Richards Brothers

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	TrawsCymru
Routes	40
Depots	3
Fleet	65
Website	www.richardsbros.co.uk

Richards Bros Buses (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. Richards Bros also operates a share of the new demand-responsive Bwcabus service.

William Goronwy Richards started carrying passengers in the late 1930s however Richards Brothers was established in May 1943 by William Richards, when his children Idris and Reggie were introduced to the company.

The first buses run by Richards were mostly Bedfords, the first being a converted Bedford WS, registered ALP 674 purchased in 1937. A second-hand Bedford WHB followed in July 1941.<Richards Brothers Cardigan and Newport></Dickinson Les, Venture Publishing> The first bought new (in 1943) was a Bedford OWB, manufactured with wooden seats 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.

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.