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Planes, Trains & Automobiles

The state of the lounge at the Whyalla airport was an issue back in the 1980s.
This cartoon goes back over twenty years, but even today the issue of small commuter planes needing full cabin crew is still an issue.
Back then the St. John Ambulance Service had its aircraft based in Whyalla, with the issue being the likely transfer of operations to Adelaide.
Then Whyalla went through a patch where it seemed we had a surplus of choices when it came to regional operators.
Then the Whyalla City Council took over control of the local airport, in the midst of the paving boom.
Of course, travel from Whyalla to Adelaide has always been an issue. The question is time versus cost. An aircraft might take less than an hour, but it will cost more than a five hour bus trip.
Another transport issue was the then proposed Adelaide to Darwin rain link, which was a big election issue at the time for the Federal seat of Grey.
Back in the 1980s a passenger rail link between Whyalla and Adelaide was put into place, which for a time threatened the future viability of the bus service.
The passenger train was eventually scrapped because it was losing so much money, although part of this was due to the timetable and the fact that the railway station was quite a distance from town.
It’s quite cute now to see an old cartoon with people complaining about petrol at seventy cents a litre. It’s more than double that today and rising fast.
Luckily, Whyalla has always had quite a good taxi service, although they get a little overwhelmed on New Year’s Eve, as I’m sure all taxi operators are.
And, yes, Whyalla does have a lot of motorcycles.
The local bus service was run until recently by the City Council, before it was sold to private enterprise. One issue in the early 2000s was trying to compare the public transport available in metropolitan Adelaide with what was available in country areas.
For a time the timetables were forever being altered, although some nice new bus shelters were built.
This cartoon linked lower fares for pensioners with the city council’s desire to relocate to the west of the city.

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This is the home page of Whyalla artist Stephen Stanley. If you’ve lived in Whyalla in the past or are a current resident, the editorial cartoons on this website will be of great interest to you, as they record almost all of the significant (or just amusing) events that have happened in Whyalla since the early 1970s.

This site is a humorous snapshot of the history of Whyalla, seen through the eyes of the local editorial cartoonist. Browse and enjoy!