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S type carriage

The S type carriages are a compartment layout passenger carriage used on the railways of Victoria, Australia. The carriages were constructed by the Victorian Railways in 1937 for use on the Spirit of Progress, with additional carriages built until the 1950s for other trains.

Two major types of carriage were constructed - AS first class cars with 3+3 seating in each compartment, BS second class cars with 4+4 seating. A number of conversions were made in later years, with the addition of beds to some to produce the sleeping cars, and buffet modules to others to provide on board catering facilities. The BRS cars were the most recent conversion made as part of the 'New Deal' reforms of the early 1980s.

The cars saw little use by the early 1990s with the introduction of the Sprinter railcars, and a number were sold to West Coast Railway. After the demise of WCR their cars passed to preservation groups such as the Seymour Railway Heritage Centre, Steamrail Victoria, and 707 Operations.

5 BS cars that were owned by V/Line were retired in July 2006,^[1] almost 69 years after their introduction. However owing to a boom in patronage (and the Kerang rail crash) they were re-introduced to service to replace N set N7 as a dedicated train set on the Geelong line from late September, 2007.^[2]

Coding

The S type carriages that appeared on the inaugural Spirit of Progress were uncoded and were simply numbered. The codes did not appear until 1940. Individual carriages in each class were numbered upwards from 1, until they were renumbered into the 200 series in the 1980s as part of a general renumbering of all V/Line carriage stock.

• AS: First class sitter
• BS: Economy class sitter
• CS: Guard's van
• DS: Mail-sorting van
• Dining Car, later named Murray
• Parlour Car, later named Norman

Conversions:

• ABS: First and economy class sitter (1953)
• MBS: 'Mini Buffet' and 5 sitting compartments (1965)
• MRS: Refreshment car (1977)
• BRS: Economy sitting car with snack bar (snack bar layout similar to that in BRN carriages) (1983)

Standard gauge:

• VFS: First class sitter (1962)
• VFX: Second class sitter (1962)
• VAC: Composite sleeper and sitter (1962)
• VFR: Composite buffet and sitter (1964)

Carriage sets

Operation of fixed carriage sets was not introduced until the 1980s and the introduction of the N type carriages. Before this time S cars could appear on various intrastate trains with other Z type steel carriages, as well as older wooden bodied stock.

From the 1980s most of the S cars was placed into the Z type carriage sets, and from the mid 1990s were also added as additional cars in the N type sets. Today the 5 BS cars in V/Line service are placed in a single carriage set coded SN7, along with a single ACN carriage because the set before that N7 had ⅔ of the set damaged in the Kerang crash^[3] so a replacement was needed. The BS V/Line cars are considered a N car due to the fact that the ACN car is a classed as a N.

References

• V/Linecars.com - BS Carriages

• Peter J Vincent: AS cars
  • Peter J Vincent: ABS cars
  • Peter J Vincent: VFX cars

• Peter J Vincent: BS cars
  • Peter J Vincent: BRS cars
  • Peter J Vincent: VFS cars

• Peter J Vincent: MRS cars
• Peter J Vincent: MBS cars
• Peter J Vincent: VAC cars
• Peter J Vincent: VFR cars