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The
Coaching Days 4
November 1938 Albury Banner and Wodonga Express (By
Will Carter) |
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Whenever old coaching days are brought
up for discussion in the bush to-day it is usually the famous firm of
Cobb and Co. that is quoted as the pioneer of passenger transport, but coaches
were running over long country stages many years before the advent of
Cobb and Co., the original Yankee firm 1862, at Bathurst, after a successful
business run in Victoria, where the company originated with Freeman Cobb,
an American, as promoter. Cobb, however, was only briefly associated
with the great concern, and it was James Rutherford who mainly directed
the business affairs of the new and enterprising firm in New South Wales
which, nevertheless, preserved the name of the original firm, Cobb and Co. Doyle
And Levy Inland settlement quickly followed upon
the heels of exploration. When Hume and Hovell had
completed their, noteworthy expedition from Appin to Port Phillip in
1824, crossing the Murrumbidgee, Goobragandra,
Tumut and Murray rivers as they pluckily pushed their way through the
vast regions, the dense penetralia to the
south, untrodden previously by the feet of white men, their glowing
report of the country traversed induced many courageous men to seek out
a future home for themselves and their young wives, and future
offspring. It was thus that some means of light
and speedy, transport had to be found in order that the long and lonely
trip to Sydney could be made more expeditiously than by the slow
and lumbering bullock dray. And so, we find coaches running
their stages from Goulburn to Campbelltown in the late thirties. Their bodies were supported on the
usual steel springs, which, taking advantage of the ruts and limbs, and
rocks and other impediments, too numerous to record, that distinguished the
King's highway, known as the Great Southern Road, gave the passengers a
rough-and-tumble passage which often produced a condition quite as trying
as sea-sickness. The stages were naturally very
long and tedious, owing to flooded streams which were unspanned
by bridges at the time. Doyle and Levy's drivers were certainly tough and
resourceful men whose courage and endurance must have exceeded even that
of their passengers. Jones
And Lupton Doyle and Levy were succeeded by Jones
and Lupton, who, in the fifties, held the mail delivery contract from Sydney
to Melbourne. The terrific drought of 1851, which
reduced the Murrumbidgee to a chain of ponds in places, severely taxing the
coaching firms. The Victorian and New South Wales
Governments, in the circum- stances, granted the Jones firm a substantial
subsidy to help it through. Roberts
And Crane Roberts and Crane acquired several of
Jones and Lupton's lines and, as the gold
diggings were now in full swing, with thousands constantly on the move, they
quickly made good. 'Ginger' Roberts was a great organiser and full of
energy; his career terminated in North Queensland at the age of 86 years. Noted
Drivers The drivers of those early days of rough
traffic were usually men of interesting personality, who had to hold more
than the mere 'ribbons.' They had to meet all classes of
people on the box, from the district court judges, Crown prosecutors,
defending barristers, members of Parliament and other Government
officials, down to the rooks of the race meetings. They were expected to inform all
and sundry who might make inquiry, as to who was who, and what was what,
along the dusty old roads, and, as their sources of information
came from authorities with whom they daily came in contact it had
to be given and taken for what it was worth. However, the coachmen of the old
days, among whom were 'Brummy,' Ted Armfield,
Johnny Patrick, 'Long Jim,' John Curran, Jim Pettingall,
Billy Yabsley, Joe Pittman, and men like Jim
Lowe and Billy Maloney on the Bathurst-Sofala-Hill End stages in
the west, were all good and capable drivers, and each entertaining in
his racy descriptions of past incidents along the track of coaching experience.
Cobb
And Co. Cobb and Co. came along in 1862, when
their famous old red-and-yellow thorough brace coaches began to cut the
opposition lines out. It was then that price-cutting
extraordinary was resorted to, affording the travelling public
cheap transit for a time, Cobb and Co. eventually proving too strong financially
for the opposition. At one time Pooley
and Malone ran passengers from Goulburn to Cooma and back, a distance
of 280 miles, for 10/-. Billy Maloney cut the Bathurst-Sofala fare to
half-a-crown, with a free dinner enroute. Later he cut out the fare and the
dinner, taking the passengers for nothing. Cobb and Co. then cutely informed
patrons that they were only carrying mails, advising them to apply to
Maloney. That move, terminated price-cutting. Billy
Maloney Billy Maloney was a most original type
of man. He possessed a ready Irish wit,
too, and could entertain his passengers with his racy stories of the bush.
He composed a song when Cobb and
Co. crossed his track, and this he loved to sing on the box while his neddies
rattled over the track. The song ran thus:- Look Here, Cobb And Co. 'Now, look
here, Cobb and Co., A lesson take
from me; If you meet me
on the track, Don't you make
too free. For, if you
do, you'll surely rue, You think you
do me fine, But I'm the
tip-and-slasher Of the
Tambaroora line. I can hold and
steer them, And drive them
to and fro, With ribbons
well in hand, me bhoys, I'm bound to
make them go. Wid me foot well
on the brake, lads, I'm sure to
make them shine, For I'm the
tip-and-slasher Of the
Tambaroora line. |