REVIEWS
Aberdare Urban District Council is the subject of the sixth of Michael Yelton’s planned series of seven illustrated histories of the small bus operating municipalities of south Wales.
Unlike all of those other fleets, this was a self-contained operation, confining its services within the council’s boundaries and engaging in none of the joint working that took the rest far from their home towns. Not that it lacked ambition to run beyond the Cynon Valley. Yelton tells us that Merthyr Tydfil (just 4miles away by one of the steepest of steep hills), Pontypridd, Cardiff and even Swansea were destinations it pondered reaching in 1930.
This also was a heavily peaked operation, which in 1952 required 27 of its 45 vehicles to transport miners in early mornings, ieven on Sundays when public services did not begin until midday.
Aberdare was late in starting a tram service, introduced only in 1913 when several other municipals were operating their first buses, then modernised and expanded in coverage in 1921/22 only to close in 1935.
By contrast, this was a pioneer trolleybus operator, establishing in 1914 only the seventh system in Britain (with three routes and eight vehicles), one of just two (Keighley h…
