Victorian Railways - Fleet

Fleet

The Victorian Railways operated a wide variety of locomotives and rolling stock to provided passenger and goods services. This included equipment acquired from the private companies that built the first railways in Victoria. The majority was the fleet was broad gauge, with a specialised fleet used on the narrow gauge lines. In later years gauge conversion was used to place stock from the main VR fleet onto standard gauge.

The first locomotives used in the state were small steam locomotives, the majority being imported from Britain, with later years seeing larger units being built locally. Electric locomotives were acquired with the electrification of the suburban railways, with more powerful units acquired when the mainline to Traralgon was electrified. Dieselisation occurred from 1951, but the B class of 1952 revolutionised main line operations. Apart from the F class shunters, Clyde Engineering had a monopoly on Victorian diesel-electric locomotives, as the Australian licensee of General Motors EMD engines and traction motors, fitting them into locally designed bodies.

Early passenger services were operated with 4 and 6 wheeled 'dogbox' passenger carriages, but larger bogie rollingstock started to appear from the turn of the century. On the Melbourne suburban network electric multiple units were introduced speeding up services. Experiments were also made with various diesel and petrol railcars for use on smaller branch lines. By the late 1970s, country passenger services were run down, and older wooden rolling stock was now approaching their use by date. As a result, the New Deal saw modern steel carriages introduced from 1981.

Early wagons were built on four wheeled under frames, but from 1871 bogie vehicles begun to appear. The last four wheeled open wagons were built in 1958, but were not scrapped in large numbers until the 1980s when new bogie wagons replaced them, by 1987 the bogie wagon fleet numbered 5000.

When the Victorian Railways (now known as VicRail) was divided into two in 1983, the Metropolitan Transit Authority received the suburban electric multiple unit fleet, while the State Transport Authority took responsibility for remainder for the provision of country passenger and freight services.