The Barry heritage bus group held their Spring Running Day event on Sunday 26th April. The sunny start to the day saw small crowds gather at The Bus Depot, Broad Street in Barry for the first departure. The first heritage bus trip of the 2026 season was full of passengers on a 63 year old 1961 Cardiff Corporation AEC Regent V double decker. Visitor numbers increased as the morning progressed and the Heritage Bus group ran all their 20 minute frequency free trips and the planned four Open Top runs were also full. To cope with demand on the day, three extra Open Top bus runs were pressed into the timetable.
The 50 year old 1976 Cardiff short midibus, fleet number 105, operated with its first passengers for over 20 years and looked resplendent in its restored Cardiff Bus orange livery. Being a short 27-seater, it was followed by a duplicate a few minutes later, on its run. Two Western Welsh buses, one from 1961 and the other from 1971 also performed well as did a 28 year old Stagecoach bus and a 25 year old Cardiff bus. On the double deck side, apart from the Cardiff decker, there was a 61 year old green Caerphilly Leyland Titan bus from 1965, a bit older than the two Open Top buses one 47 years old from Cardiff and the other 38 years old from Newport.
“The weather was good and I am very pleased at the number of young children and families seemed higher this year. Several children took great interest in what we were doing and understood that we give rides on buses that you don’t see normally – especially the half cab style and open rear platform. 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, the local people for Barry and parts of Cardiff and visitors from afar. I would like to thank local bus firms like First Cymru, Cardiff Bus and Edwards Coaches of Llantrisant for bringing modern vehicles for visitors to see the difference.
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 14th June, the Barry Island Festival of Transport.”
– Mike Taylor, chairman of the preservation group
