The Times June 2021 A journal of transport timetable history and analysis

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RRP $4.95 Incl. GST The Times Digital A journal of the Australian Timetable Association Inc. (A0043673H) Print Publication No: 349069/00070, ISSN 0813-6327 June 2021 Vol 38 No. 06 Issue No. 449 The Times welcomes all contributions. Our Authors’ Guide is available on our web-site at https://www.timetable.org.au/ Reproduction Provided a Creative Commons acknowledgement is made, material appearing in The Times may be reproduced anywhere. Disclaimer Opinions expressed in our magazines are not necessarily those of the Association or its members. Editor Geoff Lambert 179 Sydney Rd FAIRLIGHT 2094 NSW email: [email protected] The Times is posted in full colour to our website https://www.timetable.org.au/times.html, two months after publication in paper and to the National Library website 6 months after publication. Colour PDF versions of previous issues of our magazines are at https://www.timetable.org.au/

—Contents— Geoff Lambert ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS 3 Steven Haby TRAVELLING ON THE BULL TO ADELAIDE 8 Brendan Whyte, Anthony Trollope & Geoff Lambert HE KNEW HE WAS RIGHT 11 Tanya TANYA’S QUIZ #2 15 Tanya ANSWERS TO TANYA’S QUIZ #1 15

Letter to the Editor—Albert Isaacs.

The photo of the esteemed founder of the ATA, Jack McLean, which appears on page 2 of The Times for April 2021, includes an amazing coincidence. Jack is shown on the right of the photo and, although not explained in your caption, the person on Jack’s right is Tony Shields of Shields Stamps & Coins. The coincidence is that both these men were born on 28th April although, obviously, in different years.

I worked with Tony Shields from 1989 to 1991, and during this time I introduced Tony to Jack, and it was my introduction that led to them getting together for a tea or coffee in the Lounge Car of The Overland, as per the illustration. From memory, I think that I may have also been lurking around somewhere in the background.

Including myself, I actually know no fewer than five people who share (shared) my birthday of 28th April!

I hope that my explanation of this strange quirk is of interest. ———————— Note by one of our proof-readers Regarding birthdays, I don’t know if Albert counts himself as “knowing my daughter” since they’ve never met or corresponded, but her birthday is also on April 28th. It all seems very impressive until we consider that if we put 30 people into a room and ask them for their birthdays, mathematically speaking there’s a better than 50% chance two or more will share the same birthday. (I can’t prove that right now, but I’m sure it’s on the internet.). Further note by the Editor The number is actually 24. This problem was first posed and answered in 1947 by George Gamow (one of the builders of the Hydrogen Bomb) in his book “One, Two, Three … Infinity”. The book is still in print. The maths gets harder as the number of “coincidences” grows, but we can say that Albert’s “statistics” are not at all unusual, provided he has numerous friends and acquaintances.

2 The Times June 2021 Rock, Paper, Scissors– who wins in timetable preservation? Geoff Lambert reflects on timetable collecting and preservation

N HIS BOOK “FASTER” (1999), perhaps divide Air into “Domestic” and the Swiss public, being “smarter James Gleick had a chapter titled and “International”. “Short Term Memory”, in which than the average bear” seem to be able to grasp the meaning. The only known I For most of these modes, we also need he discussed the evanescence of information and the desire—and to factor in the entity that produced the attempt to produce a “Public” version sometimes the futility—of trying to timetables– the Operator or a Third for the Customers (by Edwin Tufte for preserve EVERYTHING in a form Party such as Bradshaw, for instance. New Jersey suburban buses) was a that will stand the test of time. Bradshaw has the unusual distinction total market failure. Already, 22 years down the track, the of being the inventor of the transport In the ATA’s template for the problems that Gleick described have “timetable” - although he never used “timetables” we send to the State grown worse by two orders of that word to describe what he had Library of Victoria (SLV), we have magnitude. In a recent SMH article, invented. In rail-mad Japan, there are the following categories: the current scale of the problem was about a dozen such companies in the  Location Published illustrated by the annual task of game. In many countries it was often  Brand the practice of local business preserving Australian Federal  Region Government records:- (especially Real Estate Agents) to  Service Provider  “Digital”: 2,986 terabytes — provide their customers or potential  Timetable Publisher equivalent to 19 billion PDF pages; customers with copies of timetables  Primary Mode  Paper: 92 kilometres (!) of shelf pertaining just to their immediate area,  Additional Mode space. complete (of course) with self- boosting advertisements. Do these  Type (routine, special, etc.) What then of timetables? count?  “Public” or “Working” … and many more specialised sub- Whether one regards the collection, Then again, I suppose, we have to categories and IDs besides. This set of study, analysis and preservation of think about a conceptual split between categories and the words used to “timetables” as a professional or timetables as compendia in the form of describe them, was pretty much driven amateur activity, the order of popular stand-alone booklets and time tables as by the SLV. Different Archive fixation by mode has been (and leaflets of a few pages. It seems to me organisations (such as Public Record probably still is): that “collectors” prefer the former, but Offices) will slice and dice in different 1. Rail (78%,35%) that “heritage value” often may reside ways. 2. Road (13%, 60%) with the latter because, for many 3. Air (0%, 0%) operators, that was all they ever We should also, perhaps, think about a 4. Water (9%, 5%) produced. couple of the drivers behind timetable There may be some sort of hybrid collecting– appearance and content. If between categories 1 and 2—light rail, Finally (“finally?”), do we need to you go to the catalog pages on the tramways, interurbans etc. but, for my figure in whether timetables created website of the NAOTC, you will find present purposes, I lump these into for a Holiday or a special event an impressive set of imagery of over “Rail”. The percentage figures against (“Dapto Dogs” anyone?) need to be 3,700 timetable PTT covers—from the counted, studied and preserved. each mode represent the percentage of Adirondack to the Zanesville and each type in the NTC database for all Rail, being the first horse out of the Western—but precious little states in 2017 and NSW alone in 2018 starting gates (as it were) also built the reproduction of their content (see our when over 3,000 NSW timetables templates for timetable “classification” own rear cover). The cover art of USA were in the latter. - a two-way split between: PTTs is the prime determinant of their That order would probably be the  Timetables for the customers monetary value and “collectability”. same were one to comb the archives of (“PTTs”)—handbills, wall-sheet The more lurid, the more expensive. timetables, etc. the planet and count the number of What shall it profit a man (it is always timetables that HAVE been produced  Timetables for the staff (“WTTs”, a man) if he should acquire all 76 of “ETTs”) in the “traditional” format. and/or preserved. Victor Isaacs used to the Aberdeen & Rockfish Railroad’s say that timetable collecting was a And, let’s not forget “Graphical niche activity of a niche activity and I ETTs and all three of the Zealand Timetables”—my own particular Valley Railroad’s ETTs and lose his think he was mostly talking of rail – favourite—for the wealth of thus a “niche of a niche of a niche”. sense of perspective as part of the information that can be crammed into bargain? And how shall it profit If we care to continue hairsplitting, we a single sheet of paper. These really society if that man has done that? In a could, for “Rail” and “Road” at least, fall into the category of “Staff recent article in “Spectrum”- ‘Locked- subdivide them into “Metropolitan” Timetables”. Swiss Railways, for one, stationery-cupboards-and-other- and “Intercity or Regional” and post these up as wall-sheet timetables memories-of-the-relatively-recent-

The Times June 2021 3 past’, Richard Glover expressed the Insofar as consumers of transport are words not writ in stone, anyway has of hope that people of the future (2030!) concerned, it is information they seek course been paper. Paper does decay with will be fairly busting to know how the in their timetables, not bedtime time, and it is fragile. One fire at the Sydney Morning Herald was produced reading. These people didn’t take library at Alexandria in 391 BC destroyed a big piece of the ancient world's heritage. when he started there in 1968. much convincing to switch from a But to some people, paper is beginning to Somehow, I doubt it. classic timetable in paper form which look good. As consumers of technology they had to carry around, to a mobile It would be interesting to know how we're easily seduced. We mothball three- phone that presented information in a much is contagion and how much is year-old PC's. But the data have time non-classic way but tailored exactly to scales of their own, perhaps measured in genetics. The founder of ATA, Jack their needs of the moment– and centuries. Some companies have begun McLean, was vigorously dissuaded (potentially) has every current refreshing their aging records, by from timetable collecting by his timetable on the planet at their continually copying them onto new storage father—but he became infected fingertips in a matter of milliseconds. media using new software. Refreshing isn't anyway. His two sons also caught the easy, and most institutions have not yet bug– and their Dad did not try to Two decades ago, when the ‘problem’ realized that it may be necessary. dissuade them. Nevertheless, Jack was much smaller, Gleick wrote: Whatever media they use to save their once confided in me that it was “just digital information, they will not be able to As the flow of information accelerates, we about as far removed from normal life read it without a machine—a finicky may have trouble keeping track of it all. In antique, most likely. as it is possible to get”. past times companies stored data on punch With paper, all you need is your eyes. Do we REALLY need to preserve on cards, as rows of holes; then on big, soft, eight-inch floppy disks, or on magnetic paper and/or on digital media every It's scary. And yet … anyone wandering tapes, like Univac's Type IT-A. These, through the Internet might begin to feel timetable ever produced? If not, how unfortunately, grow ragged and faint over do we select and cull? It is hard to that memory loss isn't the problem. Any years of sitting in the ghostly magnetic silly message that you broadcast to a grasp how many timetables, of all fields that are part of life on Earth. Maybe Usenet newsgroup is now being stored, for transport modes, were issued and how your company just saved data on mag eternity or some approximation thereof, by many of them have irretrievably cards for the mag-card IBM Selectric a variety of commercial services. No vanished. Are we the lesser for their Typewriter. “And where could you get one matter that you gave your last posting a vanishing? of those today, and why would you want mere five seconds' thought; you should be to?” said Ken Thibodeau, director of the prepared to hear your biographer read it For modes other than rail— Center for Electronic Records, responsible back to you in your dotage. Will people particularly private enterprise for the archiving of the uncountable really want future employers to dig up all suburban bus services—the majority records of the United States Government. the messages they've been posting to of timetables are now— literally— IBM's published list of Discontinued alt.dead.porn.stars and CO vapour. Is this a good or a bad Storage Media grew longer and longer: soc.support.depression.manic? Sometimes, 2 optical disks, data cartridges, mini-data thing? About 1,000 people on the as the years go by, privacy demands a cartridges, maxidata cartridges, diskettes gentle forgetfulness. planet might say it was a bad thing. of all sizes, and—somehow—mixed in with The other 7 billion will just shrug. these, Fifty file tab dividers, 8-inch floppy Many people sitting at company workstations toss off their E-mail as There is, I think, a tricky semantic disks had been a magnificent improvement over punch cards, and few were sorry to casually as they speak. But it does not problem with “preserving timetables”. see file clerk begin to fade from the disappear, as corporate lawyers across the The timetable, as “invented” by corporate vocabulary. But obsolescence country have realized. Neither sender nor Bradshaw, and based upon the Tabula came faster and faster. The life cycles of recipient can delete it reliably. To the Rasa of money counters two millennia storage media for the data coursing lawyers' occasional horror … here comes ago, is but one way of visualizing a through computers became as short as two the subpoena, it lingers on disk drives and “schedule”. There are other ways, such to five years. We now stockpile our backup tapes like a late-night guest who as the ABC timetable, which is not heritage on millions of hard drives and has forgotten how to leave. optical disks, and these flaky objects, too, really a “table” at all, but is an ordered Meanwhile, in its unofficial way, the promise-to go obsolete on a rapid list of possibilities to get from A to B Internet is transforming the way schedule. to C. An Information Scientist would information is stored. The traditional not see much difference. Wikipedia Many of the world's librarians, archivists, function of libraries, gathering books for says this on the topic. “Information and Internet experts see a crisis looming. permanent storage or one-at-a-time Science” is that discipline that investigates They warn that our burgeoning digital lending, has been thoroughly confused. the properties and behavior of information, culture is heading for oblivion, and fast. Archiving of the on-line world is not the forces governing the flow of “There has never been a time of such centralized. The network distributes information, and the means of processing drastic and irretrievable information loss” memory. There is a kind of self-replication information for optimum accessibility and says Stewart Brand, creator of the Whole at work, with data employing humans in usability. This includes the investigation of Earth Catalog a generation ago. Our the effort to spread and reproduce. Web information representations in both collective memory is already beginning to site by Web site, the data seem as frail as natural and artificial systems, the use of fade away, he argues. Future skywriting smoke in the breeze. Brewster codes for efficient message transmission, anthropologists will find our pottery but Kahle, estimating the average lifetime of a and the study of information processing not our E-mail. We've turned into a total Web page at seventy five days, created an devices and techniques such as computers amnesiac, Brand says. We do short-term Internet Archive to capture and store and their programming systems. . memory, period. The information storage periodic snapshots of almost the entire medium of the past couple of millennia for Web. It saves pages that have been lost or

4 The Times June 2021 shut down by their owners. It amounts to humanity into a sort of giant organism, an not for Jack. In the articles he wrote about eight terabytes of data (tera- is intermittently connected for “The Times” in the Twentieth trillion; peta- is next.) [the everyday information-gathering creature. Really, Century, 96% were about rail and 60% computer of 2021 already has probably 2 amnesia doesn't seem to be its worst were about WTTs. For the remaining terabytes] problem. This new being can't throw 145 authors, though, only 11% were anything away. It is obsessive. It has Archivists have new practical problems to forgotten that some baggage is better left about WTTs, although “Rail” still had struggle with. Who, if anyone, will decide behind. Homo sapiens has become a a 67% share. which parts of our culture are worth packrat. preserving for the hypothetical It is a moot point whether The Times’ archaeologists of the future? Can any Would it be overreaching to say there is authors write for their audience or identification scheme help readers no practical obstacle whatever now to the according to their predilection—more distinguish true copies from false copies in creation of an efficient index to all likely the latter. Thus, we cannot say the on-line world's hall of mirrors? What human knowledge, ideas and that this “hit parade” represents the arrays of optical or magnetic disks might achievements, to the creation, that is, of a ATA members’ interests and hence provide reliability and redundancy for complete planetary memory for all what they might like to see preserved. more than a few years of storage? mankind? Those are H.G. Wells's words, written in 1937. “And not simply an We can at least say that rail WTTs do In the world before cyberspace, countless index”, he continued, “The direct exceptionally well in our auctions. bridge hands were played and words reproduction of the thing itself can be spoken, and the memory vanished like It is commonplace knowledge among summoned to any properly prepared spot. vapour into the air. All that information, ATA members that “paper timetables This in itself is a fact of tremendous dissolved no sooner than it was formed. significance. A whole human memory can are disappearing” and this seems to be Once in a while people managed to snatch be, and probably in a short time will be, resented a good deal among them. a bit back from the ether, with pen on made accessible to every individual. And paper or—later—audio- and video-tape. What boxes should we tick when what is also of very great importance in They succeeded in saving for posterity a this uncertain world where destruction deciding to preserve a “paper” tiny portion of what was worth saving: the becomes continually more frequent and timetable? speeches of Lincoln (the major ones), the unpredictable, is this—that it need not be poetry of Shakespeare (but not quite  Has at least one copy of it already concentrated in any one single place. It reliably), the plays of Sophocles (except need not be vulnerable as a human head been preserved in an accessible the lost ones), and a few dozen terabytes or a human heart is vulnerable. It can be archive? By “accessible” , I mean more. reproduced exactly and fully, in Peru, “walk in off the street” accessible. China, Iceland, Central Africa, or We know the world is changing fast; we  Is it a “significant” or “rare” wherever else … it can have at once, the know we are near-sighted; we berate timetable in any sense, especially ourselves for our foreshortened time concentration of a craniate animal and horizons, and we bury our detritus as the diffused vitality of an amoeba.” Wells the service which it shows? i.e. is it lovingly as dogs burying bones. We bury it was not imagining the internetworking of something that a researcher or in time capsules, for example. The business computers, of course. The new information historian, rather than a voyeur, of time capsules—once a rare bit of -storing technology that inspired him was would be interested in? whimsy at world's fairs—has grown into microfilm. He had no idea how fast it an industry. The International Time would go obsolete. [as it happened, the  Is the “style” of the timetable Capsule Society estimates that more than ARHS in NSW did exactly that and gave worth preserving as an historic ten thousand people and institutions have the fiches to the State Library!] relic? buried time capsules. They must think that PAPER TIMETABLES future archaeologists will be grateful for  Is it part of a “set” of near-identical the bounty of twentieth-century There can be little doubt that the two timetables? wristwatches, telephone books, decorative Founding Fathers of the planet’s only caps, CD ROM's, and ampules of timetable collecting organisations, the  Is it a mere reprint without Budweiser beer. One town council wanted NAOTC and the AATTC, were significant new type-setting? to deposit some videotapes; its consultant, initially very single-minded about  How BIG is it and how much shelf Greg Blonder, tried to explain that the what they meant: tapes would rust from magnetic domain space will it occupy? I perceive  Paper (then the only type of that the State Library of Victoria reversals and become useless as VCR's course); inevitably went obsolete. “They couldn't was somewhat startled to be asked believe there would be a time without  Rail and; to preserve thousands of big thick videotapes, despite millennia of  “Internal” (rather than “Public”) WTTs that already existed in other experience without even TV”, says Jack McLean called it “Railway archives. Blonder. “And when we showed them how sulfur compounds outgassing from the Paper”, a definition which allowed the  Has it already been scanned 1993 championship football would cause inclusion of supplementary (but still somewhere, by somebody? This all the paper in the capsule to yellow and internal) timetable-related material. has been a big issue for libraries crack, things got a little tense”. His “acolytes” in Melbourne’s Eastern who have started to throw out their Suburbs (in 2021 still the core of the The future packaging industry, as it calls newspapers and documents itself, depends on the peculiar organisation) were content enough to (including timetables in misconception that the future's problem go along with this at first, but it wasn’t Government Gazettes) once will be not having enough of us. Most of long before they started to talk about someone else had scanned them. all, the Internet turns a large fraction of other modes and other types. This was

The Times June 2021 5 Reproducing, scanning and with a view to analysis. This is a DIGITAL TIMETABLES digitizing paper timetables hopeless task for old-fashioned Preserving “Digital Timetables.” higgledy-piggledy hot metal typeset Reproductions timetables, but is eminently doable for “Digital timetables “ - that is to say Around the world, museums computer-typeset paper timetables. timetables in electronic form (even as (particularly transport museums) sell PDFs) are now mostly created on Should ALL old “paper-only” reproductions of old documents and demand and are modified as often as timetables also be digitized before timetables. The target audience is not daily. As I noted in an article in The going into an archive? normally transport enthusiasts or Times of April 2018, the service collectors—it is people with a Of course, people and institutions can providers nearly always provide them, nostalgia bent. In this market, the choose to do this, but the fraction of but also farm them out to 3rd party timetables don’t really matter—it is old timetables that escape their old suppliers, who often tweak them to the ancillary information, mostly “paper gaols” is surely minuscule … cater to what they feel are the advertisements of the “Cor –look at imagine trying to digitize those preferences of their customers. The that!” type … of corsets, intestinal 170,000 ETTs! It is not actually totally timetable you download and read on medications and accommodations such beyond imagination … The USA your phone today could well look as Fawlty Towers (see The Times, Patent Office has digitized all of its different from what your seat p16, May 2011). The greater part of 10.5 million paper patent applications companion is seeing on their own app. these have been photographic from 1790 to the beginning of the 21st Both may well be different tomorrow. reproduction of old documents, printed century, when paper applications were A person would be mad to save each in pocket-size by letterpress and are done away with. I once asked the daily copy as it arrived on their screen. generally of high quality. AATTC did Office “how did you do that?” and was Should they desire to see how the this a couple of times—I wonder how told “easy- we used interns”. information has changed from day-to- many still exist? Most are probably “Interns?” “Yes — school kids on day, they can do no better than to thrown away by the purchasers at the their summer holidays.” It seems like a access a site like Transit Feeds, now next Spring Clean. big ask for ATA though. known as “Open Mobility Data”. Even that site gave up the task as hopeless Scanning (aka “digitizing”) In Australia, ARHS NSW seems to be when the numbers and frequency of the biggest digitizer of NSW rail These days, most “reproductions” of issue of GTFS TTs exploded WTTs, possibly followed by Bob old paper things are made by scanning stratospherically. Such de novo Taaffe. For ARHS, it is a commercial them to produce a set of images or created timetables are ‘precocial’ like enterprise—they sell (or plan to sell) images that have been transformed by Plover chicks— “ready to fend for the product to rail fans in much the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) themselves”— indeed also, I might same way they have “marketed” other to text. Scanning can be done say, instantly ready to be embalmed in digitized “railway paper” such as commercially or as a “hobby”. There an Archive—the Wayback Machine, curve and gradient diagrams or signal are plenty of scanned transport perhaps. Because they so often plans. This is something ATA could timetables floating around on the Web, resemble paper printed timetables, and do for the paper timetables destined but a large proportion of them are especially when the creator has no for the National Timetable collection. quite unsatisfactory as items destined need or desire to print them, there can to be OCR’d. A prime example of What the customers are doing with be the temptation to print them what can go wrong is the scanning of these digitizations is unknown, but it “privately” anyway. I am guilty of old newspapers by the National seems unlikely that they would be this—and I am not the only one. Library of Australia (NLA). Because printing them in bulk. There is, of On top of this are the “Metadata the NLA, which started this process course, a caveat that such products Problems” associated with such things. early, decided to go with low- remain the intellectual property of These include: resolution colour JPEG imagery, much their creators and should not be further  Images or “data”? of the product is unreadable and has to manipulated or on-sold. This brings up  Storage Format (PDF, GTFS, be re-transcribed by an army of the vexed question of whether paper XML, etc.) volunteer proof-readers. This is a copies of “commercially- digitized”  Storage medium? particular problem with subsequent TTs can, or ought to be, redigitized to  Accessibility? digitisation by Optical Character produce a “new” digitized copy. This Gleich has dealt with most of these Recognition (OCR) software. A lot of seems to be not only a kind of problems, in the extract that starts on people and even corporate entities infringement of the intellectual our page 4. (e.g. QR) who scan timetables make property of the original digitizer, it this mistake. In Australia, ARHS also adds to image degradation and What follows is a summary of the (NSW) and Bob Taaffe have avoided doubles an already mammoth task. In scope of the preservation task, in the such mistakes. Bob’s crisp scans can a peculiar legal case in the USA, the priority order enumerated on page 3. It fit a 65-page NSWGR Northern CIA used the difficulty of doing this as will be no surprise to you to realise my Division WTT into a PDF of a couple an excuse for denying a Freedom of knowledge of “rail stuff” outweighs of megabytes. It is theoretically Information request. every other type of stuff … but here possible to run an OCR engine over goes! such a timetable to convert it to text 6 The Times June 2021 RAIL either WTTs or PTTs in paper format Such things, should they exist Rail Working/Employee TTs at all now. Sydney Trains, prints only physically rather than electronically, For rail, at least, we can get an inkling a single copy of its suburban SWTT are rarely if ever preserved. I know of of the scope of the task, especially for … lucky is the chap (he is an ATA one— produced for “Freight “Working” or “Employee” Timetables, member) who receives it … or is he? Forwarders” by NSW Dept. of because companies and administrators And, here we speak of timetables in Railways in 1961 [lower right, rear tended to preserve them. In the UK, the classical Bradshawnian format. cover]. the Railway Clearing House collected They are clearly formatted to be AIR them all—and they still exist. In the printed onto paper and read “at USA, companies numbered them, and leisure”. ARTC seems never to have There are a number of organisations on so an estimate of the numbers can be printed a paper WTT- I seem to be the the planet devoted to the collection and made. I estimate that the number of only person who does so. Another preservation of air timetables—see, for separated ETTs issued in North ATA member sometimes has his instance: https:// America is about 170,000. The London Underground WTTs printed www.timetableimages.com/ttimages/ number of copies for each issue was for him. Woe betide the person who list.htm, which lists, via hyperlinks, sometime printed on the cover and was craves a complete set of Britain’s 4005 airlines across the planet for generally in proportion to the number Network Rail Working Timetable on which it has cover imagery. Of these, of employees who needed it—often in paper — even with double-sided 307 are in “Oceania”. The site has the thousands. Let us guess, then, that printing, it requires a stack of 80gsm hyperlinks to 1434 airlines for which it 100 ETTs were probably printed. paper just over two metres tall. has “complete timetables” - i.e. all Where are they now? Only 10,000 ROAD internal pages, there being a total of seem to have actually been sighted or 4534 timetables, an average of about cited by collectors and researchers. Paul Keating once said of an opponent 3.2 per airline. For Oceania, the he was “all tip and no iceberg”. This is corresponding numbers are 129, 305 In Australia we have pretty good a nice aphorism to contemplate in and 2.4. These are (mostly) paper figures— about 4,800 paper volumes terms of “Road timetables”. As with PTTs that have been scanned. Airlines appear to have been issued. I have — Rail, we would again make a split also produce “WTTs” and there is at and one day ATA will inherit — 2,600 between “Local/Suburban” versus least one collector in Australia who of them. Physically, I suppose, at least “Regional/Long Distance”. For both of collects the digital versions of Qantas 1 million books might have been these most of the factors by which I WTTs. It is not clear to me whether printed. It is possible that most have analysed for Rail, would surely the ATA/SLV has any of this. Air “issues” have more than one tick apply to “Road”. In Australia, at least, transport has its own “Bradshaws” too against the first tick-box on page 5, the road timetables produced by [lower left, rear cover]. and therefore do not need to be placed Government Authorities will have had in yet another public archive—but we and will continue to have a fair degree WATER cannot be sure. of design congruence with the Rail For “Water” I think it would be useful A complicating factor is the practice of timetables for which they have had to discriminate between making “Daily Train Plans” for responsibility. For private operators or 1. “Seas and Oceans” and tomorrow afresh every evening. These franchisees, it is a question like “how 2. “Rivers and Harbours”. incorporate, for instance altered and long is a piece of string?”. This applies As with Airline TTs, there is a website additional trains, but—at least in the also to practically any aspect of for (1) ocean liners at http:// Hunter Valley—pick and choose from “timetable making” which you might www.timetableimages.com/maritime/ all the “paths” (and the length of those care to think about. images/archives.htm. This list is paths) afresh every evening. Are these In NSW, there are over 6,300 separate produced by the same person who things “collectable”? - are they even bus timetable IDs listed in a recent produced the Airline lists summarised preserved by those who make them. If GTFS timetable. In Sydney (at least) above (Björn Larsson ).Therein one the answer to that question is “yes”, the situation of a fresh timetable every will find a list of 867 shipping lines then Sydney Trains may be producing day is now a reality and can be seen on that have produced all types of a 600-page “paper-ready” SWTT both the apps and in the PDFs which brochures. Listed on the site are 277 every day. Imagine yourself printing you might care to download (and save brochures which have at least some those! This must surely be a case of … surely not?). form of timetable (aka “Sailing Lists”) “one has to draw the line somewhere”. therein.. In closed waters, (2) there can Even preserving the digital PDFs of We ought to, of course, consider not be (and are) timetables pretty much them feels overwhelming, if not totally only passenger traffic, but also freight akin to those on dry land—nearly all absurd. traffic. We know that road freight traffic on most continents runs to some of these are “public timetables”, but Rail Public TTs sort of “Schedule”, even if most of it is Working Timetables (of a sort) also exist. For public timetables, which were a “timetable” of the ABC type (end- deliberately and (of necessity) point to endpoint). One only need to Comment on this article – Letter to the ephemeral, neither total can even be stand on an overpass of an Interstate Editor guessed at. Few rail operators produce Freeway to see THAT for yourself. Return to Contents Page The Times June 2021 7 Travelling to Adelaide on the ‘Bull’: an express coach service in the 1960s by Steven Haby

NE OF THE TIMETABLES I received in a recent ATA O auction was for Bull’s Transport Service Adelaide to Melbourne service. Bull’s was a well-established coach operator based in Adelaide and was connected with the Lewis Brothers bus and coach service which operated route, school and charter services in Adelaide up until the early 1980s. Lewis also built a number of buses for themselves and other operators using panels from A. B. Denning, a Queensland bus and coach bodybuilder. The Bull’s name was synonymous with operating a stage service between Adelaide and Alice Springs for some years in competition with the Commonwealth Railways (and later ANR) Ghan rail service. Figure 1: Cover (right) and rear page (left) of Bull’s Tourist Service timetable This timetable as shown is undated but a number of clues can be obtained to service Wednesdays only or an competing V/Line services. ascertain a ‘probable’ date. Firstly the overnight service on Fridays. The day On examination of the timetable, the fare schedule on page 3 of the service took around 13 hours and 30 service is somewhat unbalanced and timetable (see figure 4) is pre-decimal- minutes whereas the overnight service would require two coaches to maintain which places it prior to 14 February was 13 hours. There appeared to be a the service, particularly on the 1966 when our currency changed over. longer meal break at Ararat on the day Adelaide to Melbourne service on the Out of interest, £3/0/0 for a one way service which may account for the assumptions that: fare between Adelaide and Melbourne extra running time. say in the early 1960s would equate to  The 2100 arrival Wednesdays Heading from Melbourne, it was an around $82.00 today. forms the Friday evening service; evening service departing at 1830 and Another giveaway might be the six Fridays and Sundays arriving at the  The 0730 arrival Fridays forms the digit phone numbers shown on the last South Australian capital at 0700 the Sunday evening service back to page of the timetable. I have not been next morning … 13 hours and 30 Adelaide. able to find any definitive answer as to minutes, including breaks at Ballarat, when Adelaide changed from a Bordertown and Murray Bridge. The The timetable leaflet measures 29cm x combination of letters and numbers timetable is shown on our page 9. 22.5cm folding to 14.5cm x 22.5cm but taking in to consideration the fare and is printed on glossy paper. Apart Compared to 2020 the only coach schedule this would have to have been from the obvious lack of a date, it service (albeit suspended due to pre-1966. represents an interesting time in inter- COVID-19) is Firefly’s twice daily state coach travel when the only real Finally, there is the photograph of a Melbourne – Adelaide service. An competition was rail and before the bus on the cover – a 1959 Leyland extract of the timetable appears on our onslaught of cheap airfares. Royal Tiger Cub, with coachwork by page 10, for comparison. Taking into Freighter Industries. The design of the consideration today’s traffic [Editor’s note: I lived in Bacchus coach is indicative of Freighter conditions, increased speed of Marsh at the time of this timetable and Industries designs of the early 1960s at coaches, various diversions of the sometimes saw the evening Bull best. Western Highway and so on, today’s service stopped outside the post office journey is around 90 minutes quicker. or Oliver’s Newsagency, in the centre All that aside, let’s turn to the actual Note that there are no scheduled stops of town. This was a different spot to timetable. If one was travelling from beyond Horsham presumably due to where the Firefly service stops these Adelaide you had an option of a day travel restrictions associated with days.]

8 The Times June 2021 Figure 2: Bull's Tourist Service timetable

The Times June 2021 9

Figure 3: Extract of Firefly Express timetable

Figure 4: Fare Schedule

Comment on this article – Letter to the Editor Return to Contents Page 10 The Times June 2021 Literary Corner—”He knew he was right” Brendan Whyte

NTHONY TROLLOPE’S much experience we make bold to say lengthy psychological/ that Bradshaw knows more, and will A pathological novel “He Knew divulge more in a quarter of an hour, He Was Right” (1869) contains an of the properest mode of getting from interesting product-placement for any city in Europe to any other city Bradshaw’s Guide in chapter 93 ‘Four more than fifty miles distant, than can o’clock in the morning’: be learned in that first city in a single morning with the aid of a courier, a The Bradshaw was had out and carriage, a pair of horses, and all the consulted, and nearly half an hour was temper that any ordinary tourist spent in poring over that wondrous possesses. The Bradshaw was had out, volume. It is the fashion to abuse and it was at last discovered that Bradshaw,—we speak now especially nothing could be gained in the journey of Bradshaw the Continental,— from London to Siena by starting in because all the minutest details of the the morning. Intending as he did to autumn tour, just as the tourist thinks travel through without sleeping on the that it may be made, cannot be made road, Stanbury could not do better patent to him at once without close than leave London by the night mail research amidst crowded figures. After train, and this he determined to do.

The Times June 2021 11 Notes by Geoff Lambert The Ian Brady Collection of Bradshaws does not have a Continental Bradshaw of this period, but it DOES have a copy of the November 1870 issue of Bradshaw’s Guide which shows the train which Stanbury (“a newspaper man”) would have caught from London. This was the 8:35 PM South Eastern Railway 1st-class Mail Train, which arrived in Dover at about 10:40 or 10:45 PM (depending on which page of Bradshaw one consults), where it connected with a Ferry to Calais, which was reached at 12:30 AM. The timetable for this train appears on the second-last column of the Bradshaw extract on page 13. Thereafter, the path taken by Mr. Stanbury to Siena—which was in Tuscany, not too far from Florence (“Firenze”)—is obscure. It was probably something like this:  Calais—Paris;  Paris—Lyons;  Lyons—Modane (including Mt Cenis Summit Railway opened in 1868, a line that used the Fell system);  Modane—Susa—Turin—Milan- Bologna-Florence (connection time of 4 to 5 hours here);  Florence—Empoli—Siena. In the book, Trollope has Mr. Stanbury making the journey “without pause or hindrance”, as far as Florence, where he was obliged to wait “four or five hours” to catch a train to Siena. This enabled him to make a quick visit to by Thomas Brassey and John years to build, using traditional tools another important character in the Barraclough Fell. The only major and gunpowder. A full rail service novel. remaining problem was the crossing of from Calais to Brindisi, continuing By the early 1860s, most of a 1400- the Alps. Work on the Fréjus or Mont by sea to Alexandria, would take mile rail connection between Calais Cenis tunnel had started in 1857 but it about 30 hours off the journey time and Brindisi had been built, much of it looked as though it would take many from Britain to India, China and

12 The Times June 2021

The Times June 2021 13 Australasia compared with the then railway had been built anywhere but current option of Calais to Marseilles Fell managed to design a suitable may not, have known of this when he by rail and onwards by sea. The system which had a middle rail and he wrote the book. Had he written the increasing volumes of trade, in mail, patented it. He set a maximum book three years later, then Stanbury passengers and goods, presented a gradient of 1 in 12 (8.3%) and a would probably not have had such a tempting prospect of profits to be minimum curve of 2 chains (40 m). long wait at Florence and therefore an made by crossing the Alpine barrier as The French and Italian governments important plot device would have well as an opportunity to strengthen had agreed to the idea subject to failed. the ties of Empire. In 1866, at a British satisfactory testing. The detailed Association meeting, Fell reported design was carried out by A. The Fell system, by the way, was used how four years earlier he had been Alexander at Brassey Jackson Betts & for the famous Rimutaka Incline in asked to design some means of Co.'s Canada Works in Birkenhead. New Zealand (The Times, July 2005). improving on the existing horse-drawn The gauge was 1,100 mm (3 ft 7 5⁄ Comment on this article – Letter to the transport across the Alps over the 16 in). Editor Mont Cenis Pass. The slopes and This was the line over which Stanbury curves were too much for a Return to Contents Page would have travelled. Trollope may, or conventional train and so far no such

14 The Times June 2021

Tanya’s Quiz #2 1. What was the construction name of the Sydney station of Museum? 2. As I live in Melbourne, it took me 40 years to travel in ordinary public trains on all 15 sides of the present day (2021) five Brisbane triangles where all sides are running lines. Some sides have had a very limited passenger service over the years. Where in suburban Brisbane are these five triangles located? [Triangles that were simply used to turn locomo- tives, etc., don't count. These are known as fork lines in QR-speak.] 3. What is unusual and unexpected about the geographical relationship between Goulburn and Cootamundra stations in NSW? 4. What is the present (2021) name of the Adelaide suburban station that opened as North Brighton on 12th January 1914, was renamed Middle Brighton on 20th April 1914 and received its current name on 7th June 1920?? [Hint: it isn't South Brighton which was closed on 2nd January 1976.] 5. Although VR took over the Koondrook Tramway from the Kerang Shire Council on 1st February 1952, 1st class travel be- tween Kerang and Koondrook wasn't available until about February 1958 – why not? 6. What are the most recent names of the Melbourne suburban stations Barkers Road, Langridge Street, Nicholson Street and Raglan Street? All are either now closed or no longer served by trains.

Answers to Tanya’s Quiz #1 1. WAGR's Nornalup Branch – Cold and Wet was one of the minor stations between the junction at Elleker (just west of Alba- ny) and Denmark, the only real town on the line. 2. Belmont.Rail: Brisbane (the Belmont Tramway was a railway owned by the Belmont Shire Council, then by the Brisbane City Council and later QR – its junction was Norman Park); Newcastle (owned by the New Redhead Estate and Coal Company but worked by the government – junction was Adamstown); Perth (branch from Bayswater which served the Belmont Racecourse/Ascot Racecourse but shown as Perth Racecourse on race tickets so WAGR could charge higher fares on racedays than if it were called Belmont (by which name the station was known when there were no races!)). Tram: Brisbane (although technically not located in Belmont but in Carina); Geelong – the only tram line that crossed the Barwon River [Paul Brown got this right]. 3. The previous name for the station (closed with the line in 1956) at the Barry Road level crossing was North Campbellfield but this name was too long to fit in the destination apertures on the electric trains introduced with the reopening in 1959 so some bright spark in VR suggested that it's 'up' north and that there were plenty of 'fields' at the time. Another good idea would have been 'Northfield' but it was already in use in Adelaide. [Wouldn't have been a problem in Sydney!] 4. Darling, Eastmalvern (when it was still a single word name), Holmesglen and Jordanville. [Aside: 'Eastmalvern' as a name reads OK but what about 'Eastoakleigh' (nowadays Huntingdale) where you tend to read the syllable break being be- tween the s and the t.] 5. The Elwood Depot on the St. Kilda railway station to Brighton Beach electric street railway (i.e. electric tramway) was de- stroyed by fire on the morning of 7th March 1907, along with almost all the cars. VR's 6 unused Chelmsford kerosene fired buses provided a limited service from St. Kilda to Middle Brighton from the 9th March until 16th March 1907, by which time replacement trams had arrived from Sydney. The salvaged 5ft 3in undergear was placed under the Sydney car bodies. [The Chelmsford buses had operated from Prahran station to Malvern Town Hall along High Street from 1st December 1905 until 17th June 1906 when they were withdrawn due to their unreliability.] 6. Ashfield to Guildford

The Times June 2021 15 The A to Z of North American Railroad Public Timetables