Timetable Tuesday- 1990 Central Coast Line

The counterpart to the 1990 'Newcastle Area' timetable discussed last Tuesday was the 'Central Coast Line' timetable. This timetable combined Northern Line suburban services with services up the Central Coast through to Newcastle, but excluded "local services' between newcastle and Fassifern (and the Toronto branch line). Therefore it carried the note that it didn't show all services between Fassifern and Newcastle)

The basic Central Coast portion of the timetable consisted of hourly 'fast' services between Newcastle and Sydney, with an additional slower hourly 'all stations' service. The express service overtook the preceding all stations service at Gosford, with with a 11 minute (down trains) or a  17 minute (up trains) pause of the slow service at Gosford to allow the pass to occur. This was supplemented by a few weekday peak hour Gosford, Morisset and Wyong starters. Only one morning peak service from Gosford operated via the North Shore, all others operated via Strathfield and terminated at Sydney Terminal. On weekends, the slow interurbans served the stations between Cowan and Berowra. Also Interurbans stopped at Eastwood rather than Epping.

So essentially all stations on the Central Coast line received at least an hourly service on all days. This is a more favourable service compared with todays weekend timetable north of Wyong.

Weekday example:

Weekend example:

The suburban portion detailed services between Hornsby and Central via Strathfield The present 'Northern Line'.  Suburbans generally started at Hornsby with about a 15 minute frequency in peak hours consisting of a mixture of all stations and limited stoppers, and a half hourly frequency off peak and weekends. A mixed bag of mainly peak hour additional services started or terminated at Epping. Suburbans between Berowra and Hornsby operated via the North Shore, and were shown in the timetable with the annotation 'via North Shore'.

Monday maps- Interurban 1980s

This map is from the mid 1980s. Electrification must end at Wyee, but not sure why it cuts off Kiama- Bomaderry.

Timetable Tuesday: 1989- Newcastle Area

In 1990, the Toronto branch line in the Newcastle area closed. The Toronto line was a single track line which branched from the Main North at Fassifern, and served the lakeside town of Toronto, with one intermediate station- Blackall's Park. Toronto station still exists, reasonably well preserved.

The October 1989 timetable is the last timetable which included this line. The running time for the branch was 6 minutes, and remarkably an approximately 20 minute frequency was maintained on the line, even on weekends. Every 2nd or so train connected with services to Newcastle or Sydney.

The timetable was also formatted in such a way that the some Toronto branch services appear in the same column as the main line service (you will see what I mean in the examples of the timetable).

This was also the last CityRail timetable to feature the Brisbane Limited and the Pacific Coast Moto-rail prior to their replacement by XPTs.

Also, Hilldale and Wirragulla stations were not served, and CityRail services ended at Muswellbrook (i.e. they didn't make it to Scone). There were the same number of weekday services past Telarah as today- 4 to Muswellbrook and 5 to Dungog. Weekend frequency was the same as today but different timings.

The frequency of services between Telarah and Newcastle was about the same as today, but in 1989 services stopped at all stations giving a half hour frequency for all intermediate stations, compared to an hourly frequency at smaller stations today with the current pattern of alternate limited stops services.

Note also that the map has a gap between Singleton and Branxton. I'm not sure what station was previously there. Belford was served for a while after 1990, but there are a couple of other possibilities: Whiitingham?, Minimbah? Warabrook and Metford hadn't opened then either- they debuted in 1995.

Monday maps- country trains NSW

This map is undated- must be mid 1980s, pre Greiner's cuts anyway.

The East Hills Timetables part 3- Glenfield extension 1987

In 1987, the extension between East Hills and Glenfield on the Main South line opened. It was soft opening to a degree, in that services operated along the extension only during weekday peak hours initially. The timetable was essentially the same as pre opening, with some tweaking to accommodate the new services.  3 services traversed the extension in the morning, with 3 retuning in the afternoon. There were no services on Sundays or public holidays.

Sorry that my copy of the timetable is a bit tatty. For some reason I can't upload the cover, will try again later.

Thursday ephemera- Waratah station c 1990.

20 years ago- the 1992 CityRail timetable

In January 1992, CityRail introduced a new timetable. The timetable was the most significant alteration to suburban and intercity working for some time, and was not without controversy.

The goals of the timetable were to provide a better service from outer suburban areas to the city, at some expense to inner suburbs and a reduction in pre peak hour services in the mornings. Secondly, the timetable introduced a reduction in single deck "red rattler" services with their confinement to the Inner West and Bankstown line services prior to their complete withdrawal shortly after. 8-car length single deck trains were discontinued, with the only single deck cars left being those matched with double deck Tulloch trailers in W-sets.

The Richmond line, which was fully electrified the year before, saw the first through-running of services between Richmond and the city (initially only 4 cars trains until the power supply was upgraded later in the year to support 8-car trains). The two car L Sets that operated Richmond- Riverstone shuttles were replaced with 4-cars sets.

Other features of the new timetable were:
- Cowan was no longer the northern boundary of suburban services, with Northern line services terminating one station south at Berowra
- Sandown line services officially withdrawn (they actually stopped running in December 1991).
- the withdrawal of most through Southern Highlands services to Central, most services now operated as shuttles south of Campbelltown in a similar manner to today
- withdrawal of Kingsgrove as a terminating location for trains, not to be reinstated until quadruplication was completed
- withdrawal of Chatswood as a train terminating location
- cancellation of local 2-car Newcastle- Fassifern services
- reduction of single deck U-sets from most Central Coast / Newcastle services
- loss of the separate Saturday and Sunday timetables , now grouped together as 'Weekends'
- reduction in weekend Eastern Suburbs line frequency from 10 to 15 minutes.
- a 10% reduction in the number of train sets needed to operate the timetable.


CountryLink timetables were also modified but there were only timing changes.

The physical timetables had a newer look, with glossy full colour covers and a new map on the reverse. Below is the Campbelltown via Liverpool line as an example.

Note that the map has lost the Royal National Park and Sandown branches.

In the middle of the timetable was a further pair of glossy pages, with a guide to station facilities in the middle, and some passenger info on the reverse.

The actual timetable itself was in a similar layout to previously.

Monday maps- the original Nightride map

Nightride was introduced in 1989 as a bus service to replace late night / early morning train services.  The publicised rationale was to free up tracks for maintenance etc, hover the real reasons were cost savings and to save the trains from vomit, graffiti and other damage.

Here is the map of the original services. The current map is below for comparison.