General
This website sets out to record, as well as possible, details of private bus routes in the Sydney metropolitan area from 1925 to date. Unfortunately, it is just not possible to be anything like 100% accurate, because of the passage of time and the availability of information. But this is a first attempt at doing so.
The extent of the Sydney metropolitan area has gradually grown over the 85 years between 1925 and 2010. In the 1920s, the area covered by these lists extended to about Palm Beach, Berowra, Blacktown, Liverpool, Sutherland and Cronulla. By 2010, the area covered has expanded to the Hawkesbury River, Camden, Picton, Waterfall and the Blue Mountains as far as Mt Victoria.
Two number series
Since 1925, there have been two permanent series of route numbers for private bus routes in Sydney. The first commenced in 1925 and the second (which I refer to as the Sydney Region Route Number System) started in 1981. During the years from 1981 to 2004, there was a gradual renumbering of routes from the 1925 system to the newer system. Click on “The development of Sydney bus route numbers” for more details of the historical side of route numbers.
Termini of routes
In these lists, I have attempted to show major termini of routes, together with significant suburbs through which or roadways along which the route travels, if that seems relevant. Where more than one route has run between two particular suburbs, my aim has been to indicate intermediate suburbs or streets along which each route travelled to distinguish between them. Where a route mainly ran between two suburbs, but was occasionally extended to another suburb, beach or park, etc (eg, at weekends only), I have shown the extension separately in the heading.
Changes to routes
I have endeavoured to show major changes in routes, eg where they have extended from one suburb to another, or been diverted to a different suburb. The heading for any particular route reflects the maximum extent of that route. Where, especially under the 1925 route number regime in the post-war era, there were multiple routes using a single route number, I have aimed to show all relevant routes.
Where a route has been replaced by a different route, either in whole or in part, suitable cross-references are provided. This particularly applies when routes were renumbered from the original 1925 series to the Sydney Region Route Numbering System numbers.
Operators’ names
The lists attempt to show the names of the operators of the route and changes thereto. Where an operator is or was an incorporated body, suffixes such as “Pty” and “Ltd” have been omitted, often due to insufficient information. Commonly used trading names have been used in preference to “official” company nomenclature. Names in brackets after a company name attempt to reflect the principals of the company or the proprietor’s name. I apologise in advance if I have incorrectly shown or omitted such owner’s or proprietor’s names in particular cases. I have used the word “family” where I do not know which individual/s in a family is/are the relevant owner/s or proprietor/s.
Starting date of 1925
I have taken the Government Gazette (GG) dated 13 November 1925 as the starting point of the current lists, as it was the commencement date of the original permanent route number system - that lasted until between 1981 and 2004. (Route numbers were first allocated in the Government Gazette dated 19 December 1924, but nearly every such route number changed in 1925.)
Another reason to start the lists in 1925 is that, by then, (nearly?) all routes were operated by motor buses, rather than horse buses.
Routes which were already in operation at the time of the 1925 GG are shown as being “in operation” or “being operated by … ”. It may be possible at a later stage to extend the lists back to the dates when routes first started (some of which were originally horse bus routes), using lists in older GGs.
Dates
Where a route is listed as starting “by” the date of one of the 1925-30 GGs, it is shown in that GG, but not in the previous GG. Similarly, where a route is listed as ceasing “by” the date of one of those GGs, it is shown in the previous GG, but not in that GG.
Dates after 1930 are listed as precisely as information is available to me.
Where the word “by” is used in dates after 1930, it is known that the event happened either on or before that date. Typically, I have a timetable effective on the date shown, which indicates or suggests that the event had occurred either on the date of the timetable of before. In most cases I believe that such an event had occurred since the date of the previous entry (if any) for that route.
Ancillary information
Where suburb or street names have changed, I have attempted to record the current names. I have also shown locations of, for example, housing estates whose names are no longer used.
Vic Hayes’s lists
The big inspiration to record private bus routes in Sydney came after reading the lists written by Vic Hayes in the February to December 1974 issues of the “Bus Club News”, published by students at North Sydney Boys’ High School (which coincidentally I had attended between 1956 and 1960, before that club existed). Vic’s lists form the backbone of my lists, with permission.
Government Gazette (GG) lists between 1925 and 1930
For entries between 1925 and 1930, information has been taken from seven Government Gazettes which contain listings of authorised routes. The GG lists contain details of bus routes in the Sydney metropolitan area, but only as far as approximately Berowra, Parramatta, Liverpool and Sutherland. Those lists clearly do not show routes on the outskirts of the current Sydney metropolitan area (eg, in Penrith, Richmond and Campbelltown), as they would have been regarded as being in the “country” in the 1920s.
Periodicals
My collection of the Historical Commercial Vehicle Association’s periodicals, HCVA Newsheet, Fleetline and Australian Bus, since their inception, has been an important source of both current day and historical data. Thanks to the editors and the many contributors to those journals.
Other sources
Between 1933 and 1938 the Commissioner for Road Transport and Tramways listed changes to both Government and private bus routes in his annual report. In some cases, changes to fare structures listed in these annual reports give some clues about routes operating at the time.
I have referred to the 1925 Doran Report for names of operators at that time.
A lot of information comes from timetables and route maps in my collection (which occupy several drawers of my filing cabinets). I have collected many of my timetables either personally or by writing to the operators. In the last few years, collecting timetables has been greatly facilitated by the operation of the Association of Timetable Collectors “distribution” system (thanks to Len Regan and his predecessors for this great service). It is also easier to obtain timetables now that the number of operators has been greatly reduced and the fact that most timetable changes occur on a region-wide basis, following reviews by the Ministry of Transport.
Like many aspects of life today, the internet (especially the Australian Transport Discussion Board and bus operators’ websites) has meant that information about bus routes and services can be obtained much more quickly and from the comfort of home.
Personal acknowledgments
I have obtained photocopies of older timetables from the Bus & Coach Association’s archives, John Birchmeier, Lindsay Jones, Jim O’Neil and the late Leon Manny, all of whom I thank (and any others whom I have inadvertently omitted). Ron Drummond has kindly sent me extracts from old issues of the long-running, but now defunct Truck & Bus Transportation magazine.
Many thanks also to Eddie Hayman and Vic Hayes, long-time players in the bus industry, for answering many questions about times past.
My wife, Katrina, and friends including John Birchmeier, Glen Hunter, Duncan Macauslan and Ted McDonald have helped in many ways and encouraged me in my efforts to present the information here, and I thank them as well.
Website assistance
I am particularly grateful to John Clifton of The Little Website Company, for setting up this website. Many thanks, John.
I have been interested in bus services one way or another all my life. My first bus trips were when I went to a pre-school in East Roseville at age 3. I travelled there and back in Royle Brothers’ Route 56 buses, which then primarily ran from Chatswood to either Babbage Road or Penshurst Street. My mother said I learned to read from the destination signs on those buses.
When I was 5, we moved to the western side of Roseville and I went to primary school on AJ (Jack) Wagg’s Route 221, part of which ran between Roseville and Lindfield. Since then, that route has changed numbers three times and has been run by at least nine different operators (thus exemplifying the organisational and managerial volatility of many private bus routes in Sydney over the years).
I travelled on a lot of private bus routes back in the 1960s, 70s and 80s to identify their routes, as private bus timetables before 1980 rarely had route maps or even listed the streets along which they ran. That led to drawing my own route maps, by tracing them from sheet maps of the Sydney metropolitan area. It also means that I have seen a lot of the Sydney and its surrounds from the windows of private buses.
My working life began at the AMP Society, where I was employed for over two decades. In 1990, however, I entered the bus industry in the late Roger Graham’s consultancy, where I was able to put my bus route and timetable knowledge to use in setting up the original contract areas and assessing minimum service levels under the Passenger Transport Act. I later moved to Busways’ head office. After retiring from full-time work, I trained as a bus driver with Forest Coach Lines, where I did not last long, but soon after took up a semi-retirement job driving minibuses with Lower North Shore Community Transport.
My wife and I now live in Terrey Hills, where the local operator is Royles’ Forest Coach Lines (a rare example of long-lasting family ownership of a bus company in today’s corporate world), so creating a link with my first trips in their buses through East Roseville in the 1940s.
Assistance sought to make the lists more accurate
This website is very much a “work in progress”. The amount of information available to me varies from route to route, especially before the 1960s. I hope it can be improved and refined over time. So I will be very grateful to receive further information, great or small, which can make these lists more accurate. Please contact me:
Robert Henderson
robkit.henderson@bigpond.com
May 2010
