By the 1950s, the rise of road transport saw the loss of a number of short branch lines, particularly those where the only traffic had been timber or livestock.
[4] Starting in 1897[5] and finishing in the 1950s, a total of 879 M class cattle wagons were constructed.
During the Autocoupler Conversion project of the 1920s, severe shortages of louvre vans occurred.
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.
[6] In 1969, 2 M wagons were specially converted for the carriage of bulls between Melbourne and Wodonga.
[7] The modification was the removal of one plank from each side of the wagon, which was then replaced by a metal lashing rail to which a bull could be secured.
This was not for transshipment purposes, but because when the cattle fitting was not in use the container wagon could be used in regular traffic.
When built the MM's had half the autocoupler equipment fitted, but had transition hooks for compatibility purposes.
The final 196 wagons, numbers 1237 and on, have curved roofs and were built with auto-couplers from new.
The wagons were relettered to LB, and marked to show they were not to be uncoupled in regular service.
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!
They also had tail discs and side lamp brackets, making them suitable for trailing a passenger train.
By 1974, traffic requirements changed, and the LP class was converted to LF, resuming their old LL numbers.
In 1894, a new four-wheel van, F52, entered service with a greater capacity than other vehicles in the class.
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.
The traffic had mostly evaporated by the 1940s, so the remaining horse wagons were altered to OH and HD vans for general maintenance.
It was numbered as DFDF1, and was built with money allocated to replace van D69, which had been destroyed at Fairfield.
In 1905, the van was modified and expanded to three horse stalls, intended for use on the Warburton Line.
In the new form, the car had two 2-person seats, one at either end; then working towards the centre, there was a toilet and four shower cubicles either side of the central water heater compartment.
The car was immediately painted in blue with yellow stripes to match the steel passenger fleet; in 1984 it was repainted to red for the refurbished Train of Knowledge, and after entering formal preservation with the Seymour Railway Heritage Centre, the car was repainted again into a facsimile of the original Victorian Railways passenger livery, of dark red with yellow dots.
In 2014, Carey was re-allocated to Steamrail Victoria and ran its first tour with the group on October 6, 2023.
This class consisted of 15 vehicles, resembling the M cattle wagons though squashed and stretched to fit the narrower loading gauge while maintaining similar capacity to the broad gauge vehicles.
The L sheep wagons had creamy-white floors, and some horse transports were dark grey, but those are the only exceptions.
For reference, a B Class diesel-electric engine was nominally permitted to haul 1,625 tonnes on a relatively flat line, reduced to 610 tonnes when climbing a 1:40 gradient (for instance, on the South Gippsland line).
Additionally, trains were restricted to no more than 75 vehicles, counting bogie wagons and guards vans as two each, both due to maximum load on the drawgear and crossing loop lengths.