Victorian Railways louvre vans

U vans were used primarily for perishable traffic such as fish, fruit and chocolate, as the louvres along the sides and ends provided ventilation while the train was moving.

When wagons were going through regular maintenance in the 1960s, the trap doors were either welded shut or the entire end panel was replaced with a new section of only louvres.

Forty two of the remaining "Robinson Pattern" U vans were recoded HD during 1957/58, for use as Way and Works Plant Trucks.

Identical to the type 4 series in most ways, the only design change at this point was the addition of a second trap door for meat bars, at the opposite end of the wagon.

Notably, U 1141 through U 1217 were constructed with two axles instead of three, and autocouplers, the Westinghouse automatic brake system and increased load of 16 tons were part of the wagons from new.

However, at the time there were not enough bogie wagons on the Victorian Railways to justify scrapping of the fleet, so instead the underframes were recycled and rebuilt with new bodies at Bendigo workshops.

The vans were initially fitted with diamond-frame bogies, which were displaced from open QR wagons; at the time these were being upgraded to the barframe type.

It is thought that the UB project may have been conceived as a method to use up the leftover bogies, more than as an attempt to increase capacity or speed of the service.

UB vans were regularly used behind railmotors on lightly-used branch lines, in the spirit of the old "mixed" train service.

They were placed on cast bogies capable of higher speeds, a result of internal springing that reduced vibrations.

In the late 1970s the three remaining UF vans were running on the early morning 'paper' trains that transferred metropolitan newspapers to regional centres.

It is thought that UP 19 also ran; UB 19 is mentioned as being fitted with "pass" (passenger) bogies in 1956, though the records do not show the code UP.

It appears that during the 1930s conversion project from screw couplers to automatic couplers resulted in a short-term lack of louvre and box vans; to fill the gap, fifty M cattle wagons were converted from 1932 during their own conversion to autocouplers, with wooden planks and louvres used to cover the gaps over the normal cattle wagon design.

M type vans, it was decided to purchase a pair of wagons from the American Car & Foundry, USA, for further testing.

Eventually, as the vans received newer bogies, the 100–149 group was reclassed to VP to indicate their higher maximum speed and the purpose of running on passenger trains for baggage, parcels and mail transport.

As an example of regular broad-gauge trains in the North-Eastern district:[3] Melbourne-bound services Outbound services Note that even assuming the Wodonga drop-offs are delivered to Albury later, the above causes an imbalance; each week, two more vans are running towards Melbourne than away from Melbourne, not counting the odd Benalla drop-off from No.9.

These imbalances would have been resolved by attaching extra vans to freight trains, and there were daily scheduled transfers between Wodonga and Albury yards – two on weekdays, one on weekends.

In the early 1960s, the original V type vans 1–81 were fitted with upgraded bogies and recoded to VF, allowing running at up to 60 mph (97 km/h) (V 82 had been scrapped in 1960).

These upgrades were completed with the intention of allowing faster travel times, as well as to provide more stock for the standard gauge working to Sydney.

The VF series of wagons ran in general traffic, although a small number were specifically allocated to newspaper trains.

For example, in 1973 it was expected that the VP van was to trail the locomotive on the Melbourne 8:40 pm departure of the Intercapital Daylight, all days except Sunday and Monday.

By this time not many of the former VF vans were left; only about ten of the freight wagons actually made the jump, due to a combination of age and that many newer designs were available.

In 1981 with the New Deal, passenger trains started to use former boxvans in lieu of louvre vans which swapped bogies with the VLPY fleet.

Of the remainder, three – 139, 140 and 142 – were instead used to build the three original PH power vans in 1984, two – 100 and 126 – were instead recoded to VLPF (retaining their bogies), and five were taken off-register while still as VLPY: 111, 129, 130, 134 and 136.

VLBF 6 is the only one of the VF range and it is currently with the Australian Railway Historical Society; the remainder are ex-VP vans, numbers 100, 103, 105, 108, 109, 114, 122, 125, 129, 132, 133, 135 and 138.

Because of the large numbers, the VLX class quickly became the Victorian Railways' primary bogie louvre van, on both broad and standard gauges.

This was clearly intentional, as the diagram for the VLX design notes that the type measurements conform to the Queensland Railways' narrow gauge dimensions.

The three replacement VLEX vans: 873, 874 and 989 arrived in Victoria July 1993, repainted and reclassed from Western Australian WBAX boxvans.

In 2000, 41 surplus VLEX vans had their bodies removed, and the underframes were converted to carry sawn pine logs and recoded VFTX.

The trio, when not running to Springvale or Fawkner cemeteries, were kept in the Mortuary Dock off Batman Avenue at Flinders Street Station; this siding was accessible from what is now known as Platform 13.