[1] The first general traffic flat wagons to be used on the Victorian railways system were four-wheeled deck units classed "K," with around fifty purchased from Wright & Sons delivered in 1859.
[13][14] [15] By the late 1970s Q73 had been allocated specifically to trains originating from Jewell, as a spacer vehicle when transporting cast concrete bridge beams in conjunction with higher-capacity wagons.
To facilitate this, the vehicle was fitted with hinged buffers at both ends which could be lowered out of the way, allowing the deck "rails" to meet the raised ramps at each of the transfer sites.
[18] In 1925, the Victorian and South Australian Railways were experimenting with imported, standardized bogie goods wagons designed by the American Car & Foundry, USA, to replace large portions of their existing fleet.
While South Australia adopted the designs wholesale, Victoria elected to only import two each of the louvre, open and flat wagon types and a small number of open-top hoppers.
This was resolved on the bogie wagons with specially designed cradles, and the drums were protected against vibration by recycling withdrawn Westinghouse brake hoses.
Coded SFX1, it had a 63 ft-long frame with timber decking, end bulkheads to keep loads from shifting longitudinally, and a full-length lashing rail along the side for rope or chain securing.
Within a decade of the recoding, only around 20 vehicles were still in service; the rest had been converted to VQLX container wagons by removing the bulkheads and "skeletising" the floor to reduce tare weight.
[28] In 1978, eight SFX bulkhead flat wagons were modified at Newport Workshops for explicit use on the standard gauge carrying loaded gas tanks, fixed within an ISO 20 ft container framework.
[37] In 1978, a set of nine SFX wagons had their gauge-exchange equipment removed, and were allocated to broad gauge containerized traffic between Melbourne and Ballarat, and between Bairnsdale and Westall.
It has been theorized that the design of the vehicles was "home-grown" and when in service the mechanical roller system proved to be unreliable, with hoops often twisting when rolling open or closed leading to delays in loading.
[44][45] In 1972, four of the SKX series were recoded as SKF (but keeping their numbers), being locked to standard gauge operation between Melbourne and Sydney and fitted with ports for an unusual 37 ft container design.
[56] A proper heavy-duty vehicle entered service in October 1925, with a completely new design using custom three-axle bogies and a rivetted bar-frame, explicitly for the unique and heavy traffic.
After these traffic jobs were resolved the wagons were allocated to runs from Jewell railway station, in Melbourne's inner north, for transporting of large concrete bridge beams.
Like the other preserved vehicles in this category, it is owned by VicTrack; it is allocated to the ARHS Museum, and stored in the Newport West Block on four, four-wheel bogies fitted with plain bearings.
The larger containers were needed for a contract with TNT to move General Motors Holden car components between Acacia Ridge (QLD), Fishermans Bend, Geelong (VIC) and Elizabeth (SA), and were built at a cost of $76,540 each.
[107][112] Between 1986 and 1988, 12 unidentified wagons were leased from V/Line to Australian National and were renumbered AQDW 17–28; within a year they had been modified by AN to feature fixed shunters steps in lieu of the retractable design that V/Line had been using.
Notably, the axles of these were designed to permit future conversion to standard gauge, although the bogie bolsters would still restrict the vehicles to the lower speed limit.
The wagons had container ports spaced to permit loading of pairs of 30 ft ISO units, for CRT Group traffic between Bandiana and Melbourne.
[145] As previously, this was necessary because of a massive increase in traffic and no money available to construct new container wagons; in conjunction with much of the older four-wheel stock being withdrawn due to life expired bodies.
To overcome this issue, twenty long-wheelbase open wagons were reduced to frames, with a new sheet-metal deck fitted to act as a loading platform in yard areas.
To make this trans-shipment easier and faster, custom plywood containers were designed and a group of 170 randomly assorted open, flat and ten cattle wagons were modified between 1962 and 1965 to transport them.
The wagons were initially coded KF 1–124, but this changed to KW in 1961 when the "F" suffix was used to identify "fast" vehicles with upgraded bogies, allowing running at 50 mph.
[126][127][128] A small fleet of wagons were put aside for exclusive use by the Pyneboard factory, shipping sheets of compressed, pulped and rolled woodchips to Montague for distribution as an interior construction material.
[187] A batch of thirty CSX wagons 1 to 30 was constructed between 1966 and 1969 at Newport Workshops, using recycled tender frames from scrapped R Class steam locomotives and featuring ratchet handbrakes.
[189] They entered service with tarpaulin hoops and end-bulkheads in place in order to shelter the steel from weather effects during transit and cut down on rust; these were later retrofitted to the first thirty vehicles.
Between 1956 and 1957, timber traffic in the East Gippsland region increased, and pine tree billets needed to be railed from Bairnsdale and Heyfield to the paper manufacturing plant in Maryvale.
The wagon was unused for a full decade, until in 1977 when the sides and ends were removed and it was converted to standard gauge, painted yellow and used for transporting parts around the South Dynon Locomotive Depot.
In late 1995, log traffic increased again, so four VFNX wagons—4, 18, 122 and 144—were rebuilt with the retractable tarp mechanisms removed, and six sets of floor bolsters and stanchions fitted.
They were a flat wagon on a fixed wheelbase of either two or three axles, with very short side fences acting largely as guides for loading and removable bars at the ends of the vehicles.