Mutual Satisfaction After 50 Years
Page 57
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THE satisfaction of Rhondda Corporation with the operations of the Rhondda Transport Co., Ltd., was mentioned by the mayor, Cllr. J. G. Elias, J.P., at a dinner held at Pontypridd, last Friday, to celebrate the company's golden jubilee.
In 1937, he said, the company's vehicles covered 1,750,000 miles and carried 11,750,000 passengers. Last year. the mileage was more than 7m., and the number of passengers nearly 38.1m.
Mr. W. T. James, 0.B.E., chairman of the company, paid tribute to the co-operation they had always had from the council and their officers.
The Rhondda Tramways Co., Ltd., the forerunner of the present company, was incorporated on April 14, 1906, but it was not until July II, 1908, that the first trams went into service. By September 1 of that year. 597,638 passengers had been carried.
After being asked to introduce a motorbus service from Williamstown to carry workers to new coal mines at Tonyrefail and Gilfach Goch, the company opened the route with their first trolleybuses on December 22, 1914. Within a month, subsidence caused parts of the route to collapse, and the service was withdrawn in March. 1915. The first motorbus service, to Clydach Vale, was inaugurated on August 5, 1920, and this was closely followed by other routes, among them Cardiff, Porthcawl and Cowbridge, but it was not Until 1923 that a profit was made on motorbus operation.
Following agreement with the local council, the last tram ran on February I, 1934. In June,. when the company assumed their present title, 106 motorbuses were in service. The motorbus brought improved trading results for the company. but developmetit was checked by the severe unemployment in, and depopulation of, the area.
The establishment of the Treforest Trading Estate and, early in the '191418 war, the Bridgend Arsenal and a number of Service stations, increased facilities for employment, and such was the demand that vehicles had to be hired from other undertakings.
Development -has continued since the war. New workshops and stores were completed in May, 1955, and in March this year a new office block was occupied. Today, the company operate 207 motorbuses (130 of them doubledeckers) and employ about 1,000 people.