General Correspondence Files, Annual Single Number System, Estate Office/Property Group

Full description

The Department of Railways was organised into various branches, each with its own separate registry and record-keeping systems dealing with its own activities and administration. The correspondence registered includes correspondence received from the public, other government departments, other railway branches including the Secretary's Branch. The Secretary's Branch correspondence referred to the Branch for action was registered in both systems and filed within the Secretary's correspondence series, ie VPRS 421, Secretary's Inward Registered Correspondence, Annual Single Number System.

This series documented the activities of the Estate Office/Property Group. The Group was responsible for the administration of the property estate, town planning and private sidings.

Private Sidings Administration
When an application for the construction of a private siding, accompanied by the preliminary deposit was received, the applicant or his representative was met by an engineer of the Way and Works Branch. The engineer ascertained the applicant's requirements, advised him as to best method of construction and prepared a plan and estimate of the cost. The plan was submitted to the General Superintendent of Transportation for his approval and for his views as to any conditions to be imposed in respect of the operation of traffic at the proposed siding. When this was returned duly completed a statement of the estimated cost, maintenance and conditions, under which the proposed siding would be constructed and operated was prepared and forwarded to the Chief Engineer of Way and Works for submission to the Commissioner. On approval the applicant was notified of the estimated cost and conditions and requested compliance therewith, and payment of the cost in advance.

The series in custody comprises files relating to private sidings administration (refer to P1 consignment) and town planning schemes (refer to P2 consignment).

P3 consignment contains one file bought at the Charles Leski Auctions. The file was part of Norm De Pomeroy, an ex railway employee's collection. The file appears to be part of the same record keeping system as this series.

Subsequent Series
The Estate Office (EO) files relating to private sidings administration were filed within this series until ? 1972. It appears that In 1972 the active files with EO prefix relating to private sidings administration were top numbered into the subsequent series VPRS 13263 General Correspondence Files, Annual Single Number System, Freight Services Branch. It is not known why some EO files continued to form part of VPRS 13263 without being top numbered.

The EO files relating to town planning schemes are also located in VPRS 13185 General Correspondence Files, Alphabetical System, Town Planning Section, Legal Services and Property Group. It appears that the town planning scheme files (with EO prefix) were at some stage (?1985) inter-sorted with an alphabetically arranged sequence of files relating to town planning schemes.