The S type carriages are a corridor-type passenger carriage used on the railways of Victoria, Australia. The first carriages were constructed by the Victorian Railways in 1937 for use on the Spirit of Progress, with additional carriages built for other trains until the mid-1950s.
Introduced by Victorian Railways Chairman of Commissioners Harold Clapp for the Spirit of Progress service between Melbourne and Albury, the carriages lasted through many decades of regular service, with more than one operator.
Two major variants of the S-type carriage were constructed: AS first-class cars with 3+3 seating in each compartment, and BS second-class cars with 4+4 seating. A handful of other cars were constructed for various specialist purposes. A number of conversions were carried out in later years, with the addition of beds to some to create sleeping cars, and buffet modules fitted to others to provide on-board catering facilities. The BRS buffet cars were the most recent conversion, made as part of the New Deal reforms on Victorian regional railways in the early 1980s.
The cars saw little use after the early 1990s, due to the introduction of the Sprinter railcars, and most were disposed of. A number were sold to West Coast Railway (WCR), with others being allocated to preservation groups such as Steamrail Victoria, 707 Operations and the Seymour Railway Heritage Centre. After the demise of WCR, some of their cars were converted to crew cars for interstate trains, while others were on-sold to the same preservation groups listed above. A handful of sitting carriages were retained by V/Line to bolster their normal fleet.
The five BS cars owned by V/Line were retired in July 2006,V/Line Cars.com – BS Carriages – retrieved 19 October 2006 almost 69 years after their introduction. However, owing to a boom in patronage, and the Kerang rail accident, from late September 2007 they were re-introduced to service as a dedicated train set on the Geelong line, to replace set N7. That set was finally withdrawn from service on 9 August 2010, running the 7:47am service from South Geelong to Southern Cross. All of V/Line's remaining S-type carriages have since been sold or allocated to preservation groups.
Development and design
When the Spirit of Progress concept was being developed as a replacement for the Sydney Limited, it was made known that the Victorian Railways Chairman of Commissioners, Harold Clapp, wanted the train to be a rival to the greatest trains in the world – modern, smooth, streamlined and with an air of efficiency. To achieve this, it was decided that a new all-steel train would be constructed from scratch, using the most recent developments in rollingstock design and the most exquisite creature comforts.
Clapp had visited the United States in 1934–35, to learn about the latest developments in the field. Included were visits to the American Car and Foundry, Missouri, as well as a sampling of the services provided by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's trains, the Royal Blue and Abraham Lincoln. Both of these trains were of metal construction, the former with CorTen steel (developed by the United States Steel Corporation) and the latter with aluminium. Both trains were hauled by steam locomotives at the time of the visit, and both were of much smaller dimensions than those typically provided on American trains – but closer to the normal Australian railways loading gauge.
Based on the findings of his visit, Clapp insisted that the new train would have the best possible insulation (from track sound and vibrations, as well as extremes of temperature), air-conditioning, and yet to be of similar weight and capacity of the then-standard E carriage fleet. Indeed, advertising at the time declared that the materials selected "reduced train noises to an almost imperceptible minimum".
After testing, the design of the Royal Blue, with riveted CorTen steel, was selected as the basis for the new carriages and train. With the new design, it was found that a Spirit of Progress carriage of identical capacity was lighter than an air-conditioned E type carriage. However, the new carriages retained the compartment layout already in use in the AE and BE carriages.
Twelve carriages were ordered for construction at Newport Workshops; five first-class carriages, numbered 1 to 5; four second-class carriages, 6 to 9; the guard's van, the Dining car and the Parlor car. The latter was always spelled in the American way, without the "u". Each of the sitting cars were long over body with a further at either end being occupied by the interconnecting diaphragm, for a total length of . These diaphragms could compress by up to each. The guards' van was over diaphragms, when coupled at both ends.Bray, Vincent & Gregory, Steel & Special Coaching Stock of Victoria, 2009,
Each passenger carriage featured eight compartments, with the only differences being the number of seats per compartment: six, wider seats for first class, or eight, slightly narrower seats, for second class. Each seat had its own reading lamp and at least one folding armrest, which could be raised to be flush with the rest of the seat if preferred. Soft, diffused lighting was provided, hidden inside the walls and aimed at the ceiling to avoid blinding the passengers. Each compartment was fitted with a large, double-pane, single window, claimed at the time to be "unshatterable". At the time these windows were the first the railways had used, which could not be opened; instead they were sealed to ensure the efficiency of the air-conditioning system. This glass was also used in all doors, whether for the compartment or along the corridor, separating various portions. Three of the eight compartments, at the No. 1 end of the carriage, were designated for smoking passengers – although curiously, all compartments were fitted with ashtrays.
All onboard systems were powered by axle-mounted generators, with a large under-slung battery available for use when the train was not moving. Additionally, carriages could be connected individually to an external power supply, if something suitable was available and the train was to be stationary for a long time.
Extensive testing was carried out to ensure maximum comfort with the type of seat selected. The final seat design was sprung, and padded with horsehair manually inserted to give the right contour as tested against a template. Then the seats were upholstered with leather, designed, cut and fitted to each seat before installation in the carriage. When installed, seats were a little over deep. Each passenger compartment also included roller blinds over the windows, and an individual radiator fitted to the outer wall and protected with a steel grille. On the opposite side, each compartment door was fitted with a hand-crafted louvre to permit air recycling.
Rubber linoleum was used as the floor covering, directly over the steel carriage underframe. This covered the entire floor surface, and met a rubber curbing along the sides of the corridors which was placed over the wall coverings to protect from foot marks. Otherwise, the walls were sheeted with a veneer of selected Australian timbers; different timbers were used in the first and second class carriages, to match the colours of the seats. Toilets in each carriage had Terrazzo flooring applied, finely ground, then polished.
A different type of chair was custom-designed for use in the Parlor and Dining cars, each one handcrafted "with due regard to comfort and durability". The dining car was also fitted with an on-board kitchen section, again designed and built to the highest standards possible at the time. The stove, for example, was insulated with rock-wool, noted for high levels of insulation resulting in an appreciable level of fuel economy. Venetian blinds were used exclusively in the rounded end of the Parlor car.
The guards van was designed somewhat differently from previous types, which had had a guards' compartment at either end of the carriage with a cupola, and a mail/baggage section in the middle of the van. The steel CE Van instead had, from the "front" end, a single luggage compartment, then a single guards compartment, then two further luggage compartments. Both ends of the van were fitted with walk-through, full-width, collapsible diaphragms. The central guards compartment was fitted with periscopes aimed in each direction, allowing the guard to observe signals and perform other duties as required. The three luggage sections could between them take around of luggage. Van-side doors were each fitted with three windows initially, and the door sliding mechanisms were designed to allow the doors to run flush with the shell of the carriage when closed. Additionally, a dog-box was provided in each corner of the van, accessible only from the outside.
To give the proper feel of a streamlined train, the S class locomotives would be fitted with a steel sheeting matching the train; diaphragms on the ends of the locomotive tenders and all the passenger carriages were full-width instead of inset, and painted to match the rest of the train, and van doors were designed to run flush to the sides of the carriages. All this was done both to reduce air resistance at the train's maximum official speed of , and to give the impression of one long, solid unit. However, the wider design of diaphragm meant that any locomotive with full buffers could not be coupled to, or used to shunt, these carriages, as the buffers would pierce or otherwise damage the vestibule fittings. As a result, a number of D4 locomotives were fitted with half-buffers to avoid this problem.
Construction All carriages were built at Newport Workshops, using CorTen steel.
After completion, the carriages were spray-painted with two coats of Dulux Royal Blue, product number 041. Over this, two parallel lines of gold leaf were manually applied; a line above the window line, and a line below the window line. These stripes extended the full length of the train, from the streamlined sides of the S Class locomotives, along the tender sides, across all of the diaphragms and carriage sides, then around the rounded end of the Parlor car and back around to the other side of the locomotive. The majority of this gold leaf had to be applied over rivets, making for a difficult application process. Gold leaf was also used for the external signage, such as "First", "Second", "Dining Car" and "Parlor Car".
Operations Original Spirit of Progress fleet, riveted sides Late 1937 saw all of the original order of twelve carriages delivered, bar one of the first-class sitting cars, No. 4. The other eight sitting cars entered service on 14 November 1937; the Dining and Parlor cars on the 17th, and the steel CE van on the 18th.
This gave the maximum-length 11-car train for the debut of the Spirit of Progress at 6:30pm, 23 November 1937. Before this date the train ran a number of demonstration runs to Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo on the 18th, 19th and 22nd respectively, being displayed at those locations from lunchtime to around 9pm before running back to Melbourne. The train was also displayed at Platform 7 at Spencer Street, from 9am to 9pm on Saturday 20 November. The first run, hauled by locomotive S302 "Edward Henty", included from the Albury end, the steel CE van, cars 6 to 9, the Dining Car, cars 1 to 3 and 5, and the Parlor Car. (The order of passenger cars either side of the dining car is not known.)
As at the time the code for the new carriages had not yet been decided, the passenger cars were released to service unclassed and simply numbered 1 to 9. Some official correspondence refers to the carriages as "Steel E type carriage" – for example, "Steel AE 1" when referring to the first of the passenger cars. The Dining and Parlor cars apparently began life with those identities, and the guards van was known as the Steel CE Van.