 | This article relies largely or entirely on a single source .(March 2024) |
| Miscellaneous vehicles | |
|---|---|
| Operators | Victorian Railways |
| Lines served | All |
| Specifications | |
| Track gauge | 1600 mm (5 ft 3 in) |
This article contains information on Victorian Railways rolling stock that do not fit into other categories. These were for the most part "one-offs"; many were not classified.
After a collision at Sunshine in 1908, in which more than 440 people were killed or injured, the Victorian Railways decided to construct two hospital cars, to look after patients injured in a possible repeat of the incident.
The two cars were converted from second class passenger cars, B328 and B343, which had previously been A138 and A153. Both cars dated from 1883. They entered service in 1909, fitted with water, stretchers, rest beds and medical supplies.
The first car was scrapped in 1940, the second in 1939.
This was a small car numbered '1' and named the inspection car. It was built in England in 1923, but was not listed in the 1936 stocktake.
The eight-horsepower gang motor, conveying five people, was built at Arden Street in late 1923. In 1950 the vehicle was removed from the rolling stock register and given to the Way and Works Department as a track motor.
The Motor car entered service in mid 1925 after being fitted with rail wheels in lieu of tyres. In 1927 the car was named "Mr Molomby's inspection car", and allocated to Seymour. It was scrapped in 1952.
In 1936 and 1937, six Dodge cars, built under licence by T.J. Richards & Sons in Adelaide, were fitted with rail wheels. Although officially described as "passenger and mail motors", they were put in the rail motor group and classified RM, with the numbers 70 to 75. They were used on branch lines with little traffic, and at least one became an inspection car for railway officials. They were removed from service and scrapped between 1953 and 1958.
One car (RM 74) has been preserved and as of 2020 [update] was being restored by the Daylesford Spa Country Railway. [1]
In about 1991, it was realised that running long freight trains was no longer economical, given the shift to road transport that had been taking place for nearly 40 years. As a proposed solution, it was decided to purchase a road-transferable locomotive, essentially a truck fitted with retractable rail wheels. The truck was intended to haul short trains from three to perhaps fifteen wagons instead of deploying a large locomotive with far more power than necessary. The idea was that a number of wagons of the given type would be left in a rail siding and the line would be shut off. When there was enough grain or other commodity, the Melbourne-based truck was to drive by road to where the wagons were stored, and haul them to the nearest level crossing for loading. Once this was done, the truck would haul its short train back to Melbourne, unload, return the wagons to their storage location, then return to Melbourne by road.
The scheme was intended to cut down on crews, because the road-transferable locomotive did not require crews to be stationed at remote locations; one or two crews would therefore be able to do the work of several more crews.
An order was placed for three vehicles, and RTL1 began tests in 1995 north of Bendigo. It was found that the truck was only able to haul a maximum of seven loaded bogie grain hopper wagons. Tyre failure became a constant problem, and so RTL2 and RTL3 were not built.
RTL1 has been converted back to a standard road vehicle.
In the early 1900s, the railways were beginning to invest in large infrastructure projects, which had been delayed considerably due to the 1890s depression. As a result, in 1907 and 1912 respectively, two steam shovels were built. There is no more information about the second shovel, but the first does have a detailed history.
Steam Shovel No.1 was used early in its life at the ballast pit at Mt. Ruse. During 1909 the shovel was constantly dismantled and moved to other locations, one example being Armadale, when the cutting was being constructed from South Yarra to Toorak during the quadruplication of the Caulfield line, to increase services to Frankston and Dandenong. Presumably the shovel was also used to dig out Camberwell station and parts of the Glen Waverley line. It is thought that this work was shared with shovels Ruston and Harmon owned by the construction branch.
During the shovel's use it was operated by a steam locomotive driver who was unfit for driving duties.
This car had originally been built in 1858 as passenger car 69A. In 1880 it was fitted with a Woods hydraulic brake and 9 years later with a standard Westinghouse air brake. In 1890 the car was marked for departmental use [note 1] In 1896 the car was converted to the dynagraph car.
The dynagraph car was an early form of dynamometer car for testing tractive effort of locomotives. It was superseded by the larger dynamometer car of 1932 and scrapped in 1953.
By the late 1920s both the Victorian and South Australian railways had built much larger, more modern locomotives than those intended to be tested by the 1896 dynagraph car. As a result, that car was replaced with a more modern dynamometer car, which provided much the same facilities but with equipment upgrades to withstand the much higher force generated by some of the South Australian Railways' new steam locomotives. The car entered service in 1932.
Almost immediately, the Victorian system used the car to test the differences in rolling resistances between trains of four-wheeled wagons and the new bogie vehicles acquired in the late 1920s. Some of this rolling stock – for example, the E open wagons – had cousins in the SAR system of a similar if not identical design.
Tests were also run on the S class passenger locomotives. Included in the tests were tractive effort trials with loaded freight trains.
Other miscellaneous tests included suburban trials between Tait trains and the new Harris trains to service in the mid 1950s.
From 1932 to the 1970s, more than 900 tests were logged.
Some of the last runs in Victoria were used to test radio reception for the installation of "train-to-base" radio and Alternative Safe Working, a radio-based safe-working system.
Within the Victorian Railways there were some wagons which stayed within workshop compounds, and so were never taken out onto the mainline. Usually these wagons were conversions from "scrapped" wagons, and for the most part were un-numbered. There was one wagon which was unlike any others, recorded as the "Workshops Oil Transfer" wagon. It seems to have been in regular 'mainline' use between Ballarat and Newport. By 1975 it was stored at the latter, and it may still be there today.
In 1933, wagon WT7 was converted to a "coal fuel tank". Some time in the next six years the classification was altered to "fuel oil truck;', still retaining the number 7. In 1939 it was converted for a third time, for "Pintsch gas refuse" – the residue from conversions of shale oil to Pintsch oil, which was used for lamps. The wagon had a capacity of 2000 gallons (9000 litres). It was not recorded after 1939s.
The British Rail Class 488 are unpowered trailer sets, converted from Mark 2F coaches for the Gatwick Express service from London Victoria to Gatwick Airport.
The Harris trains were the first steel-bodied electric multiple unit (EMU) trains to operate on the suburban railway network of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. They were introduced in 1956, by the Victorian Railways, and last operated in 1988, although a number of the carriages were converted for other uses and are still operating. They were named after Norman Charles Harris, Chairman of Commissioners of the Victorian Railways, between 1940 and 1950.
Electric locomotives were first used on the London Underground when the first deep-level tube line, the City and South London Railway (C&SLR), was opened in 1890. The first underground railways in London, the Metropolitan Railway (MR) and the District Railway (DR), used specially built steam locomotives to haul their trains through shallow tunnels which had many ventilation openings to allow steam and smoke to clear from the tunnels. It was impractical to use steam locomotives in the small unvented tubular tunnels of the deep-level lines, and the only options were rope haulage or electric locomotives.
The Victorian Railways X class was a mainline goods locomotive of the 2-8-2 'Mikado' type operated by the Victorian Railways (VR) between 1929 and 1960. They were the most powerful goods locomotive on the VR, aside from the single H class, H220, which was confined to the North East line, until the advent of diesel-electric traction, and operated over the key Bendigo, Wodonga, and Gippsland mainlines.
The Victorian Railways H class was an express passenger steam locomotive operated by the Victorian Railways from 1941 to 1958. Intended to eliminate the use of double heading A2 class locomotives on The Overland services on the steeply graded Western line to Adelaide, wartime restrictions led to only one locomotive being built. Nicknamed Heavy Harry, H220 was the largest locomotive ever built in Australia and the largest non-articulated steam locomotive to run on Australian railways.
The railways of New South Wales, Australia, use a large variety of passenger and freight rolling stock. The first railway in Sydney was opened in 1855 between Sydney and Granville, now a suburb of Sydney but then a major agricultural centre. The railway formed the basis of the New South Wales Government Railways. Passenger and freight services were operated from the beginning. By 1880, there was a half hourly service to Homebush.
The Tait trains were a wooden bodied electric multiple unit (EMU) train that operated on the suburban railway network of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. They were introduced in 1910 by the Victorian Railways as steam locomotive hauled cars, and converted to electric traction from 1919 when the Melbourne electrification project was underway. The trains derived their name from Sir Thomas James Tait, the chairman of commissioners of the Victorian Railways from 1903 to 1910. The first cars were built during 1909 with the last entering service in 1952.
The W type carriages were wooden passenger carriages used on the railways of Victoria, Australia. There were two variants, short- and long-body vehicles, and this article deals with the former. Details on the latter can be found here.
The MT type carriages were railmotor trailers, used on the Victorian Railways (VR) in Australia.
The Victorian Railways (VR) of Australia and successors have utilised a number of different types of railway carriages and wagons for the supply of head end power to passenger trains on the Victorian railway network.
The Victorian Railways and successors used a variety of railway wagons for the transport motor cars.
The Victorian Railways used a variety of railway wagons for the transport of livestock.
As the Victorian Railways' fleet of Z vans began to age, the railways decided to invest in bogie designs for vans. Some van designs were included in a class of new passenger vehicles. Many other vans, for both freight and passenger work, were built separately from any other rolling stock developments, and these are the ones that feature here in detail.
Departmental locomotives on the London Underground consist of vehicles of a number of types which are used for engineering purposes. These include battery locomotives, diesel locomotives, electric locomotives, sleet locomotives, pilot motor cars and ballast motor cars. Details of the first four types are covered elsewhere. Pilot motor cars and ballast motor cars are generally vehicles which have been withdrawn from passenger service, but continue to be used by the engineering department. Pilot motor cars are used to move other vehicles around the system, while ballast motor cars are used to haul ballast trains and engineering trains.
The first passenger carriages of the Victorian Railways (VR) were fixed-wheel, with a mixture of first- and second-class bodies on either four- or six-wheeled underframes. They were built to the British side-loading, swing-door, cross bench compartment (non-corridor) style; later a saloon style was used to a limited extent, featuring fewer doors per side and perimeter seating - which increased total capacity by allowing more standing passengers.
=
The Victorian Railways used a variety of air-cooled and iced wagons or refrigerated vans for the transport of all manner of goods. This page covers the history and development of the various classes, and how they changed through their lives.
The Victorian Railways used a variety of air-cooled and iced wagons for the transport of all manner of goods. This page covers the history and development of the various classes, and how they changed through their lives.
The Victorian Railways used a variety of former traffic wagons around depots and for specific construction, maintenance and similar tasks. Very few of these vehicles were specially constructed from scratch, often instead recycling components or whole wagon bodies and frames from old vehicles that had been withdrawn from normal service as life-expired or superseded by a better design.
