Redline Australia Case Study

It seemed clear that the Flxibles would continue in the meantime on interstate tour work, including The Snowy Mountains, Central Australia and Tasmania. Our response was that we would continue doing the very best we could with the resources available to us. After all, we had successfully competed and expanded our tour operations against superior capital equipment for many years and we as a family could see no reason for this to change.
The beginning of the 1960’s would bring Redline into the realm of overnight operations, through marketing winter weekend Thredbo Snowy Mountains skiing packages from Brisbane, and also each weekend from Brisbane to the hit stage musical “My Fair Lady” at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Sydney, which opened in May 1960.

By 1960 Redline was muscling up and was aggressively extending its tour route network as new coach deliveries allowed. This now comprised the original two-day tours between Brisbane and Sydney, and connecting two-day tours between Sydney and Melbourne.
Frequencies out of each of the three capital cities were to increase to Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. A twice weekly two-day tour between Melbourne and Adelaide would be added by 1962, with overnights at Dimboola on the westbound leg, and Mt Gambier eastbound.
The southbound tour from Sydney was via the Hume Highway through Goulburn and Yass, then via the Sturt Highway to overnight at Wagga Wagga. The original accommodation there was the Pastoral Hotel (no longer in existence, having long ago burned down) The second day traversed the Olympic Highway to Albury, then on to Melbourne via the Hume Highway. The itinerary was later amended to follow the Hume Hwy via Gundagai to overnight at Albury, with a Hume Weir inspection the following

The effervescent Nev Maher was the regular tour captain on this service, usually aboard the Watt Bros built underfloor engine Commer No 20, mentioned earlier and pictured next. Redline No 20, the Watt Bros / Commer Avenger with underfloor TS3 engine
The original Redline tour passengers’ Melbourne accommodation was the Esplanade Hotel at St Kilda, soon changed to the Federal Hotel, and the first managing agent in that city was Whight’s Tourist Bureau at 273 Lonsdale Street next to Myers.
Interestingly, this location had a noteworthy post-war passenger transport history. It was Trans Australia Airlines’ first ticket sales office in the city of Melbourne following the incorporation of the government owned airline in 1945, until they relinquished the site only two years later, when it was taken over by Whights Tourist Bureau.
Rex negotiated Redline’s leasehold of that office in 1960 when he learned of Whight’s intention to withdraw from Lonsdale Street. It had until that time been Whight’s second Melbourne sales office in conjunction with their 120 Flinders Street location. It thus became our Melbourne sales office and ‘terminal’ allowing us to maintain our own books there for the first