Victorian Railways livestock transport

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name = Livestock transport


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Manufacturer = Victorian Railways
Factory = Newport Workshops
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Built = From 1958
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yearconstruction = From 1958
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The Victorian Railways used a variety of railway wagons for the transport of livestock.

History

Until the mid 1980's, laws within the state of Victoria made it too difficult to send cattle and sheep by road. So the Victorian Railways had large numbers of wagons to deal with this, well into the 1,000's.

Also, from the mid 1800's, horse vans were used to transfer racing horses from stations on country branch lines, to the nearest racecourse.

Wagons

Cattle Wagons

M Wagons and variations

Starting in 1861 and finishing in the 1950's, a total of 879 M class cattle wagons were constructed.

As per the normal practice of the era, scrapped wagons were replaced with new wagons of the same numbers, from 1893 to 1925.

A small number of wagons were fitted with altered roofs, and were used in circus traffic. They were known as the "elephant wagons" and lasted until about 1930, when they were replaced with new vans constructed from steel.

During the Autocoupler Conversion project of the 1920's, severe shortages of louvre vans occured. As a result, 50 M vans were boarded up and reclassed to MU to fill the gap. They were used for all sorts of traffic, even for bagged wheat in 1923. The vans were all converted back to M by 1934.

The MU numbers can be found on Peter J Vincent's site, but they ranged from the low 300's to the mid 400's.

Around the early 1960's there was a shortage of wagons for carrying superphosphate. Due to the lack of alternatives, even with over 24,000 wagons running at the time, 70 cattle wagons were lined with tarpaulans on the inside, and loaded by hand. They were reclasssed as the MS wagons. By the 1970's they were either scrapped or returned to M wagon status.

In 1969 wagons M416 and M391 were converted to MB's 1 and 2, for Bull transport between Wodonga and Melbourne. This involved altering the sides of the wagons.

By the 1970's containerisation was starting to become popular, and so the M-series wagonsw ere slowly being replaced by MC containers, which could be placed on container wagons. This was not for transhipment puposes, but because when the cattle fitting was not in use the container wagon could be used in regular traffic.

Around the mid 1980's the laws of cattle transport changed, and this deregulation caused cattle transport to vanish from the rails practically overnight. The remaining M wagons were sold or scrapped, and the MC containers were stored for years before being sold off interstate.

MM Wagons

As cattle traffic increased it was found that more wagons were needed. The Victorian Railways decided on a bogie design rather than more four-wheelers. So in 1928, 25 vans were constructed, the MM class.

When built the MM's had half the autocoupler equipment fitted, but had trasnsition hooks for compatability purposes. These were swapped for the full automatic couplers between 1933 and 1936.

From 1965 the wagons had bogies altered for higher speed trains, and so the wagons were reclassed MF. This lasted until the 1979 recoding, by which time only wagons 2-5, 10, 15, 20-22 and 25 remained. These 10 wagons were reclassed to VSBY, indicating that they were not bogie-exchangeable.

The wagons were removed from service in the mid 1980's.

heep Wagons

L, LB Wagons

The first L class sheep truck was constructed in 1877, and construction continued through to 1953. The class was numbrered from 1 to 1432, but in fact there were about 1,650 of these wagons built. Over time, older wagons were scrapped and newer wagons, of a more modern design, were built with the same numbers as the scrapped L wagons.

This was shown most obviously, because wagons up to L1236, built up to December 1924, are fitted with gable roofs. Vans 1237 and on, from Feb 1925, have curved roofs.

The wagons could be used for pigs and goats as well as sheep, but the latter was the primary traffic. Because of this the wagons often ran in groups, but these were not defined.

Most of the vans were autocoupled between 1931 and 1933. However, 50 of the wagons were only fitted with autocouplers at one end, and this was used to semi-permanently couple them in pairs. These wagons were relettered to LB, and marked to show they were nt to be uncoupled in regular service. This was done to speed up the conversion process. The wagons were then later fully autocoupled, and reletered to L. All 50 had been completed by the mid 1950's.

It would probably be possible to find out which wagons were paired by looking at workshop records, but this has as yet not been attempted.

By 1960 there were only 1,260 wagons on the register.

LL 4-wheel wagons

There were three wagons in this rather unusual class. Their description on records implies that they were either used half-and-half for livestock and general goods, or they were used for the latter and occasionally the former, hopefully being washed out afterwards!

LL 1 was built in October 1886. It was converted to replace the scrapped L7 sheep van in 1891 and renumbered to L7. It was scrapped in 1904. LL 2 was built in March 1889. It was converted to replace the scrapped L8 sheep van in 1891 and renumbered to L8. It was placed "off register" in 1907.

However, LL 3 had a completely different history. It was built in New South Wales in September 1889. The wagon was scrapped in 1891, when it's classmated were converted to regular L wagons.

But in 1896 the underframe was used to build the replacement K5 flat truck. In this reincarnation it was fitted with water tanks. Thirteen years later it was placed 'off Register'. In it's third life, in 1910, it became K 112, a Crane Truck. In 1911 the original K 112 was found running, and so the duplicate ex K 5 was returned to that number, which it kept. It was scrapped in 1927, but was not found in the 1925 stocktake.

LL, LF, LP, VSAY bogie wagons

As with the MM wagons, extra capacity was needed for sheep transport in 1928. Wagons LL1 to LL50 were constructed, resebling two L wagons joined together and placed on bogies.

In the late 1960's ten wagons were classed LP and placed on passenger bogies, while the remainder became the LF series and had freight bogies fitted.

The LP's had a maximum speed 10mph higher than the LF's; 70mph. They also had tail discs and side lamp brackets, making them suitable for trailing a passenger train. The vans were converted from LL 16, 28, 45, 27, 44, 12, 15, 6, 8 and 50 respectively. They were used between Mildura and Ouyen.

By 1974 traffic requirements changed, and the LP class was converted to LF, resuming their old LL numbers.

In the 1979 recoding, the LF class were relettered to VSAY. By then, 12 of the wagons had been scrapped. The remainder were removed from service in the 1980's.

Horse Wagons

Fixed wheel vehicles

From 1854 to 1914, horse transport wagons were constructed as required. Their codes all started with F, but the designs varied over the years.

The wagons were originally four-wheeled with curved ends (probably for storage). The 1890's design featured six wheels, with the number of stalls doubled from three to six.

In 1894 a new four wheel van, F52, entered service with a greater capacity than other vehicles in the class. This van was recoded to F^F between 1894 and 1897.

The curved end wagons were all scrapped by the 1880's. The smaller capacity wagons were mostly rebuilt to a larger capacity between 1905 and 1910. They were then joined by the FF class, with the entire series being lettered F. This was made possible by the scrapping of the smaller capacity wagons. However, records between 1904 and 1914 are vague, and so it cannot be known which numbers had what done to them and when.

The traffic had mostly evaporated by the 1940's, so the remaining horse wagons were altered to OH and HD vans for general maintenance.

Bogie vehicles

In 1889 the first of six bogie horse wagons entered service, classed FF. Between 1894 and 1897 a larger four-wheel F wagon (F52) was relettered to F^F, and so the bogie vehicles were relettered to F^FF. This was reversed in the 1910 recodings.

Ten more bogie vans were built in the late 1920's, numbers 7 through 16.

In the mid-1950's most of the class was altered in some way or another. FF’s 1 and 8 were scrapped, while FF’s 2-6 were modified for overhead construction on the Traralgon line and became OH 1-5. The underframes of FF 9 and FF 11 became Q 130 and 131 respectively, in 1953. The former was used as the crane jib support for Crane 45 and FF's 7, 10, 12 and 13, which had received upgraded bogies fitted during the 1940's, were reclassed FP in 1956.

By 1975 FP 7 was the only wagon in service, but two underframes were stored. In the 1979 recoding FP7 became VSPY 7. By the mid 1990s the wagon was moved to storage at Newport.

In 1961 the three remaining FF bogie horseboxes, 14, 15 and 16, were recoded to FH. All three wagons had their bodies scrapped in 1962/1963, but the underframe of FH 16 was rebuilt as HW1, the body supplied by two HW vans. The two van bodies were joined to become a bogie vehicle.

Narrow Gauge

^NMM Class

This class consisted of 15 vehicles. Construction started in 1899, but the first ^NMM did not enter service until 1903. After this the rest of the class followed slowly, with the last of the class not entering service until 1917. The looked similar to the MM cattle vans, despite being built 25 years earlier.

As part of the 1920's recoding, the class was altered to NM. Around the same time, all but the classleader had autocouplers fitted. (NM1 was not converted until 1941.)

In the mid 1920's there was a derailment on the Moe - Whalhalla line. In the consist were NM vehicles. It was determined that the derailment was caused by 'spooked' horses in an NM vehicle. The vehicle was coupled next to an NA tank engine which was running bunker first. The smoke from the funnel apparently was the reason for the distress. After this investigation, the ends of all the NM class were progressively boarded up.

As the Narrow Gauge lines were closed the wagons were sold off. Most were scrapped; NM13 is used by Puffing Billy on wood trains, and NM6 was recently rescued from a farm and is currently in the Belgrave workshops.

Liveries

In general, livestock wagons have been painted in Victorian Railways Wagon Red livery. The L sheep wagons had creamy-white floors, and some horse transports were dark grey, but those are the only exceptions.

Further reading

* [http://www.pjv101.net/cd/pages/type_frt.htm Peter J. Vincent: Victorian Railways - Freight]
* [http://www.pjv101.net/cd/pages/c444m.htm Peter J Vincent: Narrow Gauge ^NMM/NM]
* [http://www.pjv101.net/cd/pages/c060m.htm Peter J Vincent: M & MU 4-wheel wagons]
* [http://www.pjv101.net/cd/pages/c358m.htm Peter J Vincent: MS 4-wheel wagons]
* [http://www.pjv101.net/cd/pages/c211m.htm Peter J Vincent: MB 4-wheel wagons]
* [http://www.pjv101.net/cd/pages/c309m.htm Peter J Vincent: MM bogie wagons]
* [http://www.pjv101.net/cd/pages/c012m.htm Peter J Vincent: L 4-wheel wagons]
* [http://www.pjv101.net/cd/pages/c244m.htm Peter J Vincent: LB 4-wheel wagons]
* [http://www.pjv101.net/cd/pages/c357m.htm Peter J Vincent: LL 4-wheel wagons wagons]
* [http://www.pjv101.net/cd/pages/c015m.htm Peter J Vincent: LL bogie wagons]
* [http://www.pjv101.net/cd/pages/c359m.htm Peter J Vincent: LP bogie wagons]
* [http://www.pjv101.net/cd/pages/c014m.htm Peter J Vincent: LF bogie wagons]
* [http://www.pjv101.net/cd/pages/c562m.htm Peter J Vincent: VSAY bogie wagons]
* [http://www.pjv101.net/cd/pages/c220m.htm Peter J Vincent: F/FF 4-wheel horse wagons]
* [http://www.pjv101.net/cd/pages/c223m.htm Peter J Vincent: FF/FFF bogie horse wagons]
* [http://www.pjv101.net/cd/pages/c224m.htm Peter J Vincent: FH bogie horse wagons]
* [http://www.pjv101.net/cd/pages/c173m.htm Peter J Vincent: FP/VSPY bogie horse wagons]