Re: How did Flinders Street cope?

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

keithm@commslab.gov.au (Keith Malcolm) wrote:

>In article <34B56FF8.37A0@coombs.anu.edu.au> J-P Wispelaere <oink@coombs.anu.edu.au> writes:
>>From: J-P Wispelaere <oink@coombs.anu.edu.au>
>>Subject: How did Flinders Street cope?
>>Date: Fri, 09 Jan 1998 00:31:52 +0000

>>Looking at an old map of the Victorian rail network of 1946, I am struck
>>by the extraordinary number of lines radiating from regional centres. 
>>The north-west, in particular, must have been very rich in rail services
>>around this time, with at least four lines running parallel on either
>>side of the Mildura line to other rural centres.

>>My question is that, given that Flinders Street was Melbourne's only
>>central station at this time, how on earth was it able to cope with this
>>volume of traffic?  It had but twelve platforms at this time.  I assume
>>there must have been at least half a dozen night trains, and many more
>>day trains.  Where was all this rolling-stock stored?

>>Many thanks

>>Jean-Philippe.

>methinks there wasn't any. Number of lines doesn't equate to number of 
>services or trains.


Quite so.  There are two faulty assumptions in the original post:

* That Flinders St was the only central station.

* That the lines on the 1946 map had lots of (or any) passenger
services that terminated in the city of Melbourne.

Spencer St station has always been there, at least from about 1860,
and it formed the "central station" for all country services to the
west, north and north east.  Only the east and south-east were served
by Flinders St.

Most Victorian Railways lines, probably all of them, had a
passenger-carrying service at one time, usually in their early life.
This, however, was often very infrequent (as little as one per
fortnight).  For more than half of the branch lines, these services
did not run through to Melbourne- they connected with trains to and
from Melbourne at their relevant junction stations.  At Easter and
Christmas, there sometimes were through trains on these lines.  The
main line service in Victoria, which connected with these trains and
which (mostly) did run through to the city, were never particularly
numerous- two each way each day was about the norm in the first
hundred years (again, holiday periods are the exception).  There being
effectively only half a dozen main lines out of Melbourne, you can see
that there was not really a plethora of trains to be handled at a
"central station".

For a discussion of the relative intensity of "central station" trains
then and now and of regular trains versus holiday trains, you could
consult the Australian Association of Timetable Collectors discussion
in its "The Times" of the ARHS's reprint of the 1941 Easter holiday
timetable.  That latter publication waxed rather lyrical about the
intensity of services in 1941, but correspondents showed that the peak
holiday 1941 service (itself about 2.5 times the regular service out
of Spencer St) was still considerably below the intensity of service
operated out of Spencer St on a ordinary working day in the 1980's and
1990's.

Jack MacLean, a timetable enthusiast and railfan with a 60 year
experience often reminds people that the old-time service was nowehere
near what present-day, starry-eyed railfans seem to assume.

And, yes, old timetables of that era exist.  I have a 1945 passenger
working timetable and it is quite a slim volume.  Not many trains at
all, I'm afrtaid.

Geoff Lambert