RED & WHITE
was a bus and coach operator (based in Chepstow). It provided services in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, Monmouthshire, the Glamorgan & Gwent valleys between 1929 & 1978.
History
In 1921 brothers John & Arthur Watts of Lydney started two bus companies: Gloster Transport (Lydney) & the Valleys Motor Bus Services (Tredegar). Both companies expanded quickly by acquiring nearby operators.
In 1926 the Lydney business adopted the name Gloster (Red & White) Services. By 1928, the companies were running buses in an area bounded by Hereford, Gloucester & the South Wales valleys.
In June 1929 John Watts formed RED & WHITE Services Ltd to bring together the bus companies he established or acquired. The same year it entered the long distance coach market, initially from South Wales valleys towns to London via Gloucester. In the early 1930’s coach operators were acquired further afield, with services between London, Liverpool and Glasgow and between Cardiff and Blackpool.
RED & WHITE expanded rapidly during the 1930s, by now from new head office in Bulwark, Chepstow. It acquired several bus companies in the Swansea area and elsewhere in South Wales. In 1933 ‘Red & White’ acquired the business of Red Bus Services of Stroud. 1934 saw Associated Motorways express coach services consortium formed.
By 1937 RED & WHITE and subsidiaries had a fleet of over 400 vehicles. In that year Red & White United Transport Ltd was formed as a public company to hold the group's various interests. The group's operations in the Swansea area were brought together in 1939 as United Welsh Services Ltd. The group also bought Cheltenham District in 1939.
Expansion continued during World War II. In 1944 the group bought Newbury & District. In 1945 they bought Venture (Basingstoke) and South Midland Motor Services (Oxford). The later ran express coach services between Worcester, Oxford and London.
Nationalisation
The Labour Government of 1945 planned to nationalise all road and rail transport, so in 1950 the Directors of RED & WHITE sold their UK bus operations to the British Transport Commission (a state quango). Then in 1962 RED & WHITE was transferred to the ‘Transport Holding Company’ (once part of Tilling Group of bus companies).
In 1968, the year our Ruby was new, RED & WHITE had:
- 13 garages;
- 392 vehicles: 244 saloons, 86 decker's; 62 coaches. Details here >
- carried 36.5 million passengers;
- made
£72,685
profit (in £/S/D).
Fleet numbers
In 1951 RED & WHITE introduced a unique alpha-numeric numbering system. It was ingenious, but requires some explanation. First there was the vehicle type letter(s). For saloons the codes were:
S = Single deck bus;
C = Coach;
U = Underfloor engine bus;
UC = Underfloor engine Coach;
R = Rear engine bus;
RS = Rear engine Short bus;
RC = Rear-engine Coach (this is Ruby );
RD = Rear engine Dual-purpose bus.
Then the last two numbers represent the year each vehicle was new. In Ruby's case the ' 68 ' means year 1968 .
The number(s) between the letters and year indicate the vehicles' sequence in deliveries that year. So, Ruby is a Rear-engine Coach, the 9th of that type delivered in 1968. Hence . . .
Read
RED & WHITE complete fleet list (1930 to 1975).
Thanks very much to Richard Smith who has prepared these detailed fleet list for us all to enjoy.
Route 73
CARDIFF - Newport - Chepstow - Lydney - GLOUCESTER
In 1969 (when this picture was taken at Cardiff Bus Station), route 73 ran daily, each hour. It took 2-hours 45-minutes to travel 59-miles.
It was one RED & WHITE's longest bus routes, which started in 1927.
What a fantastic journey on-board LAX 124F, a 1967 Bristol RELL bus, powered by a Leyland O.600 diesel engine!
NATIONAL
RED & WHITE became a subsidiary of the National Bus Company on 1 January 1969 and gradually worked more closely with nearby Western Welsh (also an NBC subsidiary).
The fleet name RED & WHITE was used until 28 April 1978 (when the company was merged with Western Welsh) to become the National Welsh Omnibus Company Ltd.
Back to private enterprise
National Welsh was privatised by Management Buyout in 1987, but struggled financially and went bankrupt in 1991.
Western Travel bought the Gwent valleys, Monmouthshire & Forest of Dean operations naming them RED & WHITE.
In 1995 Stagecoach acquired the company. 'RED & WHITE Services Ltd' remains the legal title of Stagecoach South Wales.
Ruby's three liveries
Ruby's original ivory & current red livery.
She wore these colours until May 1974.
The red skirt was not used after 1971.
Ruby's second livery - NATIONAL travel all white. She looked like this from May 1974 to May 1979.
Ruby's final livery - half-poppy red & half white. She wore this livery from May 1979 until her first repaint in preservation in 1985.
RED & WHITE shared their operating area with a number of other bus & coach operators.
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