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| Recently I was very lucky to be loaned a copy of a Bradshaw's guide. It was missing its cover and the first 18 pages and no date can be found in it, after a little detective work I figured out its date to be somewhere between 1903 and 1907 so have settled on calling it "circa 1905". Due to the book being about 100 years old its condition was understandably somewhat fragile so I could not scan it in the usual way. I ended up photographing the pages on my digital camera and I think you'll agree the results are quite satisfactory. As I did not want to bend and possibly damage the book, sections of some pages are not shown, I decided that the part of the page that would be of most interest would be the timetables so some of the fare information is missing.
Bradshaw's guides were produced by a private company and were issed monthly, I do not know when the first one appeared but I am told they ceased production about the time of World War II. I do not know if the VR were producing public timetables in a book form showing all the lines on the system in a single volume at the same time as the Bradshaw's guides. It is a fascinaing document to browse. The thing that really strikes me is how much VR passenger service was provided by mixed trains or "goods with car attached". It must be remembered that this was before widespread use of railmotors. Remember too that in 1905 private transport was almost unheard of so the only way to travel to most of these places was by rail. It was a time when rail was king and absolutely intergral to the economic and social lifeblood of the state of Victoria. The book also contains complete timetables for the Melbourne suburban system which I will scan and upload as time permits. Enjoy! |