By Bus from Sydney to Brisbane (1951) - Department of Public Instruction Queensland
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- Опубликовано: 18 ноя 2024
- Produced in 1951 by the Department of Public Instruction Queensland with the cooperartion of Ansett Travel Service, this film sets out to track a journey from Sydney to Brisbane. The film compromises of several aerial shots, especially of Sydney from the 1950s, but predominantly we follow a bus as it travels up the east coast of Australia.
From Sydney, we then get glimpses of Gosford, Newcastle Port Macquarie, Taree, Kempsey Coffs Harbour, Grafton, Lismore, Murwillumbah and Tweed Heads in New South Wales before entering Queensland through Coolangatta. The bus continues on to Brisbane through the Gold Coast.
This video has a fantastic portryal of Australian coastal towns, including holidays resorts, infrastructure and farmland during the 1950s.
By Bus from Sydney to Brisbane [Picture] - Department of Public Instruction Queensland ; with the cooperation of Ansett Travel Service / director, Alan Denby
Find the original source at Queensland State Archives:
www.archivessea...
Brilliant pointerwork by the guy with the pencil.
How I wish the world looked like this now.
I myself and a friend did the trip in 1958 from Sydney to Melbourne . It took 5 days and stopped at Ansett hotels on the way. It was a feast as far as the food was concerned and as we were the youngest , we were really spoiled with lots of extra deserts etc.
Loved this coverage. My dear old Dad used to drive Pioneer Buses. We lived in Grafton when he started with Ansett. He drove a leg from Grafton
to Brisbane and back. Also south to Nambucca and back. Then they cut that leg of the journeys out, and was transferred to Brisbane in 1958, when
I was eleven years of age. I went to school at the Fortitude Valley State School. I fell in love with Brisbane. I have very fond memories of the New
South Wales north coast, especially the great Clarence River valley. I'll be watching this promo clip over, and over again! Well done!
I'm catching a Pioneer coach from Newcastle to Brisbane this Friday, have travelled Pioneer dozens of times...😊...your dear old was a genuine 'pioneer'...
I drove for Ansett Pioneer in the 80's and loved every minute. Unfortunately the company was sold by TNT and was taken over by Greyhound which was the end of a great company with poor working conditions and a lack of proper maintenance. Pretty much everything Reg Ansett achieved was broken up and sold off which I believe made a few people quite rich but left the public with second rate replacements.
And Deluxe Coaches driver ‘ The Ethnic Bloke ‘ blew my hat off going the other way on the Pilliga in the mid eighties too, and told me I should have had my window up !
Brings back memories of the Pioneer Busses that would pass by my Home in the 50's
I did this drive just today, but in reverse. Bypassed most of these towns thanks to the freeway. Faster, yes, but you miss a lot of charming towns.
The fifties sixties seventies.what great years to be alive.
How wonderful to be able to go back. This is very valuable footage. There is no doubt that culture and life was far simpler then.
Wow. What history. Fantastic old Australia.
Absolutely fascinating film into our nation's history, society and culture. A tremendous resource for schools and educational institutions. I really appreciate these films, please keep them coming!
We are increasing efforts to digitise film in the archives. Exciting times ahead Stephen!
Amazing. It must have taken forever to get there on those roads, no bridges, but it's fascinating. Thank you for the footage.
Man, makes one feel so bloody old. Thank you for uploading this, interesting ie: sugar cane.
Its incredible they still had horse and carts in the 1950s! Amazing footage thanks.
What a wonderful adventure that journey would have been back then.
A wonderful snapshot of from the early fifties in Australia! That bus was made by Ansair a subsidiary of Ansett Airlines in Melbourne and was built under licence from a USA company and was called a “ Flxible Clipper” l just think too bad they could not get the sound of it right as they were powered by a V8 Deutz air cooled engine that were extremely loud from the outside but not too bad from the inside also some were powered by 2 stroke detroit diesels, l can remember them taking passengers from Ansett-ANA’s office in Melbourne’s CBD to Essendon Airport this was before Tullamarine was built, a very flash bus in its day, l know it’s an old film & would have been difficult to get the right sound but it sounds like an old Bedford or sidevalve white six with straight cut gears! The Flxible’s sounded better than that!
Cheers! I'm pretty sure Redline Coaches in Tasmania had a few of these beauties as well, (although I'm sure if they didn't someone will correct me!).
Great to see in colour.
Wish my time was back then than now...
It's so beautiful !
This is a trip down memory lane for me --as I did this journey a few times in the 1960s. The film didn't mention that it took a gruelling 1.5 days. It was technically possible in 14 hours, but that was a very risky thing to do due to driver fatigue. The long trip time wasn't just because of having to queue to get on the ferries. The highway was a 2- lane road virtually all the way. You would be spending half your journey trundling along at 50mph , in a queue of up to 7 vehicles stuck behind a truck or caravan, until the very occasional "overtaking lane" showed up. The rest of the time you were overtaking at full power on the wrong side of the road ( 2 lanes, remember). Not exactly relaxing driving. If you didn't overtake when you had the chance, you would add hours to your trip. You also had to go through the centre of every town as there were no bypasses. No wonder the Pacific Highway was notorious for its death toll, compared to today, with lots of black spots, especially further north up the coast. However, that was the norm for highways back then. It's good that the trip is so much faster, easier and safer today!
I do wonder what was the purpose of this film. What lesson was the Queensland Department of Instruction trying to teach its Queensland students? geography? does anyone know?
The description in the archive states:
A film depicting a bus journey from Sydney to Brisbane, as an alternative means of transport to flying.
Department of Public Instruction Queensland ; with the cooperation of Ansett Travel Service
From Wikipedia we found this:
Ansett Airways remained a big player as ANA and TAA battled for supremacy in the 1940s and 1950s. Ansett operated around the big two, maintaining budget-fare interstate operations with DC-3s and later Convair CV-340s previously operated by Braniff International Airways in the United States. The airline was backed up by extensive road transport operations, including Ansett Freight Express and Ansett Pioneer Coaches, as well as the Ansair coach-building operation.
Further along:
Ansett-ANA's excellent profit record was, at least in part, courtesy of the Menzies government's Two Airlines Policy. The policy effectively blocked any other domestic interstate operators by way of a ban on importation of aircraft without a government licence. From 1957 until the 1980s, under the strict rules set down by the Two Airlines Policy, Ansett and TAA operated as virtual carbon copies of each other, operating the same aircraft at the same times, to the same destinations, at fares, which were identical (under strict federal government policy). If either airline wished to change its fares, they had to obtain federal government approval.
Could we assume that Ansett Travel would be keen to boost bus travel, while the Department of Public Instruction saw an opportunity to increase tourism between the two cities?
Reference: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansett_Australia
@@QueenslandStateArchives Thanks very much for looking into this and providing all that info. I remember the Ansett/TAA rivalry well; customers usually stayed loyal to whichever airline they first flew with, as there was no point in shopping around. I flew Sydney to Coolangatta in the 60s twice, both times with TAA.
Because air travel in Australia back then was pricey, relative to today, there was a strong existing market for cheaper long-haul options. The Sydney/Brisbane rail link had been completed in the 1930s (prior to that, my Brisbane relatives travelled to Sydney by the fastest means, which was coastal passenger steamer!) so I'm guessing that at the time of this film, Ansett's coach line viewed rail as their main competitor. (Incidentally, the coach was likely faster than the train, which stopped often, and followed a winding, less direct route -- as I recall when I did the rail trip Sydney to QLD in the 70s).
I can see that the QLD government would want to be involved in this film as it promotes tourism from NSW.
But why use the QLD DPI? I wouldn’t have thought that was in their remit. Especially since there was already a department for that purpose, the Queensland Govt. Tourist Bureau (as it then was ). I rather suspect that, as rail was state-owned, the Tourist Bureau was not permitted to endorse a business which was in direct competition with rail, such as a coach line. Or perhaps Ansett could not reach agreement on the terms of the film with the Tourist Bureau, and just wanted endorsement from the QLD government, regardless of which department it was. That said, if the QLD Tourist Bureau was out of the picture, it’s still not obvious, out of all the other QLD government departments, why Ansett would choose the DPI to collaborate with. Even if the DPI already had its own unit for making films, the target audience for buying coach travel from Sydney to Brisbane is clearly Sydney and NSW residents, not Queensland school students! maybe it was simply that someone in Ansett knew someone in the DPI.
But would a state education department be able to match the QLD Tourist Bureau's expertise in commercial marketing and distribution of its film products? I think it more likely that Ansett controlled the marketing and distribution. TV did not start in Australia till 1956, but everyone went to the movies; so my guess is that Ansett got cinemas across Sydney (and NSW) to screen this film. It is just the sort of “general interest” short film which cinemas used to show with their newsreels and advertising, prior to the main attraction. Cinemas would normally charge the distributor (presumably Ansett) a fee for screening advertising - but perhaps when a film was “educational” (i.e .made by the QLD DPI, like this one) the charges were lesser? or zero?perhaps low-cost distribution was the real motive driving Ansett’s collaboration with the DPI.
The Queensland Department of Public Instruction was established in 1876 as the agency administering public primary and secondary education but eventually accumulated a wide range of ther "education" functions such as teacher training, university subsidies and scholarships, migrant and adult education, agricultural colleges, National Fitness camps, art galleries, museums, libraries, orphanages, etc, etc! Basically, the Department of Many Hats. It became the Department of Education in 1957 and many of the additional functions moved to other Government departments. This film may have been directed at school students in the Social Studies subject but may also have shown up the Royal Queensland Show ("Ekka") - until the mid-1960's the Exhibition was very much an industrial show with an aim to educate the public. That's a whole other world so I won't bang on about it!
@@IntrospectorGeneral Interesting! thanks for that extra background info.
I must be old …
I remember the pioneer buses…
How good is it to ride in a clipper bus from Sydney to Brisbane
To change the name of Brisbane would be culture disrespect for all those who built this wonderful town.
Well, if they can produce documents, that there was a city there before Brisbane was built for hundreds of years, that would be something else. I mean, all they need to proof this, is written documents or books, that are a few hundred years old and maybe some nice few hundred year old paintings of the city too. Because without such proof, it would be quite ridiculous to want to "change back" the name of something, that wasn't there in the first place. Yeah, and btw - NO.
Yeah, for sure. The indigenous people who lived there beforehand would've definitely had no culture.
Seeing Oaks Avenue brought back memories...i was born in 1957....I remember the old bridge at Murwillumbah....pity the bus didnt show Chinderah and go through Kingscliff...that would have been a great sight as I grew up in Kingscliff
Days of epic travel with narrow roads and river crossing ferries in an old open bus without air con. 7 decades later and it's less than 8hrs on the expressway with one town left to bypass. Progress hey...
Eight hours you reckon. Interesting.
@@jvvoid Well, from Tweed.
Just Coffs Harbour left to bypass and that is now well under way...I can recall in 1970 it was 50 miles from Port Macquarie to Kempsey over that windy mountain road, now it's just 50 kilometres of straight...
@@nukmunnit3170 Just Coffs... Remember that range at, I think it was Bulladella or some such nightmare. Been watching it open up all my life and I can finally see the day coming when my state capital will be just at end of one long expressway. Plenty of road adventures left tho!
at least 3 river crossings on barges then, imagine this still happening today, would be queues for hours.
We are in queques for hours now - just to cross borders! Who'd have thunk 10 months ago? October 2020
Not many people or families owned cars back then. People's main priority was owning a house.
Yes I still remember the queues. I did this journey by car in the 1960s a few times. The Raymond Terrace crossing was a nightmare especially with all the industry trucks as well as the car traffic. the trip today is so much easier now!
When we drove to Surfers Paradise in the 60's, we took punts across the major rivers, and that was all on the pacific highway. We also stopped for herds of cows on the highway
So the pencil tip is like the 'you are here' on google maps? :P
And the pencil never goes blunt, and never needs recharging! Pencils rule!!!
Great old footage - thanks for making it available. Glad to be living now though - without all the industrial smokestacks belching out gunge. Air pollution looked horrendous in some places.
Better days.
A long journey.
I wonder how long that trip took...
I did this bus trip in 1999 and it took over 12 hours.
I did this trip by car several times in the early 1960s, it took 1.5 days. you planned to sleep overnight at Grafton, or thereabouts, which was 10 hours from Sydney. I remember Newcastle alone was nearly 4 hours from Sydney. The whole Pacific highway was a 2 lane road. One time in school holiday traffic the wait in the queue at Raymond Terrace for the ferry across the Hunter took us over 2 hours.
I didn't know that's when they had busses that time ago similar to our one now
chocks away ol' boy !!!
Was so different back then …
Brisbane is a backwater now, imagine what it was like then…
No, it was a backwater until a year ago. It's quite nice now.
Did you really have to go on the barges back then to get up from syd or did they just do that
No it was barge, punt or ferry. The bridges were often just for rail.
there were not many cars then, so the barges could cope with the traffic
Punts across major rivers on Pacific Highway in the 60's
I'm glad i grew up today than back then.
How is this by bus?
It's a magical flying bus.
Lovely film. Now then: . ''The film compromises (sic) of (sic) several aerial shots,...'' You mean ''comprises''. And there should be no ''of'' after ''comprises''. So it should be ''the film comprises several aerial shots''. Except that this sentence is also wrong, because the film is a lot more than the few aerial shots. So the correct version should be ''the film includes several aerial shots...''
What the heck is wrong with you?
For once some blokes put grafton onto their maps
This could have been the life in any of the commonwealth countries.
Just minus the U.N and the W.H.O that ruined all western nations.
Kill me. Slow winding roads and traffic without overtaking passing or smooth roads. A boat was faster. Now its around 10 hours.
Hard to believe that this production could be so amateurish, even for 1951. Shows what huge advances there have been in technology since then.
No computer graphics.
I would rather then than now any day.
Back when Australia could stand on it's own two feet, rather than being reliant on China .
Yes; the wobbly handheld camerawork was poor even by the standards of the day.
My left ear.
Bizarre
uh, very matter of fact i suppose
🇭🇷🇪🇺❤🇦🇺
Rose tinted glasses make it seem wonderful. It was a fascinating era but think of the much more primitive medical treatment, and the draconian white Australia policy then in force, and the ongoing racism and homophobia...
back when Australia was a better place, no so many stupid rules and you could go and say what you wanted.
Life was as boring as crap, back in those days .
Looking back with all we have today it might appear that way.
It was an era dominated by full employment, a good standard of living, family- focused values and the 'suburban dream' of a house of one's own with the latest labour-saving appliances. Does that sound a little more exciting?
@@QueenslandStateArchivesa real shame these kinds of people can't place themselves in the culture of the time in order to feel the optimism of the time in relation to the culture of the time. They can only place themselves as they are now and laugh at back then because they didn't have a piece of glass glued to their hand or a 200k Mercedes on loan.