Historical Map: Suburban Bus Routes of Sydney, 1961

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Historical Maps

The map on the reverse side of the previously featured diagram of downtown Sydney bus routes, showing an overview of routes throughout the city. The map even comments on its own shortcomings to the bottom left , with a disclaimer that almost apologetically states that “This map is intended only as a guide to the bus services.”

Using the same colour-coding and ambiguous naming conventions as that diagram, the map is mainly notable for highlighting the fact that a vast majority of routes ran through downtown, with only a select few crosstown or “inter-suburban” routes (denoted by a dashed purple route line). A number of northern beaches services met with ferries at Manly, and these are shown as brown dashed lines.

Also of note is the abrupt western edge of government bus services, with nothing running further west than Lidcombe, Meadowbank/Top Ryde and Epping. Private bus companies took over further out than this: even in the 1980s, I caught a Harris Park Bus #165 from Epping station to my home further up the hill towards Carlingford.

Source: National Library of Australia

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