Just wondering if anyone has any reliable information on when the name Melbourne Terminus was changed to Flinders Street and when Batman's Hill was changed to Spencer Street.
It’s hard to find anything definitive. Perhaps you have to look at it in the context of the suburban railway network development. Up until 1878 the two stations were run by different operators. Spencer Street was run by the Victorian Railways. Flinders Street was run by what, through takeover and amalgamation, ultimately became the Melbourne & Hobson’s Bay United Railways. Melbourne as a terminus name, rather than either Spencer or Flinders Streets, seems to have been used by both.
It’s hard to find anything definitive. Perhaps you have to look at it in the context of the suburban railway network development. Up until 1878 the two stations were run by different operators. Spencer Street was run by the Victorian Railways. Flinders Street was run by what, through takeover and amalgamation, ultimately became the Melbourne & Hobson’s Bay United Railways. Melbourne as a terminus name, rather than either Spencer or Flinders Streets, seems to have been used by both.
A M&HBUR 1865 monthly ticket from Museum Victoria’s website:
https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/articles/2215
An 1874 diagram of Spencer Street, labelled ‘Victorian Railways General Plan of the Melbourne Terminus’ from victorianrailways.net website:
https://www.victorianrailways.net/signaling/completedia/SpSt-EssJcn_Dec1874.pdf
Between Box E & D, there’s a signal marked ‘Batman’s Hill Station Main Semaphore’.
The last page (page 18) of this 1879 timetable, from victorianrailways.net website, has Melbourne (Spencer-street) as part of the heading, yet Batman’s Hill has listings in Signal Whistles, on page 3:
http://www.victorianrailways.net/timetables/VR%20WTT%201Nov1879.pdf
In the List of Stations, only Melbourne (p4) and Prince’s Bridge (p5) are mentioned. Prince’s Bridge would have been recently been reopened, having been closed in 1865 when a connection to Flinders Street was dug under Swanston Street. It was originally the terminus of the Beach (later Brighton Beach) and Hawthorn lines, which were acquired by the M&HBUR in 1865.
In 1878 the VR took over the M&HBUR so maybe that’s when the need to distinguish between the two stations became a necessity. Melbourne would suffice for ticketing but Spencer or Flinders Street would be required for timetabling.
This page from vrhistory.com has 10-year snapshots of the rail network from 1860, with Melbourne area insets:
http://www.vrhistory.com/VRMaps/index.htm
Note: The 1860 map is not listed in the Contents. You can click on it from the Historical Overview section.
It’s hard to find anything definitive. Perhaps you have to look at it in the context of the suburban railway network development. Up until 1878 the two stations were run by different operators. Spencer Street was run by the Victorian Railways. Flinders Street was run by what, through takeover and amalgamation, ultimately became the Melbourne & Hobson’s Bay United Railways. Melbourne as a terminus name, rather than either Spencer or Flinders Streets, seems to have been used by both.
Indeed.
To add another layer of complexity, there is nothing that says either railway organisation had to be internally consistent at any point in time. What they called the signals may have nothing to do with what is on the platform nameboard which may bear only a passing resemblence to what is in the timetable. If you have a choice, what is the 'name' of a station?
To add icing to the cake, it's quite likely that the names 'Flinders-street' and 'Spencer-street' to distinguish the two stations by the public (and later the staff) long predate any official use of the names. The organisations would have no need to internally distinguish between the two stations until the M&HBUR was bought out, but the public certainly would have needed to.
Indeed, this may be the underlying issue. It's quite likely that the 'unofficial' names gradually became more and more official until they took over.
Even today - what is on (at least some) of the large c1910 nameboards at Flinders Street?
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