50 years on in Berkshire

Monday 31st August 2026 Welcome to a Bank Holiday Blog Special which, thanks to blog reader Paul, commemorates the 50th anniversary of the publication of a one-off experiment from the erstwhile Berkshire County Council in the form of a fully integrated public transport guide for the Reading area. Paul contacted me about this last month explaining “I grew up in Berkshire, in and around the Wokingham area, so this timetable was the first such publication I remember buying as a (relatively young) public transport user. As far as I am aware, nothing so inventive was ever repeated until long after deregulation, so it served as a bit of a unicorn in terms of timetables in the Berkshire area. And, at 30p in 1976, it was surprisingly expensive!! (£3.40 in today’s money)”. Paul added “I’m thinking it would make an interesting comparison of the routes that existed in 1976, compared with what operates now. Many of the services have disappeared completely (e.g. Reading to Baughurst, Reading to…