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October 2015

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Winnersh Triangle Park & Ride Ready to Roll

19-10-15

26th October sees the opening of a new park & ride site at Winnersh Triangle which will replace the existing site at Loddon Bridge. The location has been arranged between Reading Borough and Wokingham Borough Councils to help alleviate issues caused by the River Loddon flooding the current site at the Showcase Cinema from time to time.

The unexpected white trio of Enviro 200s purchased for the service last September have been repainted over the summer into a new two tone blue livery in a similar style to the two tone green Greenwave livery, ready for the launch. Evidently their purchase, which otherwise was to standard Reading Buses specification, was partly in readiness for this.

652 on 26th September 2015

Unbranded 652 in Minster Street on 26th September 2015.

The original site appears to have opened on 30 May 1997 with the arrival of five Optare Excels, which were later complemented by a sixth in November 1997 to meet burgeoning demand. The service was converted to double deck in July 2007 with a small reduction in frequency and a short lived unpopular diversion through Winnersh Triangle, following which demand continued to suffer as flooding started to hit the site with repeated closes on certain days each winter thereafter. The site was nearly closed permanently in 2012 pending the opening of the new site now, but thankfully sense prevailed.

Under the current arrangements, double deckers tend to be substituted on Saturdays in the run up to Christmas to cater for the extra demand, whilst the single deckers help to keep costs down for the rest of the year.


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