NRS-15907 | Minutes of the County of Cumberland Passenger Transport Advisory Committee

Full description

This series comprises the Minutes of Proceedings of the County of Cumberland Passenger Transport Advisory Committee. Membership of this Committee consisted of the Heads of various State Government agencies (or their representatives) including the Commissioner for Railways. At the time of the creation of the series the Commissioner for Railways was the Chairman of the Advisory Committee and is believed to have maintained this particular set of Minutes.

The Advisory Committee was concerned with analysing the means to improve the flow of people throughout the County of Cumberland via a variety of transportation systems. These systems included public bus and rail services; roads, freeways and highways; air and water-borne transport. The Committee investigated the effectiveness of these systems to move people efficiently and improvements proposed. Proposals to expand then-current systems, develop alternate methods of public transportation, likely impacts and projected outcomes were considered.

Reports by sub-committees conducting transportation studies are included in the Minutes. Transportation systems within the areas of Campbelltown, Blacktown, Sydney CBD, Sydney Airport and Eastern Suburbs were studied, as was Newcastle and Wollongong. Improvements to public transport in these areas were envisaged, whereby more people would be encouraged to commute as a method to ease congestion and increase the overall speed and flow of people throughout the County. Plans for improving the rail service included underground pedestrian tunnels from train stations; extensions to lines; commuter parking at outlying stations; improved services and combined fare structures.

Other proposals addressed by the Advisory Committee included the development of a Parallel Runway at Sydney Airport; a helicopter shuttle service between Mascot and the Sydney CBD; extension to the Eastern Suburbs Railway to service Sydney Airport; a high-speed hovercraft ferry service between Circular Quay and the Old Rozelle Bridge; and Container Terminal and Depot Developments at Glebe Island and Rozelle Bay.

Co-operation between private consortiums, Local, State, and Commonwealth agencies was sought by the Advisory Committee, and proposals from a variety of sources feature in the Minutes.

The Minutes for 19 September, 1968 - 20 November, 1969 are bound in a volume labelled "6047", while those for 19 February, 1970 - 21 September, 1972 are held in chronological order in loose bundles. Maps, plans, graphs and various diagrams are also included.

Three volumes (dated 15 January, 1970 - 2 December, 1970; 21 January, 1971 - 16 December, 1971; 20 January, 1972 - 15 March, 1973) are also held, containing extracts of the Minutes of the Advisory Committee that specifically relate to the Sydney Area Transportation Study (S.A.T.S.).

Custody History:
From 1955 until 2000 the State Rail Authority of New South Wales maintained an ‘in house archives’ consisting of the archival records of the Authority, its predecessor agencies and the private railway companies taken over by the government. The date ranges of the records were from 1849 until 2000. When the decision was made to close the ‘State Rail Archives’ the parts of the collection that were required as State archives were transferred to the State Records Authority of NSW. Those record series were incorporated into the State Records series system of archives control and were re-numbered.

This series was formerly part of the State Rail Archives collection where it was identified as series R96. It may have been viewed in the State Rail Archives as series R96 and could have been previously cited as such in notes by researchers at State Rail Archives or in publications or unpublished works.