The largest South Wales transport festival saw early crowds at the annual Classic Car and Heritage Bus event on Sunday at Barry. The early sunshine brought well over 200 cars to the show along with over 40 visiting heritage and some brand new electric buses. On the Classic car side, we had 30 cars over 60 years old with 4 over 90 years old. Some late entries were afforded additional space with thanks to the Vale of Glamorgan Council. Visiting preserved buses saw vehicles representing operators from Somerset, Wigan, Birmingham, Cambridge, Swindon, Yorkshire, Devon and East Kent as well as areas in Wales.
Amongst the modern vehicles was the first visit of a battery electric double decker to Barry and the Vale of Glamorgan – one of two now in Wales, courtesy of Newport Bus. Edwards Coaches brought along some of their newest coaches including a brand new one for the National Express network, whilst Cardiff Bus and Stagecoach South Wales each brought one of their brand new vehicles along with other interesting buses.
Visitor numbers looked good easily on par with last year with seemingly greater numbers of families with young children, as you will appreciate they all loved the open top buses. Our free shuttle service soon operated more than every ten minutes at times although a big gap occurred as a road traffic incident involving at least six police cars in a hot-pursuit incident, closed Broad Street for about an hour. We were lucky providing 3-point turns at our Depot but a long queues occurred. We are grateful at help from visiting heritage buses from Birmingham (Midland Red), the West Country (Western National), Stroud (Stagecoach Swindon) and a bus from Cambridge (Kenzies).
Mike Taylor, chairman of the heritage bus group
Mike also thanked all the volunteers who made the day possible, the transport industry and the South Wales Classic Car Club for their help on the day.
The Cardiff Transport Preservation Group which promotes preservation of buses in SE Wales showed off their recently restored Western Welsh 1971 Leyland Leopard on Barry Island
getting its first full day in the sunshine. In the last year it has had major mechanical renovation enabling it to be driven on the road for the first time as a 45- seat bus since 1985, when it was cut short as a tow vehicle 39 years ago.
Anyone interested in helping restore some of our heritage buses in a good cause, can contact us via “info@ctpg.co.uk”
