page_title: Reading Buses
section_title: Electric tram era
hierarchical_section_title: Reading Buses / History / Electric tram era
caption_attribution_description: English: Reading Corporation Tramways. Electric tram No. 6 has just crossed the junction, heading westwards along Oxford Road. The destination blind reads "Erleigh Road", which is not in this direction, and the trolley-pole appears to have come off the wire. Photograph taken on 22 July 1903, the first day of operation for the electric cars, and the upper deck is occupied by gentlemen in top hats and ladies in large flowery hats - presumably the civic dignitaries. Crowds throng the streets. The Vine Hotel, at No. 74 Broad Street, is to the left, and the grocer's shop of Baylis and Company, 75 and 76 Broad Street, is to the right. In front of Baylis's is a hoarding with advertisements for excursions on the Great Western Railway. 1900-1909&#160;: photograph by Walton Adams, from a cracked glass plate.
context_page_description: Reading Buses is a bus operator serving the towns of Reading, Bracknell, Newbury, Slough, Windsor, Maidenhead, Wokingham, Fleet, Didcot, Henley-on-Thames and the surrounding areas in the counties of Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and Hampshire, England, as well as parts of Greater London. The operating company is officially known as Reading Transport Limited, and is owned by Reading Borough Council.
context_section_description: The new electric trams 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, from the same manufacturer. 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.
  In 1919, Reading Corporation started operating its first motor buses. These ran from Caversham Heights to Tilehurst, running over the tram lines and beyond the tram termini. Because of the state of the track, the Bath Road tram route was abandoned in 1930, followed by the Erleigh Road route in 1932. Eventually it was decided that the tramways should be abandoned and replaced by trolleybuses, operating over extended routes. The last tram ran on the Caversham Road to Whitley route in July 1936, and the last car on the main line ran in May 1939.
caption: Reading Corporation Tramways opening ceremony on 22 July 1903
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