December 1970 Melbourne Train Ride. What suburbs and beach do you recognise? Footage sourced from the Melbourne made movie ‘A City’s Child’ released in 1971. Movie footage courtesy of producer Brian Kavanagh, edit by Gezza1967.
I was eleven years old when this was made. The bridge over the water near the beach looks like down on the Frankston line, Carrum perhaps? Jollimont yard as well as Clifton Hill as you pointed out. It may be that the colour is a little washed out but at the end where she is walking home most of the cars look like they have N.S.W plates which was a bit odd. Great video. Don't think I could watch the whole movie. It was described on IMdB as a typical Australian art house movie of the early 70's.
First part is the Hurstbridge line through Collingwood going out then coming in. Most of those buildings still there ( but covered in horrible " tags " 🤬 and graffiti.
@mendocinobeano Definitely Carrum,Patterson River into the sea some other footage looks like Nepean Hwy could be anywhere between Carrum through to Edithvale possibly.
@@secysb2910 Could also be the Epping/Mernda line, too. Since both lines are shared up until Clifton Hill, where they veer off in their separate directions. Do agree with the buildings, though, and how much better they look without all the horrible graffiti.
Big day for Monica. Gets on the Hurstbridge train and ends up at Carrum Beach. Along the way she gets chatted up, frowned upon by an old biddy, then after her big adventure gets a pie and gets followed by some creep in a car. Fortunately she is an extremely brisk walker so easily escapes the creep. Action packed!
1:08 south bank of Patterson River, Carrum 1:12 north bank of Patterson River, Carrum 1:22 St Kilda Pier 3:43 Mordialloc, with the Bridge Hotel in the background
Good to see my old neighborhood from the train between Clifton Hill and Victoria Park stations. It was interesting seeing the North Fitzroy gasometer on the horizon.
At this time i was riding the mainly tait and lesser extent the swingdoor and harris on the epping line it was such a magical time those that weren't there will never know i acheived my boyhood dreams and got to be an electric train driver i am now happily retired thanks for uploading
I remember taking the red rattlers from noble park to the city.Leaving the doors open on summer days was a highlight along with the smell of burning metal.
Amazing footage Gezza! I was 4 in 1970. Devondale Ice cream truck. The beach way seems like Brighton but hard to say. Did anyone notice the pack of Kookaburra spaghetti in the old lady's shopping bag. A forgotten brand my parents bought all the time for our Aussie Spaghetti bolonese. They were sitting in a blue Haris train too. That really took me back. 😊👍🏻
We lived in North Melbourne high rise 9th floor Sutton Street we left in 1973 ,y mum was brought up in Garden City Port Melbourne she dreamed of going back and still in Gardo ❤❤❤ us kids loved the Flats kids everywhere ❤❤❤❤ Garden City our house cost $16,000 now its value 1.8 million only 12 houses have huge backyard entrance
The Vic Park and Abbotsford stuff. I used to catch the train from Eaglemont to Princess Bridge each day to school. Yes, in 1970. Tait swinging doors mainly. Some sliding doors, and some blue Harris.
If I'm not mistaken, the scenes on the Clifton Hill train pre-dates the Eastern Freeway. I think the flats at 0:33 are the flats you see to the left of the Eastern Freeway, looking eastward. If that same film scene/shot was started some 10 seconds earlier, you would see our old home (which was subsequently compulsorily acquired to build the freeway)
yep..freeway was started in 1971 with the first stretch not opened till 1977. Our next door neighbor worked on it with the Country Roads Board and we got a chance to visit the site one weekend and see the construction as kids.
1:33 An old State Bank of Vic branch, before it was bought out by the Comm Bank. 1:46 The woman talking to herself about how things looked at that time. (Who also happened to have played Pat O'Connell in Prisoner). It's a classic example of how many people will look back and think about how much worse things are "nowadays", to what it was like when they were younger. It just proves that no matter what time period one lives in, it's ALWAYS the same thoughts. So people bagging out Melbourne in 2024, compared to what it's like back then, are no bloody different to how people saw things in Melbourne back in those days, compared to 50 years before then. And all those cars in the car park at the end of this video. I guess white paint was a popular colour for cars back in those days. 😜
Haha. My parents immigrated to Melbourne from The Netherlands in 1981. I was 8 years old. They settled on Werribee. A friend had told them how wonderful it was living in Werribee compared to boring old Holland. Friendly kangaroos hopping down your street! Well, that "friend" didn't stay friend for much longer after that! (Mum had us moved to the Gold Coast as soon as practical. The End lol.) Even as an 8 year old I was shocked by how different it was. Not that Melbourne was "backward" in any way, it was just as modern as Holland. But the differences: the bleak, windswept, dull landscape of endless brick houses in Werribee compared to the lush, green, densely built landscape in Holland. The lack of public transport, nobody riding bikes, the total dependence on cars, very old cars mostly; the roughness of the kids at my new school: kids who just seemed to be angry all the time about something or other, just wanting to fight, the bullies & the bullied, salted peanut butter, salted butter, tomato sauce on chips, "vegemite", AFL & cricket; all these things were so very strange to me. Makes it very difficult for me to look back and go "ah the good old days" cos unless you can see from the outside in, you'll get a skewed perspective (I moved back to Melbourne and stayed there for 30 years). And nostalgia does nothing much to correct that.
2:20 onwards is riding north looking East over Abbotsford. The painted Foster's sign at 2:27 is on what is now the Carringbush Hotel. 2:47 Gipps St is almost unrecognisable as seemingly a wider street (?) and younger trees but the shop which is now a sandwich deli still has the same awning, and the house closer to shot is now a wreck but still (just) standing. The angled light blue block of flats at 2:55 are on Stafford St - it then switches sides and looking out the west side of the train at a more northern point, travelling south past the concrete works which is still sandwiched between the train line and Hoddle St (wonder if the film crew got off at Clifton Hill to come back south?) Cheers
Great footage. I'd imagine those highrise flats in Collingwood are still there. I had to laugh at the sight of that old Bedford truck with what appeared to be a one of those rear loading carry body types used for general goods deliveries. Couldn't make out the signage on the side although I'm assuming it's a general goods truck of some sort. Boy it was slow, you could clearly hear the engine labouring under load and besides those old Bedfords wouldn't have been all that powerful anyway. Tall gearing doesn't help.
The public housing towers are still there, but the government wants to tear them down, unfortunately. Many of us are opposed to the planned demolition of the 44 towers around Melbourne. We have started rallying to save them.
@@Seahorse20 Ah righto. Yeah I thought they'd be still there. Why knock them down if there's nothing wrong with them? Chairman dan is no longer premier so yeah. I don't know whether those flats contain asbestos or not but I think the better way to go is to keep them fresh and well maintained like they always have.
@@BlairSauerIn Paris they totally refurbished, and retrofitted their towers with minimal disruption to the tenants. As each apartment was being done the tenants were moved into a neighboring apartment until theirs was completed. The same could easily be done here. Individuals balconies could be installed. These balconies could be accessed via the living room. The red brick towers In Nicholson Street have individual balconies, and so does the tower in Dorcas Street.
It’s interesting seeing Richmond when only one of the five public housing towers were built. It’s interesting seeing the Abbotsford walk up public housing apartments, and Carlton and United Brewery in the background, before the grey cooling tower was erected. Abbotsford was bereft of any trees back then, but now the streets are tree lined. I ended up watching the movie, and I believe the main character lived in Ivanhoe in the movie. The movie had Sean Scully in it, and I actually worked with him in a call center. It was funny seeing him when he was young. It’s a shame that the movie didn’t have any scenes in the Northwest, and West. Would have loved to have seen my side of town back then. They would have looked even more proletarian than North Richmond, Abbotsford, Collingwood, and Clifton Hill. I have watched old shows, and movies filmed around Melbourne, and rarely do I see my areas. Street Hero comes closest. A lot of that was filmed at the Holland Park estate, and along Racecourse Road. These areas were genuinely working class back then. Collingwood was still pretty working class when I lived there in the 90’s, but now it’s pretty affluent.
0:36 Stafford St Abbotsford. The 3 storey flats and the house with the gabled roof further down on the corner are still there. The dark building in the distance is the Retreat hotel on the corner of Stafford & Nicholson Sts. 0:38 in the distance, is that the Gasometer that was located near the corner of Alexandra Pde & Smith St?
bring back 1970 travelliong on the taits swing doors and harris trains was fun i miss all that todays trains mainly the xtraps are souless only functinal
I was 10, didn't realize how people spoke more with a British accent ! Even if it changed a lot leading up to 1975 !! Long way from the G'day of Hogan N° 96 Or The Box
@ 1:09. Carrum Rocks park where Dandenong Creek comes out. The statue is a War memorial - it’s a soldier standing. Still there although more shrubs and that rotunda is gone.
In 1967 i was 15, and caught the train every day from Preston to Princes Bridge station, i was doing an apprenticeship in the jewellery trade in Bourke Street. I remember a young station assistant being run over by a train at Victoria Park station, i was on my way home and was on the train behind the one that hit him, very sad.
Carlton had just beaten Collingwood,South Sydney had beaten Manly,Alan Moffat had just won his first Bathurst,and the West Gate bridge had just collapsed.Seem's like yesterday.Old Australia any day.
@@gregorygherkins1884 what a Load of Bullshit, some of the tracksides in Melbourne are world class, You don't even know, keep living in the past Old man, Graffiti WILL Never die, Don't hate what you don't understand.
The shopping scenes are filmed in Eltham, and the street she walking up at the end is either Pryor St or Arthur St....l remember watching film about 30 years ago on TV late on night and couldn't believe it when l saw Eltham....l was actually still living in that area.....l rate the film 1 out 10, it was rubbish.
@@graerindley6312 Not necessarily. After all, there were a lot more factories in the inner city areas back then, too. Many of them have long gone, though, and have been turned into large double storey houses, apartment blocks, office blocks, etc.
Yeah. Only one of the five of the Richmond towers had been erected. I don’t think the Fitzroy ones, or the Wellington Street tower in Collingwood had been built yet. You can see the Carlton towers on the horizon.
@@bobdobric6787mate. I went in a block first time ever a few years ago. I kid you not - I really got the biggest culture shock and thought to myself ‘I must live a closeted life’ as I had never seen anything here like it before. I literally thought I was in some housing project in an US city. The bars, the steel doors and steel security doors.
@@xr6lad same i went to the one on Elizabeth st Nth Richmond about 6 months ago with my Dad i took him back to his old hang out where he spent his early 20s back in the early 1970s took some photos and walked around whilst he told me stories about the fights they used to have with the Bodgies and sharpies and he almost got emotional when he saw all the herion addicts walking around he couldn't believe it how its changed
@@bobdobric6787 Bodgies were in the 50's. Anyways, as if having Sharpies and so on getting into punch ups around the neighbourhood is apparently so much better than having addicts walking around.
