Created 15-Aug-19
Modified 8-Mar-24
Rhymney Valley District Council bought six Leyland Tigers in total, all with East Lancs bodies:
71 (A71 VTX) was a TRBTL11/1R type chassis that was only 10 metres long - only one other operator (Tayside) bought this variant. Fitted with an East Lancs DP43F body it was new in January 1984. This bus was not taken into National Welsh stock and instead passed to Davies, Pencader in whose fleet it was numbered 228. It is included in this story for completeness but was never in the Rhondda Buses fleet.
All the remaining Tigers were on TRBTL11/2RP chassis and had DP47F bodies. 72/73 (A72/73 VTX) were new in October and November 1983 respectively whilst 25-27 (B25-27 ADW) were all new in August 1984.
Rhymney Valley, by this stage trading as the stand-alone company Inter Valley Link, were finally taken over by National Welsh on 1st April 1989 after an existence of exactly fifteen years. Initially 25-27 and 72/73 were not taken into stock and were instead offered for sale, although they were used at times. However they had joined the fleet by early 1990 and were numbered U695-U699, all receiving Caerphilly Buslink livery. The prefixes were dropped when they joined the Rhondda Buses fleet in 1992 and they became 695-699.
All left the Rhondda fleet in 1994 or 1995. 695 and 699 joined the fleet of Blue Bus, Horwich whilst 696 and 697 were transferred to the Parfitt's fleet from where they were sold to South Lancs Transport around the end of 1996. 698 had its body partly dismantled whilst with Rhondda Buses after withdrawal in January 1994, with a view to rebodying. This didn't happen and it was sold to Blue Bus in November 1994 who it seems also considered rebodying it but that never happened either.
© David Beilby
