Re: Aust Railway Capacities in WW2

[G.Lambert@unsw.edu.au (Geoff Lambert)]

"L'acrobat" <sibehusky@optusnet.com.au> wrote:

>I am trying to get an idea as to how many trains a day could have been moved
>between

>Sydney/Bris

>Adelaide/Perth

>In 1942 if it was neccessary to move a lot of troops/supplies fast, does
>anyone know? or have a good idea of web based sources I can look at?

Others have posted pointers to the Harvey article.

If you are interested in assessing the general level of traffic:
(normal + wartime), then that was very variable and, in many places,
not all that much above pre-war levels.  The CR lines were definite
exceptions in that regard.  But, on many lines, wartime movements
replaced normal movements rather than supplemented them.

When one looks at the traffic level statistics for the wartime years
compared with pre- and post-war years (e.g. in train miles run per
year), thewar-time figures seem only about 10%-20%  up on pre-war
levels (in NSW, if you can find these hard-to-find figures, they
appear to show an 80% increase, but this is an error in the
statistics).

Of course, there were some pretty astounding traffic denisities
achieved at specific times, especially on the NAR line, train
densities that considerably exceeded those seen at peak holiday
periods.  Jack MacLean has written of some of these traffic flows in
various magazines over the last 40 years.

GL