VFAA 62 P - 94 years old, and still going strong
By Andrew Swaine

Number in class : 136
Weight : 19.68 ton
Load capacity : 31 ton distributed, or 15 ton on 13'0" centre bolsters
Length , coupler to coupler: 46'
Width : 9' 4"
Height from ground level : 4' 5"
Acquired by the Mornington Railway in : October 2002

This wagon started life as number 62 in the Q class of bogie flat wagons, which were
built to various designs or adapted from the underframes of existing vehicles over the
course of eighty-eight years (from 1870 till 1958) for the Victorian Railways.

The descriptor "Q" was part of a vehicle identification system implemented by the VR
in about 1859, where the letters A - G represented passenger vehicles and H - Z

represented goods vehicles. "Q" identified bogie flat wagons within the goods vehicle
group.

Q 62 was introduced into service on the 16 th of September 1913. During this
particular year, 1705 other wagons were constructed, which made it the third most
prolific year of construction in Victorian Railways history.

The wagon was built at Newport Workshops. No welding was used in its construction.
The entire chassis (other than for a couple of pieces of C channel on which the bogie
centres are mounted) was made of angle iron and flat plate hand riveted together
(see detail below).

Photo: Andrew Swaine

As was common in those days, the angle iron, and possibly the flat plate as well,
was imported from manufacturers in the United Kingdom. The angle iron on this
wagon still shows branding from the Lanarkshire Steel Works in Motherwell, Scotland.
A picture of their steel works in later years is shown below:

Photo: Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland; SC786145

The Lanarkshire Steel Works were built in 1890, and made steel by the acid open-hearth

method. The business started to struggle in 1919, and was taken over by Colvilles Ltd
(another major UK steel producer) in 1936. Much of the steel manufacturing industry
was nationalised in the UK in 1967 and became part of British Steel plc. In the latter half
of the 1970's, the open-hearth method of steel production was deemed too inefficient, dirty
and costly to continue with, and many steelworks in the UK were closed down, one of
which was Lanarkshire. The derelict site is now being redeveloped as part of a massive
housing project.

The Q class would have been one of the earliest bogie freight wagons built by the VR, as
the preference at that time was for four and six wheel non-bogie vehicles.

The reason for this was that up until the 1920's, freight (other than bulk grain) was generally
transported in small quantities (nowadays referred to as LCL, or Less than Container Load)
to / from a large number of locations. A key factor influencing this back in the early 1900's
was that the primary way to transport freight to / from the nearest railway station was still
by horse and cart or bullock wagon. It was therefore considered uneconomical and
inefficient for the VR to build and use large bogie wagons to transport or collect what
amounted to small deliveries. Furthermore, these shipments often required wagons to
be individually shunted off at small country stations all over the State to be loaded /
unloaded. If outbound loading had to be transferred off a large bogie wagon by hand
while the rest of the train waited, it became very inefficient. Likewise, leaving large bogie

wagons in remote country sidings to be only partially filled with inbound freight did not
make sense. While this represented logical thinking in the 1900's, it lingered on in the
VR for several decades too long, way after the introduction of semi-trailers and other
road-based efficiencies came into play. By the time the realisation set in that the most
effective role for railways was to move large, high speed bogie wagon trainloads of bulk
goods to a limited number of distribution centres, it was almost too late.

Therefore the purpose of Q 62 when it was built was not the bulk transport role we now
associate with bogie wagons, but rather the handling of awkward, over length or heavy
loads that were beyond the capacity of four wheel wagons.

The bogies on the example preserved by the Mornington Railway are hand-constructed
plate frame types, with plain bearing axleboxes (see below). It also had standard VR
screw couplings and buffers, and a hand-wheel operated handbrake which could be
worked from both sides of the wagon.

Photo: Andrew Swaine

The frames of the bogies still show the rough edges indicative of having been cut by
blacksmiths' hand tools rather than by oxy-acetylene cutting (see below).

Photo: Andrew Swaine

Little is known about the lading that the wagon carried in the early part of its life, although
it is likely that with its flat deck, it was used to transport a variety of long, awkward or
heavy loads such as wooden poles, steel bridge girders and large sheet glass.

In November 1930, Q 62 entered Newport workshops for a five year overhaul and
conversion to automatic coupling. It was out of service for 47 days, and emerged,
modernised and ready for traffic, in January 1931.

By 1976, Q 62 had found a niche as a bogie transportation vehicle, moving new Hitachi
silver train bogies from Newport Workshops (where they were delivered) to the Martin
& King works at Somerton, where they were fitted to the assembled bodies. There were
no sidings or unloading facilities at Somerton, so presumably the Ford sidings and facilities
at nearby Upfield were used. Prior to Q 62 (and presumably other Q wagons as well)
taking this role, the VR were using a fleet four wheel HR wagons to perform this task.
They were now able to be freed up and assigned back to inter-workshop bogie transfer
tasks. The photo below is from the Peter J Vincent collection, and shows Q 62 at
Newport workshops in October 1976. It has cradles fixed directly to the deck in which
the wheels of the bogies were placed to secure them for transportation .

Photo: Peter J Vincent

Shown below is another picture of the wagon sitting at Newport near a group of surplus
steam locomotive boilers. Some of these almost certainly ended up at SteamRail when
they moved into the Tarpaulin Shop site at Newport.

Photo: Peter J Vincent

The next known event of significance was that in August 1980, as part of a program to
be able to identify all rail wagons nationally, Q 62 was taken to North Melbourne and
given a new identity, VFAA 62. The photo below was taken in 1981.

Photo: Peter J Vincent

The meaning of the new name was as follows:

V = Victoria
F = Flat Wagon
A = Oldest Wagon Class in Group
A = 65 km/h speed limit, non-bogie exchange

In 1981, VFAA 62 was photographed with stencilling noting "DIRECT TRAFFIC
BETWEEN UPFIELD & DANDENONG JOLIMONT W'SHOPS" (see below).

Photo: Peter J Vincent

(In a bid to avoid making new stencils, the VR simply amended the existing stencil by
adding the word "Dandenong" and painting over the word "Newport" and replacing it
with "Jolimont"). It appears that this new stencilling related to a task assigned to the wagon
from 1981. Around this time, a number of Harris suburban electric cars were sent to
Comeng in Dandenong for body refurbishment so they could be used as interurban,
diesel hauled passenger cars. The bodies were rebuilt externally at Comeng and were
then transferred on temporary bogies to Martin & King in Somerton, where the interiors
were fitted out. The bogies off the cars were removed at Comeng in Dandenong,
transported on VFAA 62 (and possibly other wagons too) to Jolimont Electrical
Workshops for reconditioning, after which they were on-hauled to Upfield (Somerton)
to be installed under the "new" Harris cars.

To handle this traffic effectively, the cumbersome shaped-steel wheel cradles welded
directly to the deck of the wagon previously were replaced with new, more
sophisticated bogie cradles (see below).

Photo: Peter J Vincent

Today, there is virtually nothing left of the stencils applied to VFAA 62 to describe
this traffic, other than the faint remains of the words "..& DANDENONG" (see below)

Photo: Andrew Swaine

Sometime after 1984, a further change to the wagon's ID was made, when it was
provided with the suffix "P", which it wears to this day (see below)

Photo: Andrew Swaine

The "P" was a check digit. These were introduced to ensure that a wagon's ID was not
typed incorrectly into computer systems. This is actually surprising easy to do when a 0
can be typed as an O, or a 1 can be typed as an I (Note: I, O, 1 and 0 are never used
as check digits!). When the ID was entered correctly with the suffix, an algorithm used
by the computer confirmed that P was the only correct suffix for the combination VFAA,
which meant that the ID was correct. In later years, some rollingstock operators
incorporated the suffix into the vehicle number so that it was not hyphenated, however
the principle remained the same. Two of the Mornington Railway's other wagons still
retain hyphenated suffixes (GY 6054 X and G 5038 S ).

The wagon received a brake exam in 1984, and was due for a further one at Bendigo
North workshops in 1987 (see below - PV stands for Piston/Valve, which means that
the brake piston and triple valve require strip down examination)

Photo: Andrew Swaine

For some reason it appears that this examination was never performed.

Peter Vincent, well known Victorian Railways rollingstock historian, is confident that
the wagon was withdrawn from service in the late 1980's simply because of its age
and its now non-standard bogies.

It was shunted into the Spotswood Reclamation depot and was possibly used for
carting scrap between Newport and Spotswood (although it would not have been
allowed to be marshalled into a train because its brake exam was not current).
Alternatively, it may just have been used to shuttle scrap and / or reclaimed rails
around the site at Spotswood. There is also a lesser possibility that it had run a hot
axlebox in service, and this forced its withdrawal to Spotswood, pending scrapping.
The axlebox problem was discovered by the Mornington Railway when we railed the
wagon back from Mornington to Moorooduc.

Whatever the reason, eventually the wagon ceased being useful, and it was shunted into
a dead end road at Spotswood Reclamation, where it remained hidden behind rakes
of surplus GY wagons for many years. It is highly likely that at this stage it was
intended for scrapping. Why this was not done remains a mystery.

I found VFAA 62 P in October 2001, when I was permitted to visit the Spotswood
reclamation site with a view to acquiring some surplus goods wagons to augment the
Mornington Railway goods wagon fleet. I was actually looking for GY / G / RY
wagons, and was surprised to find this one almost lost in weeds and hidden from
view by other surplus wagons.

Photo: Andrew Swaine

I spoke to the Manager of the Spotswood site, Phil Boyd, and he said that VFAA 62 P
was surplus to his requirements. He suggested that I speak to VicTrack who were the
owners of the wagon to see if they were prepared to release it to us as a historic vehicle.
Given the vehicles size, and therefore possible high scrap value, he suggested that we put
in a separate application to VicTrack from the one we were making for the four wheel
wagons.   After we had completed the acquisition of the four wheel wagons, I did
some research on VFAA 62 P , which I then presented to the Mornington Railway's
Committee of Management. Given the age and relative rarity of the vehicle, the fact
that it was locally built, and that it would provide a useful and practical addition to the
Mornington Railway fleet, the Committee of Management agreed to allow me to
apply to VicTrack to have it released to us. However, it was stipulated that the acquisition
of the wagon would need to be funded from donations, not already- budgeted
Mornington Railway funds.   In November 2001, I wrote to VicTrack asking them
to consider releasing the wagon to the Mornington Railway for ongoing use as a
heritage railway vehicle. To my surprise, I received a response back from VicTrack
stating that due to the age and heritage value of VFAA 62 P (which they had only
become aware of because of my submission!), the wagon would have to be subjected
to a Heritage Victoria evaluation! Although it was frustrating, it was pleasing to see
that they were giving the disposal of heritage rollingstock the due diligence it deserved.  
Several months passed while the bureaucratic wheels slowly turned. Finally, in June 2002,
after a number of phone calls were made to VicTrack and Heritage Victoria to keep
the request moving, VicTrack agreed to release the wagon to us for preservation
purposes at no cost, provided that they were recognised as a donor. Particular thanks
must go to Gregg Kennedy from VicTrack, who was particularly helpful with this project.  
I then needed to raise sufficient funds to shift the wagon from Spotswood to Mornington,
where it would have to be unloaded. Phil Boyd kindly arranged to have it lifted onto a
truck at Spotswood at minimal cost, but we still needed to hire an extendable deck
semi trailer and cranes at the Mornington end to unload it onto the tracks. The all-up
cost was going to be around $1600. By phoning around and appealing to members
through the newsletter, I was able to raise sufficient funds, thanks to the following
individuals, whose contribution is recognised by a plaque affixed to the wagon:

With the approvals in order, Phil Boyd made it his mission to take care of the wagon for
us, which was important as the Spotswood site was being cleared of all surplus rolling
stock at the time. VFAA 62 P toured all over the Spotswood site as Phil attempted to
keep it out of the way of the scrappers and their eager torches. Here it is shown sitting
near the Melbourne Road end of the depot. The area indicated by the arrow is where
the wagon was previously stored. When this picture was taken in May 2002, virtually
all the tracks in that entire area had been torn up and all the remaining unused
rollingstock had been scrapped.  

Photo: Andrew Swaine

In August 2002, Phil moved the wagon onto a track near his office. It was adjacent to a
  concrete hard stand, from where we would be able to load it easily. Wayne Cameron,
Andrew Becker and I then went to Spotswood armed with tools, air hoses, brake taps
and test gauges to overhaul and certify the wagon as fit for travel on the Mornington line,
as it could not be unloaded at Moorooduc. This meant that it would have to be towed
4.5 kilometres.   After freeing up all the brake gear, checking the condition of the brake
piston and triple valve and greasing them, and exchanging the old brake hoses and taps
for new ones, the brakes were tested and found to be satisfactory for the short journey.
We checked the wheel flange profiles, which were satisfactory, and did a quick survey
of the undergear, which, although suffering from a few minor defects, was generally in
good condition. We also freed up the automatic couplers. We decided to leave the
siphoning out of the old axlebox oil and refilling of them with fresh oil until we got the
wagon back to Mornington.   Finally, on the 16 th of October 2002, after several
earlier false starts, everything was ready. Wayne Cameron, Andrew Becker and I
arrived early at Spotswood and met the truck driver there. Shortly after, the forklifts
provided by Wayne Rail Pty Ltd arrived. Then, at about 9.00am, VFAA 62 P was
picked up by the forklifts and hung swaying in the breeze.  

Photo: Andrew Swaine

The extendable deck semi trailer was then backed underneath the 20 ton wagon and it
was gently lowered down onto timbers placed on its deck.

Photo: Andrew Swaine

Once the wagon was dogged down, we said farewell to our friend and wagon guardian
Phil Boyd, and the long journey back to Mornington got underway.

The trip was uneventful, and once we arrived at Mornington station, Buchanan's Cranes
unloaded the wagon from the truck, and gently placed it on the Mornington line.
We then syphoned out the axleboxes and filled them completely with fresh oil.

When the wagon was ready to travel, Mornington Railway diesel loco T 411, under
the control of driver Maurice Clarke, backed up to the wagon and coupled up. Then,
with instructions to travel no faster than 10 km/h, the special train set off for Moorooduc.

However, despite our care and copious oiling, one of the axleboxes did run hot on the
journey back. This was detected at the first stop at Tanti station, and was monitored
closely from then on as the journey continued. The special train arrived safely at
Moorooduc around 20 minutes later.

Several weeks after the wagon arrived at Moorooduc, the faulty wheelset was
exchanged with a good one by Dick Niggemeyer. The wagon's handbrake was
also reconditioned by Kevin Miles.

Since then, VFAA 62 P has provided sterling service as a work platform during the
retube of K163, and has ventured out onto the Mornington line several times on work
trains. It is also being considered as a possible mobile storage facility for K177's boiler,
once it is returned for retubing and staying. It has proved to be a fascinating and useful
addition to the Mornington Railway's historic vehicle fleet.

The photo below shows VFAA 62P as it looks today, in company with other
Mornington Railway rollingstock at the Moorooduc depot.

Photo: Andrew Swaine

There are at least four surviving members of the Q class fleet either in service, or preserved,
however there is only one VFAA. The known ones are:

- Q 62 / VFAA 62 P (In operational service with the Mornington Railway)

- Q 26 (modified to carry a Pintsch Gas storage tank and pumping mechanism. Preserved
non-operational by the ARHS at Newport. Has the remains of a very old passenger
carriage installed over the pumping mechanism and the front of the tank to protect it
from the weather. Apparently it has had its identity swapped with Q 30)

- Q 30 (Same as Q 26. Also had its ID reversed)

- Q 129 (Puffing Billy have preserved this wagon which was designed to transport
narrow gauge Garrett locomotives to Newport for overhaul. It is not operational.
However, it is quite a different design to Q 62)

I would like to thank Peter J Vincent for his invaluable assistance with this article.
Peter's website can be found at http://www.pjv101.net It is an invaluable
resource for anyone interested in Victorian Railways rollingstock history