South Wales and West Wales Buses in the Early 1960s

Philip Wallis visited South and West Wales several times with his camera between 1961 and 1963 and captured on film a great variety of bus operators in that part of the country. Civic pride was strong and no less than seven municipal undertakings ran bus services in the coal-mining valleys of Glamorganshire and Monmouthshire, while capital city Cardiff and port town Newport each had their own large Corporation Transport Departments – with Cardiff maintaining the only Welsh trolleybus network at that time. Six British Electric Traction group companies operated in the area with fleet sizes ranging from the 34 vehicles of Neath & Cardiff Luxury Coaches to 674 buses and coaches with Western Welsh. British Transport Commission-controlled Red & White and United Welsh were significant in parts of the territory, adding variety by still running AEC, Albion, Guy and Leyland buses before sale to the BTC led to standardization on Bristol buses. The tentacles of the mighty Crosville empire stretched down to Cardigan in far west Wales. Independent operation, using diverse new and second-hand buses, was strong across both industrial South Wales and rural West Wales. This book profiles many of the operators and illustrates their vehicles through 180 color and monochrome images, mostly previously unpublished.