The Barry Festival of Transport attracted once again hundreds of people last Sunday to Barry Island. The last festival was in June 2019, now three years later it pleased the organisers, the heritage bus volunteers at the Cardiff Transport Preservation Group that visitors have returned in what seems to have been very large numbers. There were over 300 classic and performance cars on Barry Island seafront whilst part of the car park area saw lots of other visiting at the vehicles to the seaside resort. This year a special effort was made to start marking 120 years of Cardiff Municipal Transport.
Mike Taylor, chairman of the heritage bus group at The Bus Depot, Barry said
“visitor numbers seemed to be greater than we remembered from events prior to the Pandemic. There was strong evidence of families often with several generations visiting together. Our Open Top free bus trips saw most timings operate with duplicates as four buses were used, evidence it was very popular. Visiting buses from the industry came along, we had support from Cardiff Bus, Newport Bus and Stagecoach South Wales. On the heritage bus side, they came from Swansea, The Midlands, Bristol, Swindon and Essex. I am grateful for everyone who came along, to our volunteers and the Vale of Glamorgan Council for making the day possible”.
Mike continued “I am also pleased that this year we saw many visitors to our restoration base, seeing what we do and viewing the progress on renovation work on two former Cardiff electric trolleybuses. Our free bus service was particularly busy, again with duplicates including using for the first time our 85 seater bendy-bus, whilst Cardiff bus kindly operated one of their latest battery electric buses. We are always looking for new members, for restoration projects and to help run these events, anyone interested can contact us via our website or request a membership form to info@ctpg.co.uk”
The heritage bus group for this event had restored a 27-year old 1995 Cardiff Dennis Dart, one of the last buses with a step entrance new to the city fleet. This bus operated the park & Ride shuttle all day, whilst a 40-year old 1982 Volvo Ailsa Cardiff “Pick an Orange” double decker was in operation again after mechanical modifications.
Here is a display from the Jaguar Car Club. (CTPG)
1989 seen in its 1902 Cardiff Corporation Tramways livery.
(Photo CTPG Tudor Thomas).
one of the last step entrance buses used by Cardiff Bus is seen on
the Park & Ride shuttle. (Photo CTPG Tudor Thomas).
Deport heritage restoration centre (Photo CTPG Tudor Thomas).
