IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Wokingham Road, READING, RG6 1JU

From top deck of number 17 bus

Wokingham Road fire station, Wokingham Road, Earley, Reading, Berkshire is one of the 4 fire stations that cover Reading

Enthusiasts and locals queue for a nostalgic ride on a trolleybus at Wokingham Road terminus on the last day of operation.

The A329 has just entered the Borough of Reading at the Three Tuns crossroads. Apart from the trolleybus and the police telephone little has changed in the surroundings since this picture http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/561940 . The purple bus is the number 17 service and has just carried out the manoeuvre that Alan Murray-Rust mentions. It is waiting at the pick-up point. The stop for alighting passengers is the one on the right.

A trolleybus turns at the Three Tuns terminus of route 17. This is the main Wokingham Road at its junction with Holme Road. Doing what amounts to a U-turn in the middle of an A road seems an unlikely manoeuvre, but was taken for granted in those days. Remarkably, this turn is still carried out today, with the service still operating every 7 or 8 minutes! Of particular interest is the Police emergency call telephone in the foreground. Note also the string of lamps attached to the overhead wires. These were specifically installed to enable drivers of trolleybuses to position themselves correctly under the wires during fog. There was little room for error at this location, and getting things wrong would result in the poles leaving the wires, cutting off the power to the trolleybus. Fishing around in a thick Thames Valley fog to find the errant poles and reposition them on the wires was not an easy job! The building to the left is the Wokingham Road Fire Station. For a slide show of British Trolleybuses in the late 60s http://www.geograph.org.uk/search.php?i=1773236&displayclass=slide

This photo shows preserved Reading AEC Regent bus 47 (RD 7127) at the Wokingham Road terminus of route 17 with a service bus in the distance. Route 17 was a trolleybus route from Sunday 21st May 1939 replacing the tramcars, until Sunday 3rd November 1968 when they were replaced by motorbuses. It was the last trolleybus route to operate in Reading and now works 24 hours a day, seven days a week except for Christmas Day. A magnolia tree can be seen to the right of the photo.

This photo shows Reading bus 4 (MRD 147) a 1956 AEC Regent III with Park Royal 53-seater bodywork at the Wokingham Road terminus of former trolleybus route 17. Holmes Road and a "Welcome to Reading" sign can be seen to the left of the photo.

The Three Tuns at Earley in Reading.

On Wokingham Road. See Image] for sign.

The Three Tuns at Earley in Reading.