold to Western Welsh in 1959 but they disposed of it by 1961 and it is unclear why they purchased it at all.
Rhondda Buses took over the former National Welsh depot in Bedwas on 12th February 1992 but closed it four days later and opened a new, much smaller, one nearby. Both these depots were on Greenway.
© David Beilby
