READING CORPORATION TRANSPORT 1939 – 1950: WAR AND AUSTERITY

WINTER 1946/47 BROUGHT WEATHER MISERY TO READING

Snow had begun falling during December 1946 – and continued to fall during the early part of January 1947. It then got very, very cold, with temperatures well below freezing, the lowest being recorded on Wednesday 29th January 1947 at 8°F (–13°C). Whiteknights Lake froze over enough for skating and there were ice floes in the River Thames. Lumps of ice in the River Kennet fouled the turbines for pumping the fresh water supply at Fobney and there was a continual need to have to break ice on the filter beds.

By the end of January 1947 the whole country was paralysed, with huge snow drifts in some places. There was also a national fuel crisis and, in an effort to conserve coal stocks, some wartime Defence Regulations were again implemented, which forbade the use of domestic electric heaters when factories were working. Electricity supplies were forcibly reduced, in any case, by ‘load shedding’ of up to 25%, with all the resultant problems of no heating and spoiled cooking at a time when many foodstuffs were still rationed. Street lighting was turned off and working hours staggered. Domestic coal became in extremely short supply and in many a home the coal bunker was said to have been scraped clean of even the coal dust!

Nothing was different in Reading, although it must have become slightly warmer as the six more inches of snow, to which the town had woken to on Sunday 9th February 1947, had thawed three days later. Meanwhile, fuel shortages locally reached crisis levels, forcing factories to close down and over 6,000 workers were ‘laid off’. Power cuts commenced on 10th February 1947, then things began to get better the following week and were generally back to normal from 3rd March 1947 but, on the domestic front, coal was still very much in short supply and folk found themselves trekking down to the gas works with barrows and old prams for half-a-bag of ‘off-ration’ coke. As an aside, it is of interest to reflect that generations have grown up in recent decades with no knowledge of anthracite or what other grades of coal there were, or who know anything about coke being a by-product of the town gas works, or, indeed, what it was or what it looked like!

The severe winter weather also took its toll on vehicles, already weakened by years of inadequate maintenance. Radiators froze even when a bus was running in service! A failed bus – and every other sort of vehicle – drawn up at the side of the road, became commonplace throughout the country. During the period 19th January to 10th March 1947, therefore, it is rather remarkable that Reading Corporation Transport lost only 327 bus miles (0.13%) and 550 trolleybus miles (0.24%), of which 370 miles were attributed to fog and the remainder to icy road conditions.

READING CORPORATION TRANSPORT 1939 – 1950: WAR AND AUSTERITY