Victorian Railways sleeping cars

Mann cars (1-4O, 29O, 30O)

In 1886, delivery was taken of four sleeping carriages built by the Mann Boudoir Car Company of New York.

The first two, 1O and 2O, were delivered on 22 October 1886, and 3O and 4O entered service on 24 December of the same year. The cars had twenty berths attached to a corridor, with exposed end-platform diaphragms.

Additional cars 29O and 30O entered service on 30 October 1889, identical to their predecessors. It is possible that 29O was constructed at Newport Workshops, having been delivered as a kit of parts.

In 1907 the E type carriage sleepers were entering service and these sleepers were rendered obsolete, so the O fleet was split roughly equally between the two railways. In March 1908 the Mann Boudoir cars were reallocated; 1O and 4O went to the South Australian Railways; the pair were issued numbered 116 and 117 in the SAR fleet, while 2O and 3O became Sleeper No.6 and Mildura in the Victorian Railways' fleet. 29O and 30O were retained in Joint Stock service until further E type sleeping cars had been delivered, but they were allocated names Latrobe and Hindmarsh respectively.

South Australian Railways

Cars 116 and 117 entered SAR-exclusive service in 1908.

116 was fitted with electric lighting, and one end was altered to an observation car profile for departmental inspection tours, in 1909. It was renamed Willochra in 1910 and retained in that service until 1933 when it was officially condemned, though reports exist of it having been part of the 1934 Royal Tour Pilot Train. The car was sold to Rofe and Co in 1935.

117 was named Broughton in 1911, and altered like Willochra as an observation car in 1913 (presumably including fitting of electric lighting). In April 1930 it was converted to State (ViceRegal) Car No.1, and it was retained in that capacity until 1940 when it was withdrawn and sold to W.Brown and Sons Ltd. It ended its days as a house boat at Goolwa. Eventually it fell into disrepair and was broken up about 1974.

Hindmarsh was allocated to the SAR in 1920, and it is known that it was used on that railway's Renmark Express service during 1927-1929. The car was recorded as scrapped in 1933, but it had been used as part of the 1934 Royal Tour (Duke of Gloucester)'s Pilot Train between Tarlee and Adelaide. Carriage no. 118 had long-since been allocated to a different vehicle, so the car kept its name as the only identity.

It is thought that the vehicle was sold and moved to a property somewhere in the Two Wells - Virginia region.

Victorian Railways

By August 1908 Mildura had been rebuilt with fourteen berths removed and replaced with a kitchen and dining area, and renamed Kiewa. Sleeper No.6 followed in 1911 with the same conversions made, and it was named Avon. Externally the cars were still marked as first-class sleepers, with no reference to the kitchens.

Latrobe was given to the VR in 1920, but no records exist of any conversion away from the sleeping car configuration.

Kiewa and Latrobe were withdrawn in 1929, and Avon in 1932.

E type carriages

Sixteen E type sleeping cars were built at Newport Workshops, primarily for the Adelaide - Melbourne service. The first four cars had been built by 1908, and were originally named Melbourne, Ballarat, Wolseley and Adelaide. In 1910, these cars were renamed Loddon, Glenelg, Finniss and Torrens respectively, after rivers between the two capital cities. In 1911 Onkaparinga and Barwon were built, to be followed by Baderloo, Dargo, Pekina and Tambo in 1919. In 1923, four more cars were named Angas, Coliban, Acheron and Inman., and a further two cars, Buchan and Wando, were constructed to a modified internal design with the smoking/saloon area replaced with a tenth sleeping compartment. This tenth compartment was slightly longer than the rest. Later, three further sleeping cars were built with a similar internal layout, and named Werribee, Indi and Ovens.

As far as can be ascertained, only the first fourteen cars were built as shared vehicles; the last two - Buchan and Wando - appear to have been exclusively Victorian Railways rolling stock, built for the Mildura line. This is reflected in the 1939 decision by the Victorian Railways, with no input from the South Australian Railways, to remove the names of those sleeping carriages and replace with numbers 4 and 5, following on from Werribee, Indi and Ovens as Sleepers 1, 2 and 3 respectively. At the same time Buchan / No.4 was fitted with an air conditioning unit, powered by axle-driven generators.

Notably, Buchan, Acheron and Angas were built on the underframes originally used under E type dining cars Campaspe, Goulburn and Wimmera respectively.

With the exception of the last two, the cars were designed with nine, two-berth sleeping compartments, with cupboards and a folding wash basin in each. In day form, each compartment would be able to sit two passengers; at night the seat folded down for the first bed, and the second was lowered from the wall panels above that seat to give a bunk arrangement. A saloon was provided at one end of the car, called the Gentlemans Lounge and reserved for smoking passengers. This area was identified with is longer external window either side, and was supplied with four loose leather chairs; though by the 1950's these were replaced with two chairs of a different style. When traffic required it, the Lounge area could be converted to a further two berths, but due to lack of privacy the section was charged at normal first class rates instead of the higher First Class Sleeper rates applied to each of the compartments. At the non-smoking end two of the compartments were reserved for Ladies, and these were separated from the rest of the car by swing doors fitted in the side corridor identical to the one separating the Lounge from the corridor. Each compartment was accessed by sliding doors with coloured leadlights in lieu of normal glass; and an attendant's room was provided at both ends of each car; one of these had tea making facilities and a lavatory.

Like the rest of the E cars, the Sleepers initially had a strong Edwardian style with features including carved panelling, pressed metal ceilings, frosted glass and lamp pendants all being ornately decorated. A row of bevelled mirrors was provided above the windows on either side of the cars with an engraved starburst pattern, though these were removed in later years due to corrosion. Three mirror panels were provided above each compartment window, and seven over the saloon windows.

The first service run of the cars was a Parliamentary special to Echuca on 17th October 1907, with sleepers Melbourne, Adelaide and Ballarat and parlor car Murray, leaving Melbourne at 5:30pm. From 31st October the cars were regularly scheduled on the Intercolonial Express from Melbourne to Adelaide.

Tambo, Angas, Coliban, Acheron and Inman were built from new with electric lighting; and as noted above Buchan, Wando, Werribee, Indi and Ovens had a tenth compartment instead of a lounge area, for 20 berths.

The Overland

From 1936, the named joint-stock cars were externally painted dark green with "The Overland" in chrome plated letters on the fascia panel above the windows, to introduce the new brand for the Melbourne to Adelaide express. From 1943 the green scheme was traded out for the standard Victorian Railways bright passenger red.

Split fleet

As steel cars were introduced to the Overland from late 1949, the timber cars were split among the two systems. In 1950, the South Australian Railways purchased Victoria's share in Angas, Dargo, Finnis (ex Wolseley), Onkaparinga and Tambo, leaving nine cars in joint stock service. Angas had been purchased in March and Finnis in April; both were painted in the green and yellow scheme at time of sale, and fitted with half-drop windows and steel side-sheets from the late 1950's. By the 1960's both had been repainted into red with silver stripes, in something of a facsimile of the new Overland scheme. It seems likely that Dargo and Onkaparinga experienced the same changes, given that Onkaparinga had the steel sides in place when it was finally withdrawn; however Tambo clearly did not have steel sides fitted below the windows in 1985.

A further four Joint Stock cars, Baderloo, Barwon, Glenelg (ex Ballarat) and Torrens (ex Adelaide), were condemned in 1967. It is likely that Barwon and Glenelg were scrapped http://www.comrails.com/sar_carriages/n_glenelg.html. Baderloo was sold without bogies and moved to Junction Rd, Littlehampton, South Australia, owned by Joylene Liebelt, and Torrens was transferred to the then-new Australian Railway Historical Society museum in Newport, Victoria; it is now a static exhibit.

South Australian cars

The South Australian cars were allocated to the Mount Gambier overnight service, with Finnis and Angas externally rebuilt in 1953 to provide a better quality of travel. Tambo, Onkaparinga and Dargo were not refurbished, though at some point, Onkaparinga was fitted with steel sheeting over the sides in an attempt to preserve the timber. In 1972 the South Australian Railways sold Onkaparinga to the Marbury School in Aldgate, with bogies. In 1988 it was donated to the Port Dock Station Railway Museum. In 1974 Dargo was condemned and sold without bogies to a private property in Lameroo, South Australia, and was reported to be in good condition and stored undercover. Tambo followed in 1975. On 24 September 1976 Angas caught fire while on the Mount Gambier run, due to a worn brake block generating sparks and heat. There were no injuries and passengers were transferred to an adjacent carriage, but most of the car was damaged and the repair cost was estimated at the time to be "in excess of $30,000". As a result, the car was withdrawn from service; at the same time the other cars were withdrawn and placed into storage. Finnis and Angas were passed to the Australian Railway Historical Society's South Australian division, operating as SteamRanger; Tambo was planned to go to the Pichi Richi Railway, but after being stored for several years at Peterborough it was transferred to SteamRanger in 1980, then awaiting restoration at their Dry Creek depot.

Victorian cars

From 1965 the Victorian Railways introduced the Train of Knowledge, essentially a mobile school camp for week-long tours. The train made use of the E type sleeping cars for students and teachers, as they were increasingly being displaced by newer steel cars.

The remaining five Joint Stock sleepers, Acheron, Coliban, Inman, Pekina and Loddon (ex Melbourne) became part of the Victorian Railways fleet on 27th June 1969. They had names removed and replaced with numbers, as Sleeping cars No.6 through 10 following on from No.5 ex Wando.

Between November 1983 and May 1984, these carriages were upgraded. Restoration work included repainting, revarnishing, new upholstery, new carpeting, retention toilets and reinstatement of the pre-1969 names.

Current status

As noted above, Barwon and Glenelg were most likely scrapped in 1967.

Steamranger in South Australia initially had Angas, Coliban, Finnis, Inman and Tambo. Of those, Finnis has always been in operational condition, both before and after the move from Dry Creek to the Victor Harbor line. However, in 1995 Angas was sold for use on the Yorke Peninsula Tourist Railway; when that line closed in 2009, the car was sold to Australian Train Movers, and was transferred to Londonderry in NSW. In 2011 the car was delivered to Little Forest Country Cottages in the Southern Highlands, NSW, and by the end of 2012 it was restored as a bed and breakfast. Tambo was sold to West Coast Railway in the mid-1990s, and delivered to their Ballarat East depot in 1996. When West Coast Railway folded in 2004, the car was sold privately and it has since been restored to operational condition, though half-converted to a Parlor car style, similar to that of Yarra and Murray, and it runs on the Victorian Goldfields Railway. Coliban and Inman were sold in 1997-98 and transferred by road to Steamrail, Victoria, in the West Block of Newport Workshops. There, they joined Werribee and Indi, and most of the cars are now serviceable. Also at Newport, 707 Operations has Buchan, currently under restoration; and the Victorian division of the Australian Railway Historical Society has preserved Torrens in their museum, in the south-eastern corner of the Newport Workshops compound. It has been externally restored, and as of late 2016, the interior is also being fixed up.

Wando, Acheron, Pekina and Loddon are with the Seymour Rail Heritage Centre along with Ovens, stabled under cover at their depot in Seymour, Victoria.

Onkaparinga was restored in 2010 to early 1950s condition at the Port Dock Rail Museum.

In 1986 Baderloo was noted as being in poor condition, but in 2003 it was sold to Jim Emmett of the Mount Lofty railway station. At the time the car was intended to be stabilised, then transferred to Lofty Railway Station's gardens for restoration as a static exhibit. The shift was later called off account difficulties in arranging proper transportation, so the vehicle is still in Littlehampton, wrapped in tarps.

Dargo is currently undercover on private property.

Long W type carriages

Three sleeping cars were constructed by the Victorian Railways in 1928 to supplement those used on the Mildura and other overnight services. They used a similar internal arrangement to the last two E type sleepers, Buchan and Wando, but were wider with steel panels used in lieu of timber slats for the sides, and a curved roof matching the Long W carriages. Ten single-sided compartments were fitted, each capable of seating four second-class sitting passengers or two sleeping passengers along one wall. The cars were initially painted in standard VR dark red.

While the cars shared minor similarities with earlier joint-stock sleeping cars, they were exclusively built for use on the Victorian Railways system. To avoid confusion, in 1939 they were renumbered Sleeping Cars No.1, 2 and 3 in build order (with Buchan and Wando becoming 4 and 5 respectively) in lieu of names. Around the same time they were fitted with air conditioning systems powered by axle-mounted generators, and repainted into blue and gold.

Unlike the earlier cars, Werribee, Indi and Ovens were fitted with second-class bench seats in lieu of first class, so they had capacity for 40 sitting passengers in day form.

Current status

Steamrail Victoria maintains Werribee and Indi in the West Block of Newport Workshops.

Ovens is with the Seymour Rail Heritage Centre, stabled under cover at their depot in Seymour, Victoria.

Roomette cars (LAN)

Twenty LAN cars were built from 1959 through 1971. Cars 2323-2327 were the first built, and they were followed by 2344-2354, 2372 and 2376-2378.

The first five were constructed for the Brisbane Limited Express from 1959, and the design was mostly repeated with the eleven Southern Aurora cars from 1961. The only difference was the arrangement of access to the bathroom and the location of the doorway for accessing the Conductor's compartment. The modified design was also applied to 2372, built as extra capacity for the Brisbane Limited, and 2376-2378 built to replace cars 2345, 2346 and 2350 destroyed in the 1969 Violet Town crash.

These cars used a central curved hallway with compartments either side, providing a total of 20 single-person berths. In daylight hours the beds would be folded away and replaced with a single lounge chair and small table.

Twinette cars (NAM & FAM)

A total of 19 NAM twinette sleeping cars were constructed across five batches from 1959 to 1971, numbered 2328-2332, 2335-2343, 2367-2368, 2373 and finally 2374-2375.

The first five were constructed for the Brisbane Limited Express from 1959, and the design was repeated with 9 cars built for the Southern Aurora, three built for the Spirit of Progress, and two built as replacements for cars 2339 and 2343 destroyed in the Violet Town crash of 1969.

Each car had a side hallway, serving an attendant's compartment at pone end plus ten individual compartments. Each of these could seat three passengers in day mode, but were only fitted with two berths (in a bunk arrangement) for night travel. The berths were set up while passengers were in the dining room for dinner, and restored to seating format following breakfast each day. The name "twinette" indicates two people per sleeping compartment.

The ten FAM cars built for the Brisbane Limited and Gold Coast Motorail were based on a more modern design, as applied for the Indian Pacific fleet from 1970. Compartments were a little larger each, and as such the cars only had capacity for 18 passengers in 9 compartments (or 27 sitting).

Deluxe Twinette cars (DAM)

One deluxe twinnette sleeping carriage was built for each system - Victoria had DAM2333 on 2BU bogies at 42 tons, and New South Wales had DAM2334 on 2BS bogies for 43 tons.

The cars were almost identical to the NAM sleepers, with compartments attached to a side corridor and a small conductor's cabin at one end. The main difference was that the DAM cars' centre two compartments were merged, with the internal wall removed and the whole space allocated to only two sleeping passengers, rather than four. This luxury compartment provided a wider bed at one end, with two armchairs and a full WC and shower, and was placed in the centre of the carriage for maximum comfort.

The cars entered service in February and March 1962, and were both in use until 1991, then stored to August of 1994.

The Overland carriages

When The Overland service was converted from E type carriages to a new steel, fully airconditioned train, eight new sleeping cars were built. The interiors of these new cars were of a more modern design than the older cars. The roomette cars had a zigzag corridor instead of a straight one, and the compartments had the shape of a trapezium. This enabled the use of the toilet and washbasin units while the bed was still down, not possible in the older roomettes.

In 1949 the classleader, Allambi, entered service, followed by Tantini, Weroni, Dorai, Mururi and Chalaki in 1950 and Nomuldi and Mokai in 1951. Of those, Allambi, Tantini, Mururi and Chalaki were roomette cars with zigzag corridors; the other four were standard compartment-style twinette cars.

The sleeping cars were of two types. Twinette cars had two-berth compartments (as had the E and Mann cars before them), but each compartment had an adjoining toilet and shower room; roomette cars had single-berth compartments either side of a central aisle, and a shower room at the end of the car. The new cars were not numbered, but instead given names based on Aboriginal words related to sleep or dreams.

Additional carriages were built a few years later, with Roomettes Nankuri and Purpawi in 1955, Twinettes Tolkini (later Malkari) and Tandeni (later Paiti) in 1956, Twinettes Yanni and Kuldalai in 1957 and Roomettes Juki and Tarkinji in 1958.

Two further cars were built in 1967, Twinettes Tawarri and Yankai, for a total fleet of eighteen. These last two had a slightly different interior layout.

In 1971, the SAR's share in roomette cars Allambi and Tantini and twinette cars Dorai and Weroni was sold to the Victorian Railways for use on the Vinelander to Mildura. They were repainted dark blue and their names removed; these names were then applied to the same type of new cars built to replace them.

The new sleepers, Weroni and Dorai (1971) and Allambi and Tantini (1972) were built with the altered interior matching the 1967 batch (though Allambi and Tantini were still roomettes).

Under Victorian Railways, the cars had blue painted where maroon had previously been used, with Vinelander nameplates on the carriage sides in place of the names. The cars were numbered as Sleepers No.11 through 14, previously Allambi, Tantini, Weroni and Dorai. The New Deal in 1983 saw the four Victorian Railways Sleeper carriages renumbered to SJ 281 through 284, and the carriages were repainted again, this time with orange replacing the blue, and with V/Line logos on plates fitted to the left ends.

S type carriages

To provide for the Spirit of Progress's conversion to Standard Gauge from 1962, two of the BS class carriages were converted to composite sitting/sleeping cars, for the run from Melbourne to Canberra.

6BS became 1VAC, and 5BS became 2VAC. One car was attached to each train (with a spare 1VAM). From the No.1 end, compartment 1 was left unaltered and compartment 2 was converted to first class accommodation, with six seats in place of eight and additional armrests. The remaining six compartments were cleared out, and every second interior wall was removed. Compartment pairs 3 & 4, 5 & 6 and 7 & 8 had their separation walls shifted, so that each compartment could sit three or sleep two passengers, with wardrobes taking up the remaining space. The three-seat assembly at the outer wall of each compartment pair could fold down to provide one bed, while the other was permanently in-situ. Each car had a capacity of 8 2nd and 24 1st class passengers in daytime, or 8 2nd, 6 1st and 12 sleeping passengers at night.

Compartments 1 and 2 were refitted to the same pattern as the rest circa 1977, giving a capacity of 24 sitting passengers, or a night time capacity of 16 passengers.

In 1978 the two cars were returned to broad gauge, and took on the numbers No.15 Sleeper ex 1VAC and No.16 Sleeper ex 2VAC, following on from Sleepers 1-10 ex E type carriages and Sleepers 11-14 ex V&SAR Overland Carriages, for operation on the Mildura train.

In late 1984 and early 1985 the two were renumbered SS285 and SS286 in line with the New Deal numbering system. When the Vinelander sleeping car service started winding down in the late 80's/early 90's, the cars were converted back to their original BS format, as BS218 and BS219.

Z type carriages

The composite sitting/sleeping car, VAM1, was built with 10 evenly-spaced windows per side, plus a closer window and a door at the No.2 end. Access to the car was via the doors at the No.2 end, or via coupled carriages and the diaphragms linking them to VAM1. The ten windows each represented a single compartment. The first and second compartments at the No.1 end were fitted with bench seats for four people each, while the other eight compartments were fitted with three-person seats divisible with retractable armrests. All seats could fold down to form a bed, and above that was a second bed, giving capacity for up to 20 sleeping passengers or up to 24 first-class and 8 second-class passengers. Generally speaking only the first four compartments at the No.1 end were used for sitting passengers, and the remaining six were used exclusively for sleeping passengers. Partially because of this, the public address system was only wired to the four compartments at the No.1 end, and not the other six. Each compartment also had its own cupboard, shower, toilet, card table and wardrobe. The interior was sheathed with laminex panels.

At the No.2 end a small curtained-off area was reserved for the carriage conductor, with a seat to work at. Weight of the car was 51 tons 13 cwt. Water capacity was 280 gallons of cold water, plus 75 gallons of hot water for the showers. The car was fitted with marker lights, backup lamp brackets and tail discs at both ends, allowing it to trail any train. Notably, even though the car would only normally trail trains in New South Wales, the end-of-train marker was a Victorian Railways disc rather than a New South Wales Railways triangle.