The N type carriages are an intercity passenger carriage used on the railways of Victoria, Australia. They were introduced between 1981 and 1984 as part of the 'New Deal' reforms of country passenger rail services. Today they are seen on V/Line long distance InterCity services to Swan Hill.
The carriage sets have both first class 2+2 seating, and 2+3 economy seating. Snack bar facilities are also provided on board. Originally delivered as three-car sets, some sets were extended in length with S and Z type carriages.
Today the carriages are hauled by N class diesel locomotives. The carriages can use an external head end power supply for lighting and air conditioning operation. Each carriage has two swing doors per side, which were originally manually opened by passengers, but have since been converted to powered operation, and they are locked or unlocked by the conductor. Toilets, drinking fountains and luggage areas are provided throughout each carriage set.
History In 1977, an order was placed for 30 N type carriages (10 sets) for use on the Geelong line, with six cars added to the order in 1978 for the Ballarat line, due to a by-election in that city. As part of the state government's "New Deal for Country Passengers" in 1981, the order was increased to 54 carriages,Newsrail April 1981 p.73 and then to 57 due to cost savings during construction. The cars were built between 1981 and 1984, based upon the structural design of the Victorian Z type carriages built between 1956 and 1960.
In 2007, V/Line commenced a refurbishment program for its H type carriages and Sprinter railcars, the program later being extended to the N type carriages. In October 2007, the first refurbished N type carriage was released into traffic with the new V/Line grey exterior livery, as well as updated interior curtains and seat fabrics.
As part of the Albury line gauge conversion, some N carriages were converted to standard gauge. Three sets were formed, each consisting of five carriages and a power/luggage van, classed as SN1, SN15 and SN16.
Services N sets were used on all V/Line routes, but today only operate on the Bendigo line, to Swan Hill.
Design The design of the N-type carriages was based on the earlier Z-type ones, but with the benefit of thirty years of construction and design experience.Newsrail, February 1982, p.4
The first-class carriages were fitted with blue-wool seating and blue/grey carpets. The second-class carriages were furnished with orange seats and a russet (tan/brown) carpet. All materials were fire-retardant, and non-skid Pirelli flooring was fitted at the entrances and service areas; in blue to match the carpets in the first class areas, and in maroon for the second class areas. Following customer feedback, the seating arrangements in the economy cars were reorganised to place the centres of back-to-back seats in line with pillars between windows.
Two-stage air-conditioning was fitted for summer, and heating elements placed underneath the carpet for winter. Those systems, along with those for lighting and announcements, were powered by three-phase alternators, fixed to the underframe of each carriage. These required refuelling, but were cheaper and more reliable than the axle-driven generators used in most earlier vehicles.
One unisex toilet was provided at the west end of each carriage, along with hot water for each wash basin, fed from a 635-litre pressurised tank. The system met the Environmental Protection Agency's requirements as they existed in 1981.
Inter-carriage access diaphragms are constructed with rubber tubing, in place of the earlier method using canvas attached to steel frames. The doors for inter-carriage links were 3 ft (914mm) wide.
Bogies The bogies for the new cars were a new design, specifically prepared by Vickers Ruwolt. The suspension was based on coil springs, with a secondary cast bolster with spring plank, supported on swing links and coil springs. Each bogie weighed 7000 kg, with a wheelbase of 2,445mm and a maximum axle load of 14 tonnes, and were designed for operation at up to 130 km/h. Tread brakes were fitted, operated by Westinghouse model 250WF brake cylinders. The axle boxes utilised spherical roller bearings, and all parts of the bogie, except the wheels and axles themselves, were designed for conversion to standard gauge. This latter function was finally used in 2009 when the Seymour to Albury line was converted to standard gauge.
Power supplies The diesel alternator sets for the carriages provided 3-phase 415-volt alternating current power. Only 1 phase was required for operation, so the other two phases were available for backup or for load-sharing across other carriages - useful because the ACN and BN cars required 28 kW to operate and the BRN, with its additional functions, 40 kW. To accommodate the extra load, the ACN and BN were upgraded midway through construction to a 35kVA supply, and the programming reworked so that the BRN would not power adjacent cars. If all alternators were off, then the cars was able to take power from an external 240vAC power supply. Around the same time as these modifications were made, the alternator set supports were modified to reduce vibration, and the radiator fan motors' thermal overload switches were moved to reduce unnecessary tripping. At the end of the modifications, the system was organised so that in event of a power failure, the batteries mounted under the carriages would automatically reroute all power to the lights at the ends of the train to protect from oncoming traffic. Those lights could function for over ten hours, at the expense of air-conditioning and other functions.Newsrail June 1982 p.112 The first six cars had plastic fuel pipes near the alternator units, but that was changed from car 7 onwards.Newsrail September 1982 p.216
Construction The N type carriages were the first cars to be built at Newport Workshops in over 20 years. Each carriage took over 20 weeks to construct, with a rolling production line to give one new carriage off the assembly line every fortnight. Weeks 1 to 7 involved the general structure - welding the shell and the underframe together and attaching the ends. Following that, the electrical fitout took four weeks, and the bogies were fitted after Week 11. A mineral fibre insulation was sprayed on internal surfaces between weeks 12–14, and then the final six weeks the internal fibreglass ceiling and wall sheets were fitted, along with carpet, seats, lighting, doors and other components, with a one-week trial at the end. The cost was roughly $500,000 per carriage.Newsrail June 1982 p.127 The total build time added to 16,500 man-hours per carriage, against 32,000 for the earlier Z type carriages. Additionally, the carriages are between five and eight tonnes heavier than comparable designs overseas, partially due to their being a compromise between regional and commuter type vehicles. On the other hand, they cost a mere $13,000 per seat, against $47,000 per seat for the XPT carriages being built for New South Wales Railways around the same time.Newsrail August 1982, p.190
The shells of the carriages were constructed with Lyten Steel, selected for its high strength and anti-corrosion properties. The paint used externally is identical to aircraft mixes, both in domestic and overseas application. It has been suggested that the orange scheme for VicRail was selected due to spare lots of paint available cheaply when Ansett Australia changed from its orange scheme, but this has not been proven.
The initial plan called for three-carriage sets of ACN-BN-BN, where the latter two cars in each set would be identical with second-class seating. By the time the New Deal was properly fleshed out other new carriages were deemed impractical, so after sets 1 through 6 had entered service, set 7 had the experimental BRN20 included in its consist with a modular buffet section. During the tests sets 8 and 9 entered service in the original configuration, then set 10 as ACN-BRN-BN, and sets 11 through 18 were constructed with two buffet cars; as they were released to service the most-recent of the ACN-BN-BN sets was recalled to Newport Workshops for a carriage swap, so that eventually all sets were of the ACN-BRN-BN configuration. (Set 19, added at the end of the project, was released as ACN-BRN-BN, just like set N10.)
Most carriages were fitted with automatic couplers with an implicit agreement that sets would not be separated; one of the sets in the mid-1980s had drawbars fitted between its three carriages experimentally. The automatic couplers were expected to be temporary, with scharfenberg couplers expected in June 1983 to replace them and the hard-wired electrical and pneumatic links between carriages. However, a derailment in late 2011 revealed that set SN1 on the standard gauge still had autocouplers between the carriages.
A snapshot of the production line timeline is available in Newsrail, September 1982, p. 197. It lists sets N1 through N9 complete, with the carriages forming N10 through N14 at various stages of construction and fit-out, and the frames of the 43rd carriage being welded together as of 28 July 1982.
Shell 19 Carriage shell number 19 was delayed in construction as it was selected for the trial buffet module equipment. As a result, car 20 became BN19, and car 19 entered service as BRN20.Newsrail September 1982, p.196 The car was also used to test alternative carriage side materials, such as corrugated stainless steel sheeting; this was eventually rejected and normal carriage side material was fitted in its place.Newsrail April 1982 p.76 A sketch of the proposal is provided in Newsrail, June 1982, p. 113.
The buffet modules, developed by Smallwood & Leibert, were intended to fit through the carriage doorways and then be assembled in situ. The new carriage design was tested on daily return trips from Melbourne to Bendigo, with additional runs to Albury and Gippsland before it officially entered service.Newsrail June 1982 p.126 In practice the module was too heavy for the carriage design and had to be modified, as the offset weight gave the body a lean of "almost three inches" - this was rectified by temporarily modifying the bogie spring layout.Newsrail May 1983 p.102 BRN29, the next of the type to enter service, was reorganised with the buffet on the north side of the car (following east and west end convention), and at the end of the project BRN20 was modified to match the standard of the rest of the fleet.
Scharfenberg couplers As an experiment, BRN33 was fitted with scharfenberg coupler drawbars in lieu of normal automatic couplers during construction.
Details N type carriages are individually numbered in the 1 to 57 series. Sets were issued to traffic with three types of carriage: ACN first class (2+2 seating, recline and rotate) with conductors van, 52 seats BRN economy class (2+3 seating, fixed) with snack bar, 67 seats BN economy class (2+3 seating, fixed), 88 seats
The BRN cars were a late addition to the concept, and the majority had their final two windows on the buffet side merely painted over. BRN cars 20, 47 and 52 are the only ones known to have been built without those two windows.Bray, Vincent & Gregory, Steel & Special Coaching Stock of Victoria, 2009, , p.107
From 1995 surplus Z type carriages were upgraded to N type interiors, with the following codes but with their original Z type numbers: BZN economy class (2+3 seating, fixed) with disabled access and toilet, 72 seats BTN economy class (2+3 seating, fixed), 88 seats
In 2009 a new code was introduced in conjunction with the formation of 'pure' 5-car N sets for standard gauge use: BDN economy class (2+3 seating, fixed) with disabled access and toilet (interior similar to a BZN carriage), 72 seats.
In service VicRail & V/Line Orange Era (1981-1995)