page_title: Reading Corporation Tramways
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Reading Corporation Tramways / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Reading Corporation Tramways. The crossing at the junction of Broad Street, St. Mary's Butts, Oxford Road and West Street, looking westwards along Oxford Road, 1903. The rails are in place, but not yet filled in with cobble-stones. There is a crowd of onlookers, a policeman, and there are several labourers. To the left are No. 2 St. Mary's Butts (Mrs. A. Baxter, fruiterer), and the White Hart Inn. In Oxford Road, Nos. 5, 7 and 9 are being rebuilt, with an advertisement hoarding in front. The Fox Inn, at Nos. 22 and 23 West Street, is to the right. 1900-1909&#160;: photograph by Walton Adams.
context_page_description: Reading Corporation Tramways operated a tramway service in Reading between 1901 and 1939.
  The tramway is one of the ancestors of the current Reading Buses, the town's municipally owned bus operator.
context_section_description: The corporation purchased the assets of the horse drawn services of the Reading Tramways Company and took ownership from 1901. Modernisation was undertaken and the first electric service started operating in July 1903. Extensions were constructed to the Wokingham Road and London Road (both from Cemetery Junction), and new routes added to Whitley, Caversham Road, Erleigh Road and Bath Road. The trams operated from a new depot in Mill Lane, a site that was to remain Reading Transport's main depot until it was demolished to make way for The Oracle shopping mall in 1998.
  The electric tram services were originally operated by 30 four-wheeled double decked cars supplied by Dick, Kerr & Co. In 1904, six bogie cars and a water car (used for keeping down the dust on the streets) were added to the fleet, also from Dick, Kerr & Co. No further trams were acquired, and a planned extension from the Caversham Road terminus across Caversham Bridge to Caversham itself was abandoned because of the outbreak of World War I. The war also led to a significant maintenance backlog.
caption: The cross-over at the junction of Broad Street, St. Mary's Butts, Oxford Road and West Street, looking westwards along Oxford Road, 1903. The rails are in place, but not yet filled in with cobble-stones.
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