Created 6-May-19
Modified 8-Mar-24
Earlier Rhondda operations were not recorded much photographically, so for the pre-war fleet I have kept them together in a single gallery.
Rhondda's first buses were the trolleybuses used on the ill-fated Gilfach Goch to Williamstown service which ceased operation after only three months in March 1915.
Motor buses appeared in 1920 with the purchase of nine ex-War Department AEC YC vehicles. These lasted until 1931/32 which was no mean achievement at that stage of bus development and given the arduous operating territory. It may be the initial success of these vehicles which led to Rhondda's strong association with AEC over the years.
Further purchases followed in the 1920s, with more AECs, a few Daimlers and several Bristols joining the fleet and, right at the end of the decade, being joined by several Albions. All these vehicles were single-deckers and double-deckers didn't appear until 1931 with a single example each of the Leyland Titan, AEC Regent and Dennis Lance.
The first AEC Regals arrived in 1930 and a total of sixty-six had joined the fleet by the end of 1939, including two that had been acquired with the business of Ynysybwl Motor Services in 1936. From that same source also came a solitary AEC Reliance whilst the remaining pre-war single-deck purchases comprised fourteen Dennis Lancets and just two Daimler COG5s.
The vehicle most closely associated with Rhondda Transport was the AEC Regent and purchases started, after the 1931 solitary example, with an initial order for thirty for tram replacement which arrived in 1933/34. These had Weymann bodies as did all such purchases up to 1939 (and many beyond). Eleven followed in 1935 and two batches in 1937 of which three had rear entrances (as had all the others) but ten were fitted with front-entrance bodywork. The final prewar batch of ten actually didn't arrive until 1940 and reverted to rear entrances.
© David Beilby
