Richards Brothers
 | |
|
Optare Excel in Fishguard in June 2012 | |
| Slogan | For all your travel needs |
|---|---|
| Parent | Marteine, Malcolm & Nigel Richards |
| Founded | May 1943 |
| Headquarters | Cardigan |
| Service area |
Cardigan Fishguard |
| Service type | Bus and coach services |
| Alliance | TrawsCambria |
| Routes | 40[1] |
| Fleet | 65 |
| Website | www.richardsbros.co.uk |
Richards Bros Buses[2] (Welsh: Brodyr Richards) is a bus operator based in Cardigan, Wales. It has purchased many smaller bus companies over time, and currently has 65 vehicles running local bus services and school buses in south-west Wales (primarily Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire, with some Carmarthenshire services), as well as coach tours. The major competitor in north Ceredigion is Arriva Cymru. Richards Bros also operates a share of the new demand-responsive Bwcabus service.
History
Richards Brothers was established in May 1943 by William Richards, and his children Idris and Reggie were introduced to the company.[3]
The first buses run by Richards were invariably Bedfords, the first being purchased in May 1943, it was a Bedford OWB, manufactured with wooden seats[4] to fit the war years, and the first operations base was a small site in Moylgrove.
Originally, Richards were contracted by the military to ferry employees of the Royal Naval Armaments Depot at RNAD Trecwn and Royal Aircraft Establishment at Aberporth; these contracts were crucial to the firm up to the 1960s. These decreased rapidly throughout the 1980s and stopped during the 1990s.[5]
In 1958 the first of many purchases was made when Owen Williams of Cardigan was acquired. In 1971 Western Welsh ceased and Richards took over the Fishguard to St Davids service. In 1972 Blue Glider of St Dogmaels was purchased from Lewis Williams followed by in 1976 by Pioneer Motors, Newport.[3]
In 1982 the Haverfordwest operation of Marchwood Motorways was purchased. In 1998 TM Daniels of Cardigan was purchased.[3][5]
Services
As at June 2014 Richards Brothers operate services on 40 routes including TrawsCambria 550 and X50.[6]
Livery
Richards Bros' coaches carry a white livery with a variety of logos. The current bus livery is silver towards the front with a dark blue skirt which rises at the rear to cover the rear of the bus. This was 'pinched' from the Optare demonstration livery.[7] This was preceded by a silver upper half with a blue skirt running straight along the bus with a red stripe along the side slightly above the blue. This in turn was preceded by a blue and maroon colour scheme, with more white added in for the coaches.[8][9]
Richards Bros also operate several vehicles which carry special liveries for certain services. These include the Pembrokeshire Coastal buses (e.g. Poppit Rocket), TrawsCambria, TrawsCymru and Bwcabus
Fleet
As the company grew older, Bedford remained the dominating vehicle manufacturer; both second hand and new buses were purchased, with the largely prevailing bodybuilders being Duple and Plaxton. Over 100 Bedfords were used by the Richards family. Since Bedford closed in 1986, new buses have generally been of Volvo, DAF or Dennis manufacture.
Double-deck buses are rare within the fleet, historically these have included a Bristol K6A, an AEC Regent V, several Leyland Titans and an AEC Bridgemaster.[5]
References
- ↑ Bus Services Richards Brothers
- ↑ Companies House extract company no 4461445 WG Richards & Sons Limited
- 1 2 3 History Richards Brothers
- ↑ "Richard Bros". Total Travel. Retrieved 6 October 2012.
- 1 2 3 Dickinson, Les (2011). Buses Yearbook 2011. Ian Allan. pp. 124–128. ISBN 978-0-7110-3474-7.
- ↑ Bus Services Richards Brothers
- ↑ "Optare – EFE Showbus International 2003 photos". Showbus.com. Retrieved 4 October 2012.
- ↑ "Welsh Bus Photographs | Google Groups". Welsh-bus-photographs.googlegroups.com. Retrieved 6 October 2012.
- ↑ Donati, David; Bill Potter; Nicolas, Simon (2006). "6". The Welsh Bus Handbook (4 ed.). British Bus Publishing Ltd. ISBN 1897990340.
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Richards Bros. |
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