August 1998

BRISBANE - SYDNEY - BRISBANE IN 1969

Shown above is page 227 from the Queensland Railways Suburban Lines Working Timetable dated 30th November, 1969. See the bottom of pages 4, 5 and 7 for further details on this timetable.

From the Editor
- Worth reading if you want to be in the know (just like a good timetable!)

Dear members and friends,

Queensland Rail reprints 1885 Working Timetable:
I recently visited the QR Railway Shop at South Brisbane station and while there noticed they were selling reprints of the Queensland Railways Working Timetable for the Southern and Western Railway dated 17th May, 1885 for $9.95. It is printed on A4 paper and is spiral bound. The Railway Shop can be contacted at GPO Box 1429, Brisbane Qld 4001 or phone (07)3235-2218. I don't know whether other rail bookshops are selling this timetable however I would be pleased to list them here if advised about it.

Yours in the cause of happy timetable collecting, Graham Duffin. Editor, The Times.

MARREE LINE PASSENGER TRAINS IN 1976
Introduction by Victor Isaacs.

These timetables show passenger train timetables on the old Central Australia Railway via Marree before it was replaced by the through standard gauge Tarcoola - Alice Springs line.

The first Train Notice (T.N. No. 426) commencing 1st April, 1976 is presumably an interim service when the narrow gauge portion of the old line was interrupted by floods - a frequent occurrence.

The second Train Notice (T.N. No. 449) commencing 19th April, 1976 shows the railway when it reopened. Note that the service as far as Marree was slower when it was operated by the normal diesel locomotive hauled train (complete with sleeping and dining carriages) instead of the Budd Rail Car in the interim service.

Two changes of train were needed - from Adelaide to Port Pirie on broad gauge where passengers had to change to standard gauge to Marree, then change again for the narrow gauge train to Alice Springs. This old narrow gauge line was very, very slow - two nights and a day from Marree to Alice Springs!

These notices were issued by the South Australian Railways, owners of the connecting broad gauge service from Adelaide to Port Pirie, not the Commonwealth Railways, operators from Port Pirie to Alice Springs.

Why did the Train Notices have to be authorised by all three South Australian Railway Superintendents, even the one at Murray Bridge? And why were all these Superintendents just Acting?

The standard gauge line from Tarcoola to Alice Springs was opened on 9th October, 1980.

For many years, Queensland Railways Brisbane Suburban Lines Working Timetables included a page of "Interstate" timetables for the line to Sydney via Casino. Shown on the front page of this issue of The Times is the "Interstate" page from the QR Suburban Lines Working Timetable dated 30th November, 1969. From this it will be seen that some freight services shown effectively took two nights. Also note Sth Brisbane and Clapham were used as terminals. Today the terminals are at Roma Street and Acacia Ridge. The loco hauled Brisbane Limited Express and Brisbane Express still ran.

Today the Brisbane Express no longer operates as it has been replaced by an XPT to and from Murwillumbah with a coach connection to and from Brisbane. The Brisbane Limited Express has now been replaced by an XPT service to and from Brisbane.

Notice one of the freight services is called a "Flexi Express". What differentiated a "Flexi Express" from other freights?

(Editorial Team member Bob Ritchie comments: I think the answer to the question posed above is that the NSWGR had in service at that time a number of so called flexi wagons. These had a turntable apparatus in the centre. The road vehicle backed up to the centre of the flexiwagon and its rear engaged the turntable enabling the rail wagon to take the weight while the rear road wheels were slid back to attach to the prime mover which then centred the container on the rail wagon before the container was turned on the turntable to a parallel orientation before being secured to the wagon. The system was operated jointly with involved road freight forwarders such as TNT. This fairly early form of Australian intermodal rail traffic evidently lost favour to the now conventional means of transferring containers by overhead cranes from road to rail and vice versa, without the need for investment in special rail or road vehicles to handle the flexi system. By the late 60s these trains would have been the "hot-shot" freights between Sydney and Brisbane. - Bob Ritchie)

TIMETABLE CHECKLIST NO. 1 - N.S.W. RAILWAYS
by Victor Isaacs

As mentioned in the editorial of the January 1998 issue of The Times, I would like to begin including lists in The Times of all the Australian transport timetables that have been published. This is a massive undertaking and it will probably not be completed in my lifetime. However, I believe that if we don't start cataloguing the timetables that have been published it will never get done. Victor Isaacs has started the process by contributing a list of public timetables issued for N.S.W. Railways. If you find any omissions or errors please advise me and I can list them in The Times so all of us will be able to have access to an accurate list. Contributions of lists of timetables for other railway, tram and bus systems are invited for publication in The Times. Even if they are incomplete they are better than nothing.- Ed.

Following is a checklist of all known issues of timetables since 1889 of the New South Wales Government Railways and its successors of so many and varied titles. It is an update of the list that appeared in The Times (Issue No. 24) of March 1985. It includes additional information brought to light by other members as a result of the publication of that list, plus the new system timetables published since 1985.

I originally prepared the list in 1985 because it appeared that there would then be no more system-wide timetables, only pamphlets for different regions (country) or lines (suburban). This has generally been true, but there have been some system-wide timetable books and these have been included. But note that I have not included regional or line booklets, except in two cases where all country booklets were republished on the same date. Since 1985, the individual booklets have often been published on separate dates for different regions or lines. I have not included these mainly because for the country timetables the pamphlets for the different regions have often been republished with no obvious changes - the new dates may simply be reprinting dates. For suburban timetables there has sometimes been republication on the same date for the whole system, and sometimes for some lines only (such as the recent issues of 19-10-97).

I am not confident that I have them all. I hope that another member can produce a similar list for these regional / line individual issues. A further caveat is that some days may not be accurate because of poor reproduction in the 1985 magazine and in some cases I no longer have access to the original sources (all months and years however are accurate).

I do not have information on Public timetables published before 1889 but the Wallsheet timetables (reprinted and available in Government Gazettes of the time) refer to the availability of "Penny Timetables".

It is interesting that the NSWGR managed to continue to produce public timetables during the second World War - albeit at a reduced rate - unlike the Victorian Railways.

This update appears now as part of the editor's plan to produce similar lists for all States. Any volunteers please? (What about a list for Victorian or Queensland railway timetables? Ed)

N.S.W. ALL-SYSTEM PUBLIC TIMETABLES: (Please read across) 1-1-1889 1-2-1889 1-10-1889 1-1-1890 1-9-1890 1-10-1890 1-1-1891 2-8-1891 1-2-1892 1-8-1892 1-9-1892 3-1-1893 1-3-1893 1-6-1893 1-10-1893 1-12-1895 12-4-1896 1-12-1896 1-5-1897 1-11-1897 3-4-1898 1-11-1898 17-4-1899 6-10-1899 1-5-1900 7-10-1900 6-10-1901 4-5-1902 12-10-1902 3-5-1903 25-10-1903 1-5-1904 9-10-1904 7-5-1905 15-10-1905 6-5-1906 19-5-1907 20-10-1907 24-5-1908 9-5-1909 ?-10-1909 8-5-1910 16-10-1910 28-5-1911 15-10-1911 19-5-1912 27-10-1912 11-5-1913 28-9-1913 8-11-1914 30-5-1915 14-11-1915 28-5-1916 9-6-1918 29-5-1921 16-10-1921 11-6-1922 15-10-1922 4-11-1923 1-6-1924 19-10-1924 31-5-1925 25-10-1925

COUNTRY: (Please read across) 30-5-1926 24-10-1926 12-6-1927 6-11-1927 10-6-1928 2-12-1928 9-6-1929 10-11-1929 25-5-1930 7-12-1930 15-11-1931 8-5-1932 20-11-1932 18-6-1933 14-10-1934 3-11-1935 31-5-1936 27-9-1936 23-5-1937 27-9-1937 19-8-1938 ?-11-1938 22-10-1939 20-10-1940 12-10-1941 ?-?-1942 28-5-1944 10-3-1946 6-11-1947 27-11-1949 26-11-1950 25-11-1951 23-11-1952 15-11-1953 27-2-1955 22-1-1956 ?-12-1957 25-10-1958 24-1-1960 20-11-1960 16-4-1962 21-6-1964 17-10-1965 1-5-1967 5-5-1968 10-9-1968 22-6-1969 1-11-1970 28-5-1972 2-6-1974 6-7-1977 1-1-1978 27-5-1978 25-6-1979 6-7-1980 5-7-1981 28-11-1982 27-11-1983 4-6-1984 11-10-1988S 2-4-1989 11-2-1990S 4-6-1990 20-10-1991 12-1-1992 ?-1-1994R 13-12-1994R 15-3-1996R 14-4-1998S

NOTES: S: the timetables of 11-10-1988, 11-2-1990 and 14-4-1998 were separate booklets for each region but are included here because all regions were published with effect from the same date. R: all-NSW, but Rail only (no buses)

SUBURBAN: (Please read across) 30-5-1925 24-10-1926 12-6-1927 6-11-1927 10-6-1928 2-12-1928 9-6-1929 10-11-1929 25-5-1930 7-12-1930 31-5-1931 15-11-1931 20-3-1932 (not all lines - for opening of Sydney Harbour Bridge) 8-5-1932 20-11-1932 19-6-1938 17-12-1939 28-5-1944 10-3-1946 30-11-1947 27-11-1949 26-11-1950 25-11-1951 23-11-1952 15-11-1953 27-2-1955 22-1-1956 1?-12-1957 26-10-1958 24-1-1960 24-11-1960 16-4-1962 11-11-1962 21-6-1964 17-10-1965 6?-5-1968 14-9-1969 14-11-1971 18-9-1976 27-5-1978 25-6-1979 6-7-1980 15?-11-1980 5-7-1981 6-12-1981 4-4-1982 28-11-1982 27-11-1983 ?-6-1984 ?-11-1984 28-7-1985 15-12-1985 31-5-1987 11-9-1988 5-3-1989 12-1-1992

1) Graeme Reynolds - NSW STNs, Electronic timetabling & Duplicated town names

The Battle for the NSW STNs (The Times No. 171, June, 1998 p3): While the Commonwealth Government and Parliament are considering the numerous, complex issues of copyright while it debates the revision of the Copyright Act 1968, it is timely that the State Rail Authority should enter one aspect of the debate. One of the matters considered in the review of the Copyright Act was whether material on the Internet could or should be protected by copyright.

The Copyright Act defines 'artistic' and 'literary' work. The former need not bear any artistic quality but be a graphic. The latter includes 'table, or compilation, expressed in words, figures or symbols'. From this point consideration of the qualities which lead to copyright subsisting in an STN might be tenuous. The graphics and form of the Notice might meet the 'artistic work' criteria. Perhaps the developer of the software might consider an interest. It is more doubtful that a meticulous arrangement of place names, alphabetical letters, numbers and digital times could be construed as a 'literary work'. Some, if not all, of these elements are likely to be shown to be common phenomena, which could limit its protection under the Act.

Electronic timetabling (The Times No. 171, June, 1998 p3): Timetables have progressed from their presentation in book form to the provision of replacement pages and has had the capacity to use electronic form for some years. When the agencies no longer publish hardcopy of the timetable, it will be too late to turn to electronics. It is important that A.A.T.T.C. begin the movement toward collecting and distributing in this medium.

The various State and Australian archive organisations have already begun to address the implications of the storage of electronic information and its simultaneous upgrade with technological change. The development of computing has already led to some information being lost as it was not transferred into the current technology. This concern has led to work to update all information as technology develops that 'historical' detail from even 1990 remains accessible.

Duplication of place names (The Times No. 171, June, 1998 pp10 & 11): Following Albert Isaacs' lucid account of the instance of town names being duplicated in New Zealand, I need only extend his reference to the following examples:- Newtown, a suburb of Geelong Newtown now Fitzroy Newtown, a suburb of Old Tallangatta c. 1910 Newtown, the junction station for the Skipton and Cressy lines.

Probably a confusing and inconsistent titling occurred when applying the branch terminus name to the junction. Hence near Ballarat, Scarsdale Junction became Linton Junction but fortunately, never Skipton and Cressy Junction. In this case the same specific name is used for two sites in some proximity, depending on the length of the branch. In jest, the same pattern might be aired for the points in the North Eastern Standard Gauge line near Tottenham, Victoria. Perhaps the title 'Fremantle Junction' has some harmony.

There has been periodic interest in removing confusing and similar names. An attempt to separate names occurred at Joyce Creek near Winton on the Victorian Railway's (VR) North East. This site was confused with Joyce's Creek, a station on the Castlemaine-Maryborough line. While the Country Roads Board re-signed the creek where the Hume Highway passed over it as Winton Creek, some hundred metres to the west the same creek as the railway line retains the earlier title. Railway Gradients and Curves [February 1991] persists with the historic title.

Graeme Reynolds, Ballarat, Victoria.

2) David Cranney - Multiple border crossings on Australian transport services.

I've been interested in the ongoing correspondence (eg. The Times No. 169, April 1998 p9) regarding multiple crossings of borders. I can think of the following to add to the list:

* In its latter years the Canberra Monaro Express detoured via Canberra (ACT) on its way to/from Cooma (NSW). This meant one 4 car unit could serve both Canberra and Cooma.

* As the ACT lies more or less across a straight line between Sydney and Melbourne, flights between these cities can pass through ACT airspace. From my house it is possible to see these planes to the west, particularly if they leave a vapour trail. I suppose the concept of "ACT airspace" is a bit ridiculous.

* In the days of the Murray River paddle steamers, they apparently took short cuts during times of flooding. Now, the Murray River is legally in NSW so a paddlesteamer would always be in NSW if it followed the course of the river as surveyed. But short cuts across flooded land in Victoria would have meant an indeterminate number of border crossings - this at a time when NSW and Victoria were rival colonies, not Australian states. Also, of course, riverboat cargo would have gone interstate (or intercolonially) during the act of loading between paddlesteamer (in NSW) and the wharf (in Victoria).

Please keep up the good work with The Times.

David Cranney, Tuggeranong, A.C.T.

3) Tris Tottenham - Thomas Cook Archives & Duplicated Town Names.

A couple of items from some recent issues of The Times.

Thomas Cook Archives (The Times No. 171, June, 1998 p11): With reference to the item about the 125th Anniversary of the Thomas Cook European Timetable (of which I have a copy) the following item about the Thomas Cook Archives appears on page 3 and may be of interest to readers of The Times.

Duplicated Town Names (The Times No. 170, May 1998 p4): If one turns from railway to bus destinations (at one time tramway in some cases) we have examples of the same name not only within the same state but even within the same city. In New South Wales there are no less than three Balmorals, two Tennysons and two Glebes as follows:

Balmoral - The following are all within a couple of hours drive of Sydney. 1) The Sydney Balmoral is known as either Balmoral Beach or Balmoral Heights. 2) North of Sydney there is Balmoral (Rathmines). 3) South of Sydney there is Balmoral Village (on the Picton-Mittagong loop lines between Buxton and Hill Top).

Glebe - There were two Glebes served by trams in New South Wales. 1) Sydney has Glebe Point. 2) Newcastle has Glebe.

Tennyson - There are two of these in Sydney. 1) One is located between Gladesville and Putney. 2) The other is near Richmond.

We could then expand this to the United States where there is duplication of many names. Examples that spring to mind are Kansas City, Kansas which is smaller than its namesake Kansas City, Missouri; Las Vegas, Nevada and Las Vegas, New Mexico. Incidentally the Nevada one no longer has a rail service but the other does. Then utter confusion could be caused by the town of Vancouver, Washington across the state line and river from Portland, Oregon and not to be confused with Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada which is just across the border at the other end of Washington State.

Tris Tottenham, Eastwood, N.S.W.

4) John Fitzsimons - Duplicated Town Names.

Please allow me to correct both Victor and Albert Isaacs (The Times No. 170, May 1998 p4 and The Times No. 171, June 1998 pp. 10 & 11) concerning some place names in South Australia and Victoria.

Kingston on Murray and Kingston SE are two separate localities, not one. In other words Kingston on Murray is not correctly known as Kingston SE. Kingston on Murray is a locality on the Sturt Highway between Waikerie and Barmera in the Riverland of Sth. Australia. Kingston SE is on the Princes Highway roughly half way between Meningie and Mount Gambier. I have no idea which one came first in being named Kingston but they are very definitely two localities.

There is also (presumably) a third Newtown in Victoria. Newtown is/was on the railway from Ballarat to Cressy being first stopping place south of Scarsdale or now a locality long forgotten on the road between Ballarat and Rokewood via Cape Clear; itself a misnomer as a maritime sounding locality a long way from the sea.

Trusting this clears up this matter and congratulations on an interesting and varied magazine.

John Fitzsimons, Richmond South, Victoria.

5) Alan Cohn - Showing equivalents for pre-decimalisation currency.

Thank you for your comments (The Times No. 171, June 1998 p8). I take your point re the importance of making things as clear as possible to people who might be confused by decimalisation.

I am still bothered by this, eg. in the ARHS Bulletin, where the cost of installing a new track is accompanied by a "5/- = 50 cents" type table. Every other decimal relationship remains constant, but it gives me no real idea of the cost of the line when it was built.

Could we compromise by including the words, e.g., "The relationship in 1966, when decimalisation of coinage was introduced in Australia" or some such?

Alan Cohn, Ormond, Victoria.

(Ed: OK, I'll do a deal with Alan and any other contributors who may feel strongly on how decimalisation is shown. If an explanatory note is written into the article like Alan has suggested I'm happy to leave it there. If there is no explanatory note then I'll leave it without one. Please see my editor's remarks in The Times No. 171, June 1998 p8 on why I have a different viewpoint.)

6) Albert Isaacs - Does timetable collecting have a future?

Paul Nicholson raises a number of issues in his Letter to the Editor (The Times No. 172, July 1998 pp12 & 13). The ones on which I particularly wish to comment are his statements regarding the dearth of younger members in the A.A.T.T.C. and kindred organisations.

While this problem certainly exists in most transport-hobby oriented societies, it is a far more universal problem that affects nearly every established organisation except computer clubs and the like. Scouts and Guides, sporting clubs of every possible type, music and dance groups, other hobbyist organisations: they all appear to have the same problem in maintaining youth membership.

Until three years ago, I agreed with most others of my age that today's teenagers and twenty year-olds were not interested in the transport hobby. When others suggested that organisations like the A.A.T.T.C. may be doomed because there was no future base, I made sympathetic replies of agreement.

Now that I am professionally involved with transport hobbyists, particularly railfans, I realise that there is actually an extremely large number of teenagers and twenty year-olds interested in our hobby. I actually have nearly as many customers in these early age groups as those with a few grey hairs. The main difference between the teen and twenty generations and the older hobbyist is that the younger ones are just not interested in joining organisations like the A.A.T.T.C. because (rightly or wrongly) they see us as fuddy-duddies and assume that our organisations are boring and of no interest to them! (With people like locomotive enthusiasts there is the added problem that the older enthusiast is almost entirely interested in steam whilst those of more tender years have grown up with an almost exclusive fascination with the diesel engine.)

In this context, the Association of Railway Enthusiasts is an interesting organisation in that it was formed about 35 years ago by people then in their teens and twenties who were dissatisfied with the then-existing railfan organisations. Because of stable leadership over the years, many of the A.R.E.'s founders still hold executive positions within the Association. However, these people are now in their late forties or fifties. The youth of today tends to see the contemporary A.R.E. in the same way as its founders saw the other groups and, as a result, even the A.R.E. has very few young members now. I have made a submission to the A.R.E. Board containing suggestions as to how the young railfan may be attracted into the organisation. My ideas are now being worked on and time will tell whether or not they are successful.

Now to the A.A.T.T.C.! Our Association only has four or five members in their teens or twenties - that's only about 3% of our total membership! Some, such as Derek Cheng and Andrew Duffin have joined because they're super enthusiastic and absolutely committed to our hobby. Nevertheless we have the task of encouraging the other younger timetable collectors to join us.

Over the years, I have personally encouraged some of our younger members, such as Simon Aalbers and Stephen Ward, to join the Committee, in the hope that they would come up with ways of encouraging their peers to align themselves with us. Stephen is still on the Committee and may be able to do something along these lines. However, none of us must be complacent about the future. I believe we should all be trying to get the younger timetable collector to join us. I know that they're out there! Every A.A.T.T.C. member should be encouraging any teenager or twenty year-old they see gathering timetables or showing an interest in the on-time running of their train, tram, bus or ferry, to join the Association. If there's no interest we should be asking them why and trying to rectify the problems from the inside.

I believe that the A.A.T.T.C. will attract younger members and will survive for many years to come but it will take work on the part of present members in attracting the younger generations into the fold.

Albert Isaacs, Hawthorn, Victoria.

(Ed: Albert's observations contain considerable insights. I can relate to Albert's comments as even to this day I still regard some of the older societies as being like "fuddy-duddies". As a father of two boys aged 11 and 14 I know that even though the younger generation has a predisposition to computers and the like, they also have interests similar to ours. It seems to me that the answer is to relate our hobby to their world and not to what it used to be like "in the good old days". If organisations like ourselves take that approach I believe we have a promising future. As people will always want to travel, there will always be transport timetables. It's just a matter of keeping ourselves relevant to the developments. Any further comments on this issue are most welcome.)

GRAPHIC INSIGHT

This month, Graphic Insight continues its analysis of a range of Australian transport timetables, this month comparing the number of services scheduled in peak hours on weekdays with the number of services scheduled between the peaks.

The timetables on which the information is based are recent public timetables (1994 to 1998) from Queensland Railways, CityRail (NSW), The Met (Vic), TransAdelaide, TransPerth, Brisbane City Council, MTT (Tas), and Glenorie Bus Co (NSW). The routes selected are from the nominated location to the CBD of the respective State Capital city except as follows: Glenorie Bus service route 635 from Castle Hill to Beecroft, Sydney Airport Express route 350 from Kings Cross to Sydney Domestic Airport, and the CityRail service from Maitland to Newcastle.

The graph below shows one bar for each route, each bar represents the ratio of peak hour services per hour to the number of off-peak services per hour.

Not surprisingly all routes show peak hour services of at least equivalent service level to off-peak frequency. The most pronounced peaks are on the commuter heartland rail routes from Parramatta to Sydney, Ringwood to Melbourne and Newcastle to Sydney. This contrasts with the suburban bus services Grange to Brisbane, Castle Hill to Beecroft and Sydney to Sydney Airport where there is no peak hour distinction at all.

Note the predominance of train and tram routes on which there is about a 150% ratio of peak to off-peak services: Cleveland to Brisbane, Maitland to Newcastle, Gawler Central to Adelaide, Glen Iris to Melbourne, Glenelg to Adelaide, and Midland to Perth.

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