No Mystery About History
Privately owned horse trams began in Reading (as above) on the Oxford Road in 1879. Trams went electric in 1903 with much celebration.
Trolleybuses began in 1936 ...
Trolleybuses ended in 1968 and, much to his regret, fbb never visited the system.
Earlier this week, the old bloke mentioned the deregulation of long distance coach services in 1980. Reading Corporation shot to fame by joining with Southend Corporation to run a joint service X1 between the two towns via London.
Effectively two separate X1s were conjoined at (?) Aldgate bus station.
With bus privatisation, there were branding and livery changes ...
... none of which quite came up to the municipal magnificence of marron and cream!
Post bus deregulation some significant competition in the form of Reading Mainline operating ex London Routemasters with conductors.
This was a good idea but not cost effective ...
... and the business sold out to the incumbent, which ageed to keep the Routemasters running for a further two years - an odd decision but maybe a result of pressure from the competition gaulighters.
Recent History : Today's Story
In recent years the company has been rarely troubled by intensive competition, just suffering an occasiinal skirmish on interurban services.
Reading Buses now spread their network widely ...
... and include a selection of other operators' services, notably Thames Travel's X40 ...
... which we will meet in tomorrow's blog.
Reading Buses appear in Wokingham ...
... via two routes.
An operation absorbed some years back was Newbury Buses ...
... and a more recent development has been the through bus route with two numbers ...
... the 730/731 to Heathrow.
These join the Flightline 703 ...
... also to Heathrow; and the Londonline 701//702 ...
... with a destination that fbb's readers may be able to discern!
Not bad for a municipal bus operation, eh?
Only it isn't
But it is!
More tomorrow.
Snippet!
Readers may like to identify this Reading trolleybus route.
Next Reading Re Reading blog : Fri 31st July
