Western Welsh was a Welsh
bus
A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...
operating company, based in
Cardiff
Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital and largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a Sir Caerdydd, links=no), and the city is the eleventh-largest in the United Kingd ...
covering
South Wales
South Wales ( cy, De Cymru) is a loosely defined region of Wales bordered by England to the east and mid Wales to the north. Generally considered to include the historic counties of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, south Wales extends westwards ...
and the northern parts of the
West Country
The West Country (occasionally Westcountry) is a loosely defined area of South West England, usually taken to include all, some, or parts of the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Bristol, and, less commonly, Wiltshire, Gloucesters ...
. Formed in 1920, it was nationalised when the BET Group sold their bus interests to the Transport Holding Company in 1967. From 1969 W.W. became a part of the
National Bus Company and several years later was a component of the newly formed, but ill-fated,
National Welsh operation.
Established in 1920 in Cardiff by a brewing family, South Wales Commercial Motors grew by acquisition, eventually operating bus services in South Wales as far west as
St David's
St Davids or St David's ( cy, Tyddewi, , "David's house”) is a city and a community (named St Davids and the Cathedral Close) with a cathedral in Pembrokeshire, Wales, lying on the River Alun. It is the resting place of Saint David, Wa ...
and
Tenby
Tenby ( cy, Dinbych-y-pysgod, lit=fortlet of the fish) is both a walled seaside town in Pembrokeshire, Wales, on the western side of Carmarthen Bay, and a local government community.
Notable features include of sandy beaches and the Pembroke ...
in
Pembrokeshire
Pembrokeshire ( ; cy, Sir Benfro ) is a Local government in Wales#Principal areas, county in the South West Wales, south-west of Wales. It is bordered by Carmarthenshire to the east, Ceredigion to the northeast, and the rest by sea. The count ...
, and as far north as
Brecon
Brecon (; cy, Aberhonddu; ), archaically known as Brecknock, is a market town in Powys, mid Wales. In 1841, it had a population of 5,701. The population in 2001 was 7,901, increasing to 8,250 at the 2011 census. Historically it was the coun ...
via the
South Wales Valleys. In 1927, the company came to an agreement with the
Great Western Railway
The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...
to take over their
bus services in both
South Wales
South Wales ( cy, De Cymru) is a loosely defined region of Wales bordered by England to the east and mid Wales to the north. Generally considered to include the historic counties of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, south Wales extends westwards ...
, and areas of southern
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean.
The county town is the city of Gl ...
and northern
Somerset
( en, All The People of Somerset)
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, region = South West England
, established_date = Ancient
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surrounding
Bristol
Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...
and
Bath
Bath may refer to:
* Bathing, immersion in a fluid
** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body
** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe
* Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities
Plac ...
. In return, the GWR took a minority share holding in the renamed Western Welsh.
In 1931, the GWR sold their bus company shareholdings to
British Electric Traction
British Electric Traction Company Limited, renamed BET plc in 1985, was a large British industrial conglomerate. It was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index but was acquired by Rentokil in 1996, and the merged company is now known as Rent ...
, who continued expansion of the company by acquisition. As with other BET companies, Western Welsh's fleet included a significant number of
AEC and
Leyland types, including
AEC Bridgemaster
The AEC Bridgemaster was a front-engined low-height double-decker bus chassis manufactured by AEC.
History
The AEC Bridgemaster was introduced by AEC in 1956 to meet the demand of low-height double-deckers from municipal and independent bus o ...
s and
Albion Nimbus
The Albion Nimbus was an underfloor-engined, ultra-lightweight (dry weight 2.4 tonne) midibus or coach chassis, with a four-cylinder horizontal diesel engine and a gross vehicle weight of six tons. It was largely operated on light rural bus duti ...
es, all of which appeared in the company's familiar all-red livery.
Although entire UK railway network was nationalised in 1948 when they passed to the
British Transport Commission
The British Transport Commission (BTC) was created by Clement Attlee's post-war Labour government as a part of its nationalisation programme, to oversee railways, canals and road freight transport in Great Britain (Northern Ireland had the se ...
, many bus services remained in private hands.
The Western Welsh Omnibus company had used a unique system for identifying the depôt to which a 'bus was allocated and up to 1948, these comprised symbols of squares, triangles, diamonds and circles coloured in black or red with thin white edging for the blacks and thick black edging for the reds. Following that year these were all changed to diamonds with their longer length vertical and the narrow width, horizontal and other colours were introduced and each diamond carried thick black edging with a thin white 'tracer' separating the outer and inner diamond colours within the symbol.
Main depôts were located at Cardiff, Barry, Bridgend, Carmarthen, Pontypool, Crosskeys, Neath and Brecon. Depôt symbol changes were Cardiff; Black triangle changed to orange diamond with a horizontal black band across its minor width, Barry; Black diamond retained but with inner thin white tracer, Bridgend: red triangle changed to blue diamond, Carmarthen: changed from red square to green diamond, Pontypool: changed from black circle to brown diamond with horizontal white bar across minor width (although another source has stated a black horizontal bar), Crosskeys: changed from a black square to a yellow diamond, Neath: red diamond retained but with thicker black edging, Brecon: changed from red circle to white diamond.(Not confirmed is that an Aberdare sub-depôt carried a red diamond with the black letters AE, within the red area. There were sub-depôts at other South Wales towns and as the Western Welsh took over some other ’bus companies, the depôt symbols were extended with variations in diamond filled in colour plus letters like AM for Ammanford and E for Ely works and colours grey and white were introduced and some diamonds bore two colours, split horizontally. The absorption of the former Neath & Cardiff (N&C) express ’bus company meant that a white triangle was added to the coach side. A separate colour chart of principal symbols seen on a wallchart in 1949 is viewable in jpg format on Wikipedia.
The Western Welsh Ely establishment stored certain buses in the open, including six-wheelers for some years, apparently out of use. A huge contingent of withdrawn single deck buses were stored at their Ely yard in 1960. Barry held an additional garage (since converted to flats) in the hill section of Harbour Road alongside the Barry-Bridgend railway & Barry sidings. It stored many Bedford vehicles with wooden slatted seats and these used to be brought into service for local relief carriage of passengers to and from Barry Island in the height of the summer seasons following the last war.
After BET sold its operations to the government, Western Welsh became part of the National Bus Company. In 1970, NBC transferred Western Welsh's operations west of
Bridgend
Bridgend (; cy, Pen-y-bont ar Ogwr or just , meaning "the end of the bridge on the Ogmore") is a town in Bridgend County Borough in Wales, west of Cardiff and east of Swansea. The town is named after the Old Bridge, Bridgend, medieval bridge ...
to its subsidiaries
South Wales Transport
South Wales Transport was a bus company that operated services in South Wales centred on Swansea and West Wales.
History
South Wales Transport commenced operating on 2 May 1914 in Swansea. It operated bus services that connected with the S ...
and
Crosville Motor Services
Crosville Motor Services was a bus operator based in the north-west of England and north and mid-Wales.
History
On 27 October 1906, Crosville Motor Company was formed in Chester by George Crosland Taylor and his French business associate Geo ...
. The company continued to operate further east until 1978, when it was merged with
Red & White Services
Red & White Services was a bus company operating in south east Wales and Gloucestershire, England between 1929 and 1978.
Red & White evolved into Red & White United Transport Ltd, formed in 1937, which owned bus and road freight companies in ...
to form
National Welsh Omnibus Services
National Welsh Omnibus Services was a bus company which operated in south-east Wales and in the Forest of Dean area of Gloucestershire from 1978 to 1992. It used the trading name ''National Welsh'' and its Welsh equivalent ''Cymru Cenedlaethol''. ...
. National Welsh was privatised in 1987, and collapsed in 1992.
References
External links
History of National Welsh
{{Defunct British Bus Companies
Former bus operators in Wales
Companies based in Cardiff
Transport companies established in 1920
1920 establishments in Wales
Transport companies established in 1978
1978 disestablishments in Wales