Special Bus

On the derelict lot of the former Davies Coop / Bradmill factory in Yarraville, a bus sits in long grass, its destination sign still reading "Special". The vehicle is blue and yellow, weathered but largely intact. Plastic drums, a tall gas cylinder, and scattered debris surround it. Behind, a corrugated metal and brick industrial building stands in the background, the kind of serviceable mid-century construction that went up quickly and lasted a long time. The factory the bus ended up in was built in stages from the early 1950s. Davies Coop & Co. Ltd, a vertically integrated cotton company that spun in Adelaide and wove in Sydney, established its dyeing and finishing arm here at West Footscray through a wholly owned subsidiary, Davies Coop (B.D.A.) Pty. Ltd., using exclusive Australian rights to the Bradford Dyers' Association "Rigmel" shrink-control process. The dye house was begun in 1952 and was expected to be finished by late 1954. The company had purchased 40 acres at West Footscray for the purpose. The site later came to operate under the Bradmill name, becoming associated with denim and workwear fabric manufacture. When tariff protection wound back and cheaper imports arrived, operations ceased around 2001. The site was vacated around 2007. The bus pre-dates all of that, at least in the sense that it outlasted everything else. Whatever it was used for during the operating years, it ended up here, parked beside the drums and the cylinder, the sign set to a destination that goes nowhere now. This photograph was made in 2011, during the years when the factory sat empty between closure and redevelopment. The lot has since been transformed as part of the "Bradmill Yarraville" mixed-use residential precinct developed by Frasers Property Australia and Irongate. The bus is gone. The sign is gone. The photograph remains.