Created 21-Jun-19
Modified 8-Mar-24
1968 saw the arrival of the first rear-engined double-deckers in the Rhondda fleet. The company selected the Leyland Atlantean chassis and stayed with Northern Counties bodies as fitted to the later AEC Regents.
496-501 (RTX 496-501G) arrived in September 1968 and were specified to herald a major change in operating practice as they were equipped for one-man operation from new. It took quite a few years before this happened with double-deckers in the Rhondda and this affected the subsequent use of these vehicles. The batch replaced the remaining STG-registered AEC Regent Vs.
Following the absorption by Western Welsh the new parent company moved several of this batch to other depots where there was agreement for one-man operation and as a result some were only seen working from Porth depot for a few years.
They retained their original fleet numbers initially under Western Welsh but in August 1974 were renumbered HR1-668, being renumbered again in October 1975 as HR44-4968. The first to be withdrawn in 1980 was HR4668 (RTX 498G), the one member of the batch that seems to have remained allocated to Porth for its whole working life. The remainder of the batch was withdrawn in 1982, with RTG 496/497/500/501F being allocated new numbers XR1991-1994 in January 1983, but as this was after withdrawal these numbers were not carried. However, just prior to that HR44/45/4968 (RTG 496/497/501F) were renumbered with an HHR prefix and ran thus for a few weeks. The HHR prefix, quickly changed to XR, was a prefix to indicate a vehicle height of 14'-6" and with this change National Welsh had three prefixes for double-deckers according to height - LR, HR and XR.
© David Beilby
