Title: The People Movers: A History of Victoria's Private Bus Industry 1910 - 1992
Author: John Maddock
Copyright: Bus Association Victoria Inc
ISBN: 0864174128
Originally published: 1992
Reprinted: 2011
This is a history of the private bus companies of Victoria from the "dinosaur days" of the first motor buses early this century through expansion as effective and economical people movers though to their current and somewhat different status.
Chapters deal with inner-suburban services, the large country towns, country services, tour and charter buses, and subsidised school bus services.
As with Maddock's highly successful histories of outback mail truck services and road trains, The People Movers is heavily illustrated and brimful with anecdotes about the companies, the buses and above all the personalities who make the private bus companies such an effective community service in the days before widespread car ownership and improved free-ways and highways began to cut into their territories.
A final chapter deals with the body-builders and gives fascinating detail relating to charcoal gas This is a history of the private bus companies of Victoria from the "dinosaur days" of the first motor buses early this century through expansion as effective and economical people movers though to their current and somewhat different status.
John Maddock was editor of the national publication, Truck & Bus Transportation for 26 years and during that period he witnessed and reported on the almost innumerable technological and operational changes of the road transport industry in Australia and overseas.
This book, which follows his successful Mail for the Back of Beyond and A History of Road Trains in the Northern Territory, contains interviews with pioneer and contemporary operators in Victoria's private enterprise bus industry who relate some of the difficulties of the early days as well as the transformation that has taken place as they have adjusted and modified their businesses to meet shifts in economic and legislative trends.
If you are interested in the past, present or future of the bus industry, this is a must-read.
