[1] The company is one of the ancestors of the current Reading Buses, the town's municipally owned bus operator.

They were initially authorised to construct and operate a horse tram route on an east–west alignment from Oxford Road through Broad Street in the town centre to Cemetery Junction.

Significantly, this route formed the core of what became known as the main line of the tram and trolleybus network.

The cars operated from a depot on the south side of the Oxford Road, immediately to the east of where Reading West railway station (opened 1906) was later built.

The extensions were completed by December 1902, and the last horse cars ran in July of the following year.