About us

History

The group was formed in March 1992 in order to purchase, restore, maintain and preserve for the benefit of the public, vehicles, artefacts, archive material and other items which pertain to and reflect the transport heritage of, the City of Cardiff and surrounding areas. To this end the Group has acquired a number of buses formerly operated by City of Cardiff Transport and other local operators. All vehicles are owned by the group or it’s members. In March 1992 Leyland Titan XUH 368 was purchased, the AEC Swift, MBO 512F, was to follow in July 1992.

Glyn Bowen was co-opted as rally secretary for the first Bus & Coach Wales 1994 at Barry Island, Glyn had previously organised the HCVC Cardiff rallies form 1976 to 1988 and went on to organise the Taff Vale Rally at Merthyr in 1991 and the Trevithick bi-centenary in 2004. Bus & Coach Wales continued to be held at the Island coach park annually through 1995 to 1999.

In 2000 the Stagecoach 2000 rally transferred back to Cardiff City Centre. No rally was held in 2001, but then the Cardiff Centenary event was staged at the City Centre in 2002. Glyn began organising the Merthyr events in 2004 with the Merthyr Tydfil Vintage Bus Show. Bus & Coach Wales returned to Merthyr in 2006. Glyn away moved from the area in 2009 but the Bus & Coach Wales has continued to thrive under the leadership of Mike Taylor. At Barry Waterfront a small transport event was held in 2001 but the CTPG was not involved with this. In 2003 the Barry Festival of Transport was organised by the Vale of Glamorgan Railway with help from another transport group at the Hood Road site.

This was repeated in 2004 and 2005 and the CTPG did well with their sales stand. The following year the CTPG stepped in at short notice to help organise due to the previous organisers group dropping out. The event has been held each year since with assistance of the Vale of Glamorgan Council, but by the 2009 show the Vale of Glamorgan Railway had gone and the event became entirely CTPG. This event has since grown in size and popularity as in 2010 well of 250 vehicles were on show with approx. 50 buses and coaches. The Cambrian Railway Company, the new owners of the railway ran a train during 2010. CTPG moved their vehicles from storage at Newport to Wenvoe Quarry early in 2003 and after three years moved again to Watts of Bonvilston. When the lease of Barry Depot was secured in the summer of 2008, the Bonvilston yard was cleared. Under cover storage at last! Since 2009 the CTPG have been based at the Bus Depot Barry, which was formally “The home of the Bustler” a marketing name adopted by National Welsh at deregulation for its’ fleet of minibuses of which we own the first C101HKG. The Garage was built in the late 1930s by Western Welsh who in their hay-day operated a fleet of around 700 vehicles across the width of South Wales. The Depot and also later in conjunction with Atlantic Depot on Barry Dock house the CTPG fleet along with members buses, currently there are around 20 active buses running to our events.

What we do?

• We organise running days and rallies at Barry / Merthyr Tydfil each year and attend many events with our buses and stall.
• At the Depot we have a growing archive of documents, timetables, uniforms, ticket machines and memorabilia on display and in storage we hope to have the largest collection available to the public in the locality.
• In 2018 the membership fast approaches 210, we have a regular working group of members on Friday and Saturdays working on our buses and our events continue to grow in popularity.
• We take our vehicles to local schools bringing history lessons to life!