R type carriage
| R type carriage | |
|---|---|
| Specifications | |
| Track gauge | 5 ft 3 in (1,600 mm) |
The R type carriages were a series of locomotive-hauled carriages proposed to be built for the Victorian country rail network in the mid 1980s.
Early plans indicated a build of at least six four-carriage sets for long distance services.[1]
Design
These six sets of carriages would have owed their basic design principles to the then-under-construction XPT body type. Socimi bogies were to be fitted allowing the R sets to operate at 160 km/h. In 1986 three sets of Socimi bogies were imported from Italy and fitted under set LH33, with locomotive A85 regeared to operate at 160 km/h and trials were conducted beyond Stawell on the Western Line towards Adelaide.
It is thought that the carriages would have had a similar general body profile to the H cars then under refurbishment, and that is the reason set LH33 was selected for the Socimi trials.[2] From this it is safe to assume that the cars would have been around 75 ft over body, like the longer H carriages.
The R sets would have been fitted with 2+2 seating, rather than only in the first class portion of the N sets.[3]
Promotional material from the era indicated that the cars would have had a lower floor level than was normal for passenger stock at the time.[4]
A partial mock-up of the proposed interior of the R type carriages was built at Newport, but this was demolished in the mid 1990s cleanup of the workshops area.[2]
Intent to build
By the time the New Deal of 1981 was announced, the intent was to purchase N Set carriages had been inflated to 18x 3-carriage sets each in the ACN-BN-BN configuration for the Geelong, Ballarat and other commuter runs. The same project involved the purchase of 10 N Class engines, conversion or upgrading of 39 pre-existing locomotives of the B and T classes, 14 railcars of the DERM and DRC types, 79 passenger cars of the Harris, E, S and Z types, and around seventy freight wagons for parcels traffic.
As the project evolved through 1982, the requirements changed; more new locomotives were ordered and the railcars were mostly left alone, on account of patronage spikes rendering their capacity insufficient. In lieu, the decision was made to convert a further 18 Harris type carriages for commuter traffic, and the N sets were changed from that to longer distance services with an onboard buffet, by retrofitting onboard buffet units to the then-under-construction BN cars, and shuffling the sets around.
In response, VicRail planned to purchase a separate fleet of ACR-BRR-BR-BR carriages for the regional network, to supplement and eventually replace the eldest of the S type carriages (dating back to 1937-1940) then being organised into ACZ-BRS-BS-BZ sets. At the time, nearly half of Victoria's steel airconditioned carriages were in use on the standard gauge route from Melbourne to Sydney, providing sitting capacity on trains like the Spirit of Progress and later the Melbourne/Sydney expresses; as a result, only 15 Z-type and 16 S-type sitting carriages were available for service on the rest of the Victorian network (along with 12 non-sitting or partial-sitting carriages), supplemented by the surviving airconditioned wooden carriages.
Plans held back
By 1987, with the New Deal in full swing, the S and Z fleet had settled into 40 carriages on broad gauge regional services (using a fleet of 10 ACZ, 10 BRS, 7 BZ and 13 BS carriages) in addition to the 24 carriages reserved for other uses. This, in conjunction with the additional H type carriages then under conversion and the reorganisation of the N sets to include the buffet modules, rendered the R type carriage plan unnecessary.
Brief revival
Around 1988, Melbourne submitted a bid for the 1996 Olympics, and V/Line planned to add to their existing country rail fleet to allow for the increased patronage. This was around the same time that locomotive A66 was repainted from its 1988 Bi-centennial livery to its 1996 Olympics variant of the then-standard V/Line orange with grey. As the Olympic bid was not successful the R car project fell back off the radar.
Plans cancelled
The design of the R cars was undertaken by Commonwealth Engineering. The State Transport Authority, later known as the Public Transport Cooperation, ended up purchasing the complete set of construction drawings, and attempts were made over about a ten-year period to obtain funding for construction, but with the loss of the Olympics bid, the economic downturn in the early 1990s and the later delivery of the Sprinter fleet, the drawings ended up unused.[2]
The Socimi bogies were removed from set LH33 and they were last sighted at Newport Workshops.
Epilogue
In the first half of the 1990s the Victorian Government paid for an extension to New South Wales's XPT order; and when the Melbourne/Sydney express was replaced with the Sydney-Albury XPT service extended to Melbourne, V/Line was able to recall its S and Z type carriages from the standard gauge services. Additionally, a downturn in patronage on the Overland service allowed conversion of two of its sleeping cars, 15 and 16, to BS218 and BS219 respectively. This freed a total of fifteen sitting carriages for intrastate services (three quickly converted to ACZ composite sitting and conductor), most likely forming 3x 5-car sets with no onboard food facilities. It is possible that a concept was drawn up to include the then-freed buffet cars, VRS231/232/233, in the normal BRS slot. If the six R type sets had been available, the total fleet could have been 38 each conductor and buffet cars, and 63 pure sitting cars.
References
- Comeng History volume 4
- Railway House Journal 1983
- Newsrail September 1986
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