The Barry heritage bus group held their Spring Running Day event on Sunday 4th May. With a slightly cloudy start, visitor numbers increased as the sun came out with quite a busy day for the Barry volunteers. The Cardiff Transport Preservation Group, which mixes SE Wales transport history with classic buses, marked 100 years of Edwards Coaches, an independent successful family business who operate from their base in Llantrisant.
Edwards Coaches are known widely, as today they operate the white National Express coaches across South Wales to London and Birmingham etc., along with domestic and continental coach holidays, and the team coaches, for example for the Wales Rugby team. They started in 1925 running one bus and whilst changes have taken place over the decades, they do run local buses today, some on their original route operated 100 years ago to and from Pontypridd.
The heritage bus collection at Barry includes luxury coaches, and it’s not often they get used on event days but the volunteers got our 1969 former Western Welsh Leyland Leopard running along with a selection of other buses including an Open Top one. Edwards Coaches was represented on the day with two coaches, a Bedford from 1979 and a brand new one, a 2025 Mercedes-Benz Tourismo.
“The weather was good to us this year and The all our trips ran with good loads and, as expected our open top bus was very popular. I want to thank local people who visited us, Edwards Coaches for their support and all our volunteers who give up their time to allow us to offer a rewarding experience to visitors.
I would like to thank Edwards Coaches for their support and allowing visitors to see how different a modern tour coach is today compared our example which new 56 years ago. As a charity these Events allow us to raise funds to restore vehicles which are part of south Wales transport history. We are now gearing up for our next big classic car and bus event in Barry on Sunday 8th June, the Barry Island Festival of Transport.”
– Mike Taylor, chairman of the preservation group
