1955-1956 TRAVELLING TO SCHOOL

It must have been about a 16 miles journey from my home in Berala in the Western Suburbs to Marist Brothers Darlinghurst on the Eastern side of the City. I walked to Berala Station most days (10 minutes) or occasionally to Lidcombe (20-25 minutes)  to catch the suburban electric train to Sydney  Central Station.

There were still a few of these sad-faced ""Bradfield "cars in service - the only advantage they offered was a front passenger window -fun for kids to get a driver's eye view (a few of the more modern trains were similarly equipped at the time.)

The typical electric train of the day is shown in the photo below. Occasionally one of the Bradfield Driving Cars shown above would form part of the train, and more often, there were wooden trailer cars in the consist. However, after the Berala and Sydenham (I think) electric train crashes, the shattering of the wooden cars and increased casualties, meant that they were quickly phased out.

Standard electric train of my school days - to me they ere the iconic "face "of Sydney.Most were built in the U.K. as the brass plates I had to step over on boarding the train announced

.

There were still then, and for years to come, regular daily peak hour steam trains from Riverstone to Central stopping at Parramatta, Lidcombe and Strathfield,and Redfern where the zealots would hop off and RUN up and across the overbridge to catch an earlier City  underground electric train)  and there were always good crowds  on Lidcombe's No.1 Platform   
to take advantage of the express run to Central ( or Redfern as we have seen).

This is the "best"picture I could come up with of a C32 pulling a train of American corridor and end platforms, suburban cars , but I'm still looking!

These steam trains were hauled by C32 Class 4-6-0s dating from 1891 and they hauled American designed central corridor carriages with open entry platforms at either end. These carriages were also products of the 1880's. So the whole train was an operating Museum piece. There had been 191 of the C32 Class locomotives built, and all were still in service up to the time I left School, but the very next year, 1957 the first casualty came : 3264 was derailed and very badly damaged at Otford in January,1957. Four of the Class  survive in preservation and 2 are operational.

Arriving at Central, I would hurry off down the stairs and out to the ramp leading down to Eddy Avenue which crosses the Northern frontage of the huge Station. There, I would hop aboard a Tram for the trip left into Elizabeth Street up the hill to Mark Foy's magnificent Department Store , then a grinding 90 degrees turn into Liverpool Street and at the College Street intersection a brief glimpse of the College perched high on its hill at the top of the continuation of Liverpool Street and the Tramlines curved away to the right for the run up Oxford Street to Taylor Square. Oxford Street was the still in decline as the 1926 Underground Railway into the City had caused the CBD to flourish whilst all the pre 1926 fashionable places -Broadway, Railway Square, Oxford Street slowly died back.

My favourite Trams were the type seen just entering the picture below from the Left they were the oldest around and by far the most numerous.

Trams at Eddy Avenue in front of Sydney's great Central Station

At Taylor Square I began the walk North East ish to the College past the High Court on the right along what I later learned was the notorious" Wall" where at night, perverts picked up their "rent boys".Some of those using their services have been reported in later years as a member of the Police Commision and a High Court Judge . Ignorance was bliss. On the other side of the Wall was the old Darlinghurst Jail - now an Art School - I never went in.

And so I got to School.

Coming home the process was reversed, except that at Taylor Square I used to catch a Double Decker Bus down to Central - I guess because they may have run more frequently than the Trams at that time of day to Central.

I can't resist recounting a little anecdote that has stuck in my mind. One afternoon I was crossing Oxford Street to catch the Bus to Central at the Taylor Square stop, and had just passed a little old lady, dressed in a tired black cloth coat and wearing a small black hat, thinking to myself "poor little old thing"when a car suddenly surged by coming rather close to her . My Lol rounded on it swinging her handbag and screaming lustily "You f......B......!" I was gobsmacked! I have always been more cautious in awarding the title Little Old Lady ever since!

A heavily re-touched 1947 photo of Double decker buses at Taylor Square
where I used to catch them in the afternoon on way home from school.

N.B. "re-touching"was a manual process in the days before PHOTOSHOP.