The conveyance of parcels was a key service provided by NSWGR, and the Sydney metropolitan area was no exception.
The conveyance of parcels was a key service provided by NSWGR, and the Sydney metropolitan area was no exception.Parcel Vans were part of the Sydney rail scene for 60 years and provided a great service. All metropolitan railway stations were manned, so parcels could be dropped off and picked up from any station. The larger stations had goods sidings and a parcel offce to handle the higher volume of parcels passing through them. A total of 17 self-powered parcel vans operated throught out the metropolitan area. The first three parcel vans were built in the Bradfield era by Clyde Engineering and Walsh Island Dockyard (Newcastle) between 1926 and 1929, most others were converted from single deck wood and steel body passenger cars as the need arose.
An article in magazine, Australian Railway History, for May 2013 includes a reference to a reader having despatched a heavy steel tool from Wollongong Parcels Office one morning and it was ready for pick-up at Blacktown by 4 pm the same day. The artcle recalled that the peak of parcel van serivce in terms of mileage run was 1978 when there were 7 units operating. The wooden, fast electric parcel vans closely resembled the designs of the 1938 tube stock trains in London so it’s possible that they used a similar design scheme for both trains or they were both designed and or built by the same manufacturer.
Road transport, and in particular, the avent of courier services utilising owner-operators driving small vans, brought the era of the Sydney railway parcel service to an end. By 1992, only a few Sydney electric parcel vans were still in operation. By this time they were only being used for sporadic trips around the metropolitan area collecting rubbish.
A Tait parcels van, one of five built between 1921 and 1926.
In the late 1920s, the Victorian Railways introduced their fleet of E class electric locomotives which operated throughout Melbourne for the next 60 years, trains operating during the off-peak and at night. As late as the 1970s, most suburban railway stations had goods yards for general freight, as well as the local distribution of huge quantities of brown coal briquettes and firewood, which were the principal forms of industrial and domestic heating. Briquette traffic peaked in 1960/61 when 1.7 million tons were moved within Victoria, second only to the wheat harvest in volume.
There were also a large number of sidings that directly served factories and other industrial facilities. With the rise of efficient door to door road transport, suburban rail freight operations ceased in the late 1980s. The majority of goods yards have since been removed and the land used for car parking, or converted to stabling locations for suburban trains.
In recent years, attempts have been made to run shuttles between the Port of Melbourne and inland ports. Between 2003 and 2006, CRT Group operated a shuttle to their terminal at Altona, 22 kilometres from the docks. In 2004/05, the service transported 13,000 TEU, this being 42 per cent capacity for import and 58 per cent for export containers. The service ceased due to high access fees charged by track operator ARTC, and delays by interstate freight trains sharing the same track making the reliable operation of two trips per day impossible. The service restarted in 2005, but failed for the same reasons. A second port shuttle has operated to the Austrack terminal at Somerton during various periods since 1998, with difficulties faced including inefficient track layouts, high rail transfer charges at the port, and inconvenient timetables dictated by long-distance freight services.
Melbourne Milk Dock today.
What is referred to as the Milk Dock at Flinders Street station played an important role in Melbourne's parcel delivery service. It was here that fresh milk arrived from country Victoria, especially Gippsland, in large metal cans. Trains were shunted into the Milk Dock where the cans were unloaded and the milk transported by carts to suburban dairies. Empty cans were then picked up for delivery back to the country dairies.
The Milk Dock was part of the western end of Platform 1 and was originally built to deal with freight – in particular, milk and parcels. The platform is particularly wide at the western end and had track through it which terminated before the platform narrowing. It is the longest railway platform in Australia and, at 708 metres long, the 4th longest in the world, and stretches the length of two city blocks from Swanston Street to the end of Queen Street.
Platform 1 was generally referred to as the Milk Dock. Trains could be shunted into this track to have their freight unloaded. The shed that now covers the Milk Dock had its roofing removed several years ago. Platform 1 was home to the Parcels Office until its closure 1986.
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