(ISSN 0813-6327)
Print Publication No: 349069/00070
February 2000 Issue No. 191 (Vol. 17 No.2)
Sydney Ferries Working Timetable
By Duncan MacAuslan
In The Times recently it was queried whether working timetables are published for services other than railways and trams. They certainly are for buses but much rarer are those for ferries.
Sydney Ferries, an operating division of the State Transit Authority, publishes a twice daily running sheet which is effectively a ferry working timetable.
The example shown is for the afternoon of Thursday 7 January 1999 and shows their activities by vessel. There is no order for the vessels other than the top half being for First Fleet catamarans and (untitled) Ladies, while River and Harbour cats fill the bottom half.
To understand the timetable it should be noted that crews are usually allocated to a vessel on a semi-permanent basis and that this timetable effectively covers the second shift of crews for the day.
The abbreviations used are:
D/H - Darling Harbour
F/D - Fort Denison, for tour
G.I. - Goat Island, for the National Parks tour
M/B - Meadowbank
Mos - Mosman
N/B - Neutral Bay
P.I.F. - Put In For, i.e. the next trip the vessel operates but with a different crew
P/M - Parramatta
R/M - Rydalmere
R/B - Rose Bay
Val - Valentia Street, Woolwich
W/B - Watson's Bay
Wols - Wolesley Street, Drummoyne
Zoo - Taronga Zoo
Berths at Circular Quay are known by wharf number, side (East or West) and then P (Pontoon) and C or CNR (Corner), the latter being the closest to the walkway and not accessible to passengers. So 5EP is 5 East Pontoon.
Some of the highlights of this timetable are:
My Great-Uncle’s Train Travels
by Victor Isaacs, who says: "Warning: the following is a self-indulgent article!"
For the past year I have been pre-occupied researching the life of my great-uncle, John Dias (cover). He is commemorated by a plaque at the main entrance to Melbourne’s Trades Hall building bearing a very generous tribute. Why? I did not know, except a vague "he had been active in the union movement". Nor apparently, did anyone else in the family. I knew there had to be a story, and I set out to find it. I discovered he had an extremely varied and interesting life all around Australia and in South America. The resulting biography has been submitted to less friendly journals than the Times.
In an earlier article in the Times, I quoted Jack McLean who said something like "railway timetable collectors tend to be either frustrated operators, who are fascinated mainly by working timetables, or frustrated travellers, who are fascinated mainly by public timetables." I am definitely in the second group. Imaginary trips in faraway lands or faraway times beckon me.
So, I decided it would be fun, if instead of imaginary trips, I reconstructed the real travel of my great-uncle.
John Dias, the son of immigrants attracted from England to Victoria by the goldrushes, was born in the centre of Melbourne in 1861. By the time he was seven the family had sailed across the Tasman to the goldrushes of the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand. They returned in 1874, when he was thirteen and moved to Bendigo (then called Sandhurst). I guess the journey from Melbourne to Bendigo would have been John’s first train trip. The illustration is from the Victorian Railways public timetable of 1875 reprinted by the AATTC a few years ago (left).
John left home and made his way to Melbourne, then Sydney, then north Queensland, where he was a shearer. Perhaps he travelled by ship, perhaps he went overland, working from property to property. A possibility is his using the newly opened railway inland from Townsville. The illustration (above) is from a timetable of 1888 in the period when Queensland Railway timetables were printed in the Government Gazette.
Dias was a founder of the Queensland Shearers’ Union and an organiser during the great Queensland shearers’ dispute of the early 1890s. With the defeat of the shearers, following the defeat of the unions in the maritime dispute shortly before, and the then deep depression, some in the Australian working class, led by William Lane, decided that Australia would never become a workingmen’s paradise. They therefore decided to start afresh by establishing an utopian settlement in Paraguay, South America. Dias was one of Lane’s followers. While waiting for the venture to be organised, Dias made his way to the new booming mining town of Broken Hill, but I do not know how.
Subsequently, Dias made his way to Sydney to join the Paraguayan venture. Again, I do not know how. He might even have walked (he was then very fit and strong). He might have travelled by train Broken Hill-Adelaide-Melbourne with a side trip to Bendigo to see his family before he left the country.
The adventurers sailed across the Pacific and to Uruguay, and then up the Parana River to Ascunion, the capital of Paraguay. From there they travelled on the railway to Villaricca. (any copies of a Paraguayan Railway timetable of the 1890s will be gratefully received).
Disillusion soon set in at the settlements in Paraguay. Many left, including Dias. I do not know how he returned home. But, if he were like other returnees, he would have taken a boat down the river to Buenos Aires, ship to England, then ship to Australia.
On his return, Dias made his home in Kalgoorlie, the new boom town of the Western Australian goldfields. Doubtless his travel there was by the overnight train from Perth. At this time Kalgoorlie was a big as Perth and had more suburban trains. Dias lived at Brown Hill on the suburban loop line. (A Kalgoorlie suburban timetable of 1898 appeared in the March 1999 Times, and this month's cover). He was a carpenter and soon active in the union, the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners (ASCJ). He represented the ASCJ at the WA Trade Union and Labour Congress in Fremantle in 1902, this necessitating a nice train trip to the coast. He was also active in the Goldfields Trades and Labour Council (TLC), including briefly its President.
He was the TLC representative on the Esperance League, which endeavoured to convince the State government to build a Kalgoorlie-Esperance railway, thereby shortening the distance to a port and to the eastern states.
In 1906 Dias was selected as the Labor candidate for the North East Province in a Legislative Council election. He set off on a speaking tour to the mining towns to the north of Kalgoorlie. Railway towns he spoke in were Leonora, Gwalia, Kookynie and Menzies. Most of this trip would have been by train. The illustration here is taken from the Morgans Chronicle, from Mt Morgans (now a ghost town).
Following his election defeat, Dias again travelled to Broken Hill. Presumably, he travelled Kalgoorlie-Fremantle by train, ship to Adelaide, and then train (changing at Terowie) to Broken Hill.
He then moved to Melbourne. He may have travelled Broken Hill-Adelaide-Melbourne by train, or he may have taken a ship from Adelaide, or even Port Pirie. An illustration appears of the Adelaide-Broken Hill and v.v. from a South Australian Railways public timetable of 1 November 1925 – the date is wrong, but is the closest I can come up with.
In Melbourne, Dias resumed his career as a carpenter and his activity in the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners. He became President, then Secretary of the Victorian Branch of the ASCJ. The work of a union Secretary was doubtless onerous. It included travel to building and other work sites, not only around Melbourne, but also throughout Victoria sometimes taking him away for a number of days. For example, in May 1913 Dias reported on travel in the proceeding weeks to Geelong, Ballarat, Castlemaine and Bendigo. The Society minutes indicate that this was all trips to and from Melbourne – the cross-country lines were not used. In July 1913, he reported on travel to Wonthaggi, Camperdown and Colac. The Times of April 1999 included illustrations of travel from Melbourne to all these places except Wonthaggi in November 1932 – again the date is out, but the best I’ve got. Dias was also often required to travel to Sydney where the Federal officials of the union were based.
The ASCJ was a branch of a British union. Dias was selected to argue the case for autonomy of the Australian branches at a meeting of the Grand Council of the ASCJ in Manchester, England. The Grand Council met only at intervals of six years. Dias therefore set off in 1916, in the middle of the Great War. He departed Melbourne on the Sydney Express on 15 March 1916 to connect with the s.s. Makura in Sydney. This is the only example I have of an exact date and an exact train for his travels. The timetable for the Sydney Express is shown on page 8. The trip is illustrated from the NSW Government Railways public timetable of 14 November 1915. But how did he continue from Albury to Sydney? The immediate connection, the Limited Express, only conveyed sleeping car and first class passengers. It is very unlikely that an union stalwart like Dias would have travelled thus. The following ordinary Express, however, was not due into Sydney until 11.5 am. Passengers were required to be on board the Makura by 1.30 pm (see the illustration of a shipping advertisement from the Sydney Morning Herald and Daily Telegraph of 16 May 1916). So, there was not much time to make the connection, especially if the trai ran late.
The trip was a trial for Dias. He wrote to a colleague: "I ad an attack of rheumatic fever before getting to Honolulu and was some weeks in the Vancouver hospital … I was five days on the train and got a terrible shaking up before I reached Montreal. However, I picked up considerably on the boat". The illustration is of the Canadian Pacific Railway’s trans-Canada service in 1909. Note that it uses 24-hour time in the west and 12-hour time in the east!
Presumably the ship docked in Liverpool from where there was a choice of three routes for the sixty kilometres to Manchester – by the London and North Western Railway, the Cheshire Lines Committee or the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway. While in England, he did some local travel to meet former colleagues now serving in the Forces.
I do not have information about the method of his return to Australia, but it was doubtless similar, except he spent time in New Zealand on the way resolving union organisational problems.
Unfortunately for this article, Dias lived within a short
walk of the Trades Hall building, so there is no daily commuting to record.
Dias died in 1924.
Look, I've got the handbill for the excursions to the Hawkesbury" said Dad holding a booklet.
"When do we have to book?" asked Mum,
"It says tickets go on sale on Friday".
What's the holiday for?" asked young Terry.
"Eight hour day, celebrating the date when the unions won the workers a forty hour week" replied Dad. "We can catch the train from Strathfield at 9.21" he continued, reading page 3
"Can we get chocolates on the trip?" asked Kate noticing the advert at the bottom of page 7. "Yes, and also Kodak film" Dad replied noticing another advert on the back page.
Well, a conversation like this might have taken place in the last week of September 1951 based on The Department of Railways, NSW handbill number 86.
At first glance it would appear that the railways were operating special services to Kurrajong for the occasion. The eight page handbill contains a full timetable for Monday 1st October 1951 for trains between Wynyard, Penrith and Kurrajong. On this holiday six trains operated between Richmond and Kurrajong compared with the normal Monday's seven, one late afternoon trip not operating. No through trains operated, all passengers having to change at Richmond and on this day the 'goods train with passenger accommodation attached' that usually ran mid-morning appears to be passengers only. The service was better than Sunday's five trains of which only four had connections from Central.
None of the trains operated appears to have been what is accepted as an excursion, that is a specially advertised train, often with advanced booking. What the Department were really doing was extending the regular weekend excursion fare, detailed on page 2, to cover the public holiday. Of interest was that by the time the next timetable book was published on 25 November 1951 these fares had all increased by between two and six pence.
If our mythical family had taken the trip to Kurrajong they would
have been one of the last to travel on a public holiday because by June
1952 the line was closed. A history of the line, written by John Oakes,
can be found in 'ARHS Bulletin', July 1997.
Jack McLean had to wait nearly half a century to get his timetable.
World War 2 (at least the European part) had been over since 5 May 1945 and the last entry in my log book shows that I flew for the last time on 31 May 1945. I had a telegram in my wallet with the following encouraging message "INDEFINITE LEAVE GRANTED- SIGNAL FOP, RECALL WILL BE FORWARDED". it was dated 21 June 1945 and was signed "OC RAF SANDTOFT"
For the preceding ten months, I had been ignoring railway posters which asked "Is Your Journey Really Necessary?" and between 31 May and 11 November, while I was waiting for a homeward bound troop ship, I continued to add my long list of unnecessary journeys. One such "journey" included the Isle of Wight which I knew had intensive services, many of which made ferry connections. The trains were run with small steam (cover) hauling train sets of low roofed carriages and most of the 85 miles of railway were single track. In consequence the railway had for railway enthusiasts, a fascination all of its own– and still has! I had the very good fortune to travel on all IOW lines in one day.
It was Wednesday, 11 July 1945. After a night in a Lymington (Hampshire) boarding house, I walked through the fog to Lymington Pier and embarked on the 7.40 a.m. MV "Lymington" which took me across the Solent to Yarmouth Slipway. After a brisk 2 mile walk along A3054 I arrived at the railway station at Freshwater. Maybe the porter at Freshwater let me look at his time table and anyway I was able to plan the day's wanderings. Despite the lack of detailed planning, the day was a success. and it seems from notes in my book that I at least tried to pay my fare. The following is my itinerary.
I started out on the 10.35 am from Freshwater and at Newport at 11.22, I changed to a train for Ryde Pier Head (hereinafter referred to as RPH). I arrived at RPH at 11.54 and changed into the 11.58 RPH to Ventnor, At Brading, I changed into the Bembridge two-car local (push-pull?) and made the return trip. Back at Brading, I changed again this time to the 12.20 RPH to Ventnor and there between 1.13 and 2.16, I lunched on fish and chips.
The 2.16 Ventnor to RPH took me to Sandown where I changed to the 2.46 Sandown to Cowes and detrained at Merstone. Between 3.07 and 3.52, 1 made a return trip to Ventnor West on the two car local (push-pull?) and at Ventnor West the lady porter gave me a battered 1936 Island WTT (which I still have). Back at Merstone, I caught the 3.46 Sandown to Cowes where I had some sort of evening meal (toast and tea?) before catching the 5.42 Cowes to RPH. At RPH, I embarked on the ferry SS Princess Victoria and crossed Spithead on my way to Portsmouth, where my travelling finished about 7 pm. With the exception of the push-pull trains all seemed to have been hauled by 0-4-4 tanks and had either 4 or 6 carriages.
Some time in 1987, that is to say 42 years later, I wrote up this journey for the British Railway Modellers in Australia and it was published in their magazine. For a background to the article, I used Bradshaw (pages 10, 11) for September 1945, that is, two months aftermy visit.
Many readers of Somersault, the magazine of the Signalling Record Society Victoria, also subscribe to the Signalling Record of the Signalling Record Society (of UK). In the latter, an article on the Isle of Wight Railway got a mention when the UK member Ronald Post sent in his picture of Ventnor station taken in the 1920's. I rightly guessed that my 1987 article would be of interest to Mr Post and I sent him a photocopy of it.
At almost the same time, another SRS(UK) member Gerald Jacobs saw Mr Post's article and wrote to him asking if he had any details of rosters of pre-WW2 IOW locomotives. As my article listed all the engines I had seen on that one day, Mr Post sent my article on to a delighted Mr Jacobs. He had been a stationmaster for a short time on the IOW. When he wrote to thank me, he commented that in my 1987 article I had mentioned that I still didn't have a 1945 IOW WTT and he asked if I would like a photocopy. Of course I said "Yes" and in June 1999 the photocopy arrived at 60 Kenmare Street (this page & next page).
Which all goes to prove something or other:– like 'it all comes to those who wait' even if it is 54 years. However, I will now have to correct the errors in the 1987 article and draw some time table graphs as illustrations for it.
Signalman Wainscotting at Manunkachunk Junction discovered one day that he had failed to wind his ignal box clock and it had run down. He had no watch. So he borrowed a hand-pump trolley from the ganger and travelled down the line to Devil’s Elbow, to visit his compatriot Sam Frogsquat. Naturally, the kettle was on the gas ring in Frogsquat’s signal box when he arrived, so they had a cup of tea and discussed last Saturday’s bowls match. Then Wainscotting got back on his trolley and hand-pumped his way back to Manunkachunk Junction. When he arrived there, he set his signal box clock exactly. How?
Answer to "How many Canadians?
No 2 meets seven copies of No 1 on the trans-Canada journey. When we
leave Vancouver, there are four opposing movements on the line, one of
them is just arriving at Vancouver as we leave and one of them is just
leaving Toronto at the same time. We meet all four. During our journey,
2 more copies of No 1 leave Toronto and we meet them too. Finally, as we
arrive at Toronto we meet a 7th copy just departing. The total number of
sets required to maintain this service is 8, most easily seen by looking
at the cycle time for any one train: 3 days across the continent, 1 day
preparing to return, 3 days back across the continent, 1 day preparing
to begin the cycle again. That’s 8 days, to have a train do this every
day, then we need 8 train sets. Alternatively you can see that No 2, in
meeting 7 copies of No 1 has met all the other trainsets and, plus itself,
that makes 8 trainsets. In the real world, the trains run to and from Montreal
as well as Toronto, combining or splitting at Sudbury, but we will have
to ignore this complication.
Doest thou covet thy neighbour's timetable? When you close your eyes at night, do you see the acronym "WTT" floating in the air over your bed? Does the sepulchral voice of The Man in Grey speak to you, saying "Hurry along for the 6.45 p.m. Spirit of Progress, nearly due out from Platform number 1"—and do you answer him? Have you built a database with every known wall sheet timetable for the Laverton line in it? You have? Never mind, you have Asperger's Syndrome— but it means you may never feel alone. Now, take the case of Sir Horace Partridge, for instance
The measurement of time is, of course, arbitrary. This was strongly demonstrated to me in December 1999 when I was travelling on the Indian Pacific from Adelaide to Kalgoorlie
Great Southern Railway continues the nice custom of the former Commonwealth Railways of providing passengers with a detailed timetable. This, however, was in Standard Time and took no account of the increased variation between Central and Western Time because South Australia observes Daylight Time.
Great Southern Railway also continues the former Commonwealth Railways custom of observing "Railway Time" on the Indian Pacific for social purposes, mainly meal times. "Railway Time" is between Western and Central Time
So, travelling on the Indian Pacific across the Nullarbor Plain in summer, one has the choice of observing any of four times– Central Daylight, Central Standard, Railway or Western Standard Times– with a possible variation up to 2½ hours. This certainly made keeping a log of train running an interesting and challenging exercise.
Time on the Indian Pacific was whatever one chose it to be!
This month, Graphic Insight takes a look at trans-Tasman passenger air services operated by Australia's largest airline, QANTAS. New Zealand, not surprisingly, is the country from which the most intensive air service into Australia is provided. But what is that level of service?
The data in the graph below is taken from the QANTAS Worldwide Timetable dated effective 31 October 1999, and documents the service after additional service changes effective 6th November 1999.
The graph below indicates the weekly number of non-stop flights timetabled from each New Zealand city to each Australian city. You will notice that non-stop services are provided from only three New Zealand cities and into only four Australian cities. The fourth of these is Cairns which receives only one flight per week.
The frequency of services, not surprisingly, varies with the relative population of the cities. Auckland and Sydney, the cities with the largest population in each country, have the greatest number of services. The relative number of flights to and from the other cities however shows an interesting contrast between the two countries. At the New Zealand end, Wellington and Christchurch, cities which each are around one third the population of Auckland, receive almost half the number of flights - ie per head of population they are better served than Auckland. At the Australian end however, Melbourne receives only 19 flights and Brisbane only 11 flights compared to Sydney's 50. In each case this is a significantly lower frequency on a per-head of population basis than to Sydney. This suggests that QANTAS operates a hubbing arrangement at its Australian base. It could also be because there is a significantly greater New Zealand community in Sydney than there is in the other cities.
Finally, notice that the service frequency from Wellington is identical to that from Christchurch for all Australian destinations. This is somewhat surprising because Wellington is largely a business destination whereas Christchurch is more conveniently located to the South Island tourist attractions. One reason may be that Wellington has a very restricted airport with a short and difficult runway.