The Barry heritage bus group held their Autumn Running Day last Sunday, 13thSeptember, featuring several classic buses in the Barry Depot collection, but not all went to plan. Surprise visiting vehicles helped out, and the very long articulated bus ran extra trips in place of open top vehicles whist the public enjoyed the day despite the rain.
Two surprises for the day included a visit by a 59 year old double deck Daimler bus from the former Swindon Corporation which did several free trips. The vehicle new in 1967, has been restored to an excellent condition perhaps as expected from a town that built all those Great Western Railway steam locomotives! As far as we know it was its first visit to Wales. Cardiff Corporation ran over 30 similar, but older open-rear platform Daimlers in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s which were all withdrawn by 1971.
Another visitor was a 62 year old former Western Welsh 1964 luxury coach preserved, and these days kept privately in Macclesfield. Similar coaches like this were allocated to local depots like Barry and did day tours and private hire after its first two years doing continental holiday tours, something Western Welsh was famous for across southern Wales. Also, a late change of plan saw a 60 year old Western National luxury coach new 1966, operate several trips. It used to run out of Plymouth doing day-out trips over Dartmoor.
“the visiting vehicles made the day special for the enthusiasts and generally the families we saw especially with young children, enjoyed the day. At least we can say we did run an open top bus! It did get quite wet and people preferred the larger capacity deckers and bendy-bus to avoid getting wet. The Bustler minibus was not taken out as rain basically scuppered our idea of a photo-opportunity for its 40th anniversary year. We might try again on Saturday, November 7th when we hold our Twilight event. Then we run more free trips and as the afternoon turns to dusk, we then run with headlights on and interior saloon lights which gives visitors a different travel experience”.
– Mike Taylor group chairman
Operationally the day was planned with services every 20 minutes and additional open top runs but the rain was intermittent at first, so as soon as we could at the very beginning, we operated our 1988 open top Newport Scania bus much to the delight of early visitors. Our much older 1965 green double deck Caerphilly bus, 1968 Cardiff Swift bus, 1973 Merthyr Tydfil bus and our 1976 Cardiff little orange midibus did runs as planned whilst the 2006 articulated bendy-bus was very popular and did extra trips.
The Barry heritage bus group will hold their next Open Day on Saturday, 7th November 2026 just
after the clocks change, running free tips in the afternoon as a Twilight Event 2 p.m. to 6 .pm.
