• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

The Times February 2017 A journal of transport timetable history and analysis RRP $4.95 Inside: Australia’s earliest railway timetables Incl. GST 615 Delays The Times A journal of the Australian Timetable Association Inc. (A0043673H) Print Publication No: 349069/00070, ISSN 0813-6327 February 2017 Vol 34 No. 02, Issue No. 397 The Times welcomes all contributions. Our Authors’ Guide is available on our web-site at http://www.austta.org.au Reproduction Material appearing in The Times may be reproduced in other publications, with an acknowledgement. Disclaimer Opinions expressed in our magazines are not necessarily those of the Association or its members. Editor, The Times Geoff Lambert 179 Sydney Rd FAIRLIGHT 2094 NSW [email protected] A full ATA contact list can be found periodically in Members News, at http://www.austta.org.au/newsletter.pdf —Contents— Geoff Lambert AUSTRALIA’S FIRST RAILWAY TIMETABLES 3 The New Yorker HOW A MINOR PROBLEM LED TO 615 DELAYS 13 Geoff Lambert MS FOUND IN A WTT –ANSWERED 19 2 The Times February 2017 Australia’s First Railway Timetables * A note on newspaper digitization. The National Library of Australia (NLA) Geoff Lambert was one of the first major libraries in the world to begin digitizing and indexing T WAS NEARLY THIRTY YEARS published timetables, but the only scanned historical paper copies of newspapers. The hence when steam railways arrived in copy I have seen is totally unusable.] NLA process goes by the name of Trove Australia. In that thirty years, Mr. and now involves a lot more than newspa- I For each opening timetable, I have tried to Bradshaw had invented the idea, and had pers. give also the timetabling of the trains on then established the practice, of “railway Opening Day. Vast crowds turned up at the timetables”. Hence, by 1854, when the The NLA consulted widely when this origin station (usually at the city terminus) first train ran to Port Melbourne, the news- process was being set up. I was part of the and all wanted to travel to the other termi- papers of the day felt no need to define the testing team and am still one of those cor- nus, where the festivities took place. words “time table”. They had even come recting the Optical Character Recognition Where reports can be deciphered, the ex- to grips with the terms “Up train” and (OCR) translations of the images. Unfortu- tent of the opening day timetables is shown “Down train”. nately, for reasons that are not clear to me, in the text. Trove chose to capture images as low As far as can be ascertained, the only sur- resolution colour images and to store the The festivities, it need hardly be said, were viving copies of Australia’s inaugural rail- images in JPEG files. It still does so, de- worth attending– not least for the never- way timetables are to be found in newspa- spite the feedback from we in the testing ending toasts that were drunk to the new pers. We know from these newspapers team. This is just about the worst possible railway (at least a dozen in some instanc- (digitized by the National Library of Aus- combination one could have chosen. Other es). All of these Merry Gentlemen needed tralia*) that printed copies of time tables libraries (and Google News) scan in black to be returned to their starting points but were usually produced from the start– both and white and use lossless formats such as the timetables for these seem hazier, as handbills and wall-sheet timetables. In GIF and TIFF. doubtless they were so in the minds of the at least one case, special memento timeta- reporters. In Tasmania, however, heads bles, “printed on satin” were presented to For this reason, the timetables shown here remained clear from the befuddling effects high officials, such as Governors and their had to be translated by eye. A classical of the demon drink. ladies. case is our first timetable– the Melbourne and Hobson’s Bay initial timetable, as it While the toasting was going on, the hoi This month, I take a look at the first time- appeared on Trove after digitization of polloi were allowed to travel back and tables for the first passenger-carrying rail- The Argus. Google has digitized The Age forth on shuttle trains, but the number of ways in each state except Western Austral- and the first timetable they have digitized these was not always recorded because the ia. [Of the latter state, we know that such appeared alongside the Trove version. newspaper reporters were themselves busi- timetables were produced, because a bout ly taking notes and participating in the of criticism of them broke out even before For each Trove version, I show also my festivities. the first train chuffed away. However, no hand-translation on the page opposite the Trove version. copies seem to exist, nor did the newspa- pers of the day see fit to reproduce one. The WA Government Gazette quite later The Times February 2017 3 4 The Times February 2017 Melbourne and Hobson’s Bay Railway Lady Hotham were then conducted to It took three trips to assemble all the one of the carriages and all the three guests for the banquet. Well lubricated N OPENING DAY, guests were carriages were speedily laden with by nearly a dozen toasts by the end of conveyed to the Engine Shed (“an their full complement. An open third the festivities, it took three more trips O enormous hall of zinc”) at the class carriage, next to the locomotive, to get them all back to Flinders Street. startling speed of 15 miles per hour by the contained the band of the 40th regi- Regular services commenced on the “first locomotive ever constructed in the ment. The first train on the new rail- 13th September, 1854. The first Southern Hemisphere.” way started at twenty minutes past twelve, amid the music of the band known timetable for this service had Copies of the bye-laws and of the time appeared two days earlier in The Ar- table printed upon satin were present- and the cheering and waving of hats of gus. the innumerable spectators. ed to His Excellency. Sir Charles and The Times February 2017 5 6 The Times February 2017 Sydney-Parramatta Railway most such trains running about an hour there appears to be no mention of this late. There is no mention in the report in contemporary reports. There were, FEW YEARS AGO, the of a 2pm Up train. There were obvi- as can be seen from the footnote, ARHS contacted me asking ously two train sets in use because the “Printed Time Tables”. These are A whether I had access to a crowd pushed on to the 10 am return probably the same as the ARHS’ copy of the handbill timetables that service from Parramatta. They had “handbills”. were handed out on the opening of mistaken this for the Official Train and No “Working” Timetable for this the Sydney-Parramatta railway. I did had to be “cleared out”, in the words railway, earlier than 1874, appears to not and, so far as I can determine, of the SMH. The real thing came along have survived, so it is impossible to none have turned up since. shortly thereafter. get a clear picture of the line. The The official timetable for opening day The total number of tickets issued on Government Gazette appears not to appears below. Notice the use of “12 the day was 3554 (1874 from Sydney; have bothered with “time tables” AM” for midday. On the day, accord- 1680 from Parramatta), reaping an until about 1858, at which time the ing to the Sydney Morning Herald, income of £220. line was open to Campbelltown. The trains were “despatched” at 9AM, service to Campbelltown was then: Regular passenger service, as shown in 11:20AM (the official opening train; 4 Passenger the second panel below, consisted of a it started 20 minutes late) and then “at 1 Mixed intervals”. On the return journey, train every two hours from either ter- minal. It would seem that this was a 1 Mixed Goods, and trains left at about 10AM (this was 1 “Passenger Mail” the return of the 9AM down), at 3PM “shuttle” requiring only one car set and one locomotive. The other loco- per day. (for the Governor General to return to “town” and then again “at intervals”, motive could be—and possibly was— used for goods train services, although The Times February 2017 7 8 The Times February 2017 ———-—- TIME TABLE OF ARRIVAL AND DEPAR- TURE OF TRAINS FROM IPSWICH TO BIGGES' CAMP. PASSENGERS, AND MAIL TRAINS, AND PARCELS. Leave Ipswich, at 10 a.m. Arrive at Walloon, at 10.40 a.m. Arrive at Bigges' Camp, at 11.20 a.m. Leave Bigges' Camp, on arrival of Mail from Toowoomba, at 1 p.m. Arrive at Walloon, at 1.40 p.m. Arrive at Ipswich, at 2.20 p.m. MIXED TRAIN (PASSENGERS AND GOODS.) Leave Ipswich, at 7 a.m. Arrive at Walloon, at 7.40 a.m. Arrive at Bigges' Camp, at 8.30 a.m. Leave Bigges' Camp, at 4.30 p.m. Arrive at Walloon, at 5.20 p.m. Arrive at Ipswich, at 6 p.m. A. O. HERBERT, Commissioner for Railways. With charity, one might describe train #3 Queensland Railways, 1865 day from Toowoomba and other parts of the Darling Downs, and the intermediate as a “Pilot Train” for the “Vice-Regal N THE SATURDAY AFTERNOON stations. Train” which followed uncomfortably before the opening (which was on closely behind.

Load more

  20

Copy Link