Victorian Railways narrow-gauge freight vehicles
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Unlike the broad-gauge, the Victorian Railways' 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) narrow-gauge network never had four-wheeled trucks (aside from a handful of trollies). Instead, a single design of 249 underframes was constructed, with identical structure, bogies, couplers and brake equipment. Different bodies were provided on these frames for each purpose. The most common, by far, was the convertible flat/open truck, followed by cattle, louvred, insulated and boxcar types.
From 1926, all of the goods stock which had double-letter classification, were simplified to single-letter classification (e.g. NMM became NM). In more recent years, the E.T.R.B. has started a process of reclassifying all previously double-letter classified goods stock back to its original identities. This is in recognition of the adopted Era of Significance for the Railway, which covers period 1900–1930, during which time they mostly had the double letter coding.
The same frame design was later used for the second generation of NBH passenger carriages, after the first had been converted from NQR flat/open trucks.