Pages under construction……
Run Numbers for Echuca South Depot…..
A feature of Melbourne Tram and Government Bus operation since the earliest times, the Run Number Plate was phased out of use on trams and buses in the late 1990s. “Echuca South Depot” will bring back the use of Run Numbers, with a set of run numbers made up for use. The Run Numbers in our case are magnetic, and will be displayed on the outside of the vehicle. On trams, they were displayed inside, but on buses, on the outside. As we are buses, we are following the bus practice in this case, of outside display.
Run Numbers in current stock are, ES 1, ES 3, ES5, ES 7 and ES9. No particular reason for this, and maybe in future, the 2, 4 , 6, 8, and 10 numbers will be made. The letters “ES” for “Echuca South” are in use, to respect Essendon Tram Depot’s traditional use of the letter “E”. A precedent for two letter run numbers comes from Glen Huntly Tram Depot, which uses “GH”. Therefore we consider these run numbers to be “correct” in format. The run numbers are produced “full size”, and the letters and numbers are the correct size, as measured against a run number from a Z1 class tram of the period.
A possibility for future run numbers is to also adopt the Black letters on Yellow format, but it my time in the job, the Red on White format was used at our depot.
Photos of the actual run numbers are still to come on this site.
Tickets & Hand Punches (Paper and Punch)
Echuca Tramway Bus tickets, as padded up into “blocks” of 30 tickets each.
The M C Meith punches from the U.S.A. come in various punch mark styles, as did the original tramway punches used by the Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramway Board. Three of these punch marks were chosen for Echuca Tramway Bus.
Details of the punch marks, and samples of punched tickets are still to come.
Interested in our tickets? Please contact us for information of how to get a sample of the ticket!
A supply of 3000 tickets has been printed locally by Echuca Moama Print and Design. The tickets are numbered from No. 0001 to No. 3000
Printed on Yellow System Board, the tickets are perforated at the tab, and stapled into “blocks” of 30 tickets each. We were going for blocks of 50 tickets, but the heavy duty stapler could only handle 30 tickets, with that weight of paper.
The tickets are punched with “Tramway Style” ticket punches, acquired directly from M C Meith.
M C Meith punches from the U.S.A. A total of three punches were bought by us for possible use, showing three different punch marks.
Ticket Type – ”Zone 1 Daily”
The ticket type chosen for the print run was based on the Daily tickets of Melbourne, and is a cross between later issue “Met Daily” tickets, and earlier issue “TravelCards.” The design of the ticket is our own version of a cross between these tickets of the past. The bus logo on the ticket is somewhat inspired by the old Sydney Bus Daily ticket, the “Bus Tripper”. Our tickets are designated “Not Cash”, because they are unlikely to be sold for fares, given that this is not allowed for us at this time….. Therefore, they are a giveaway item.
Table Cards
An important part of Tram and Government Bus operations is the Table Card. The format of Table cards was changed in the mid 1990s to a modernised two-sided format. It is this format that will be used for “Echuca Tramway Bus”. The format used around the mid 1990s is starting to disappear, as a result of privatisation of the Trams and Buses. This short lived format will be brought back into use by us.
Table Cards will be written out with reference to a small collection of photocopied table cards from my time as a Conductor, personal memories of the format, and information since found out about the proper format of Bus table cards.
At the time of writing, there are no “current” Echuca South Depot Table Cards, obviously this can’t go ahead until a route is worked out. But….. Samples of table cards to be added to this site when time permits.