South Australian Railways steel carriage stock

Between 1936 and 1942, South Australian Railways built 24 steel carriages at its Islington Railway Workshops. All were painted cream and green being repainted maroon and silver in the 1960s. Aside from a few written off after accidents, all passed to Australian National in March 1978.[1]

In the early 1980s, 14 were sold to SteamAge to operate charther services out of Melbourne. In 1987, these were sold to Australian Vintage Travel and converted to standard gauge for use on the Southern Cross Express luxury train in New South Wales.[2] After this ceased, the carriages were sold to Northern Rivers Railroad for use on its Ritz Rail tourist train on the Murwillumbah line.[1][3] They were stored at Junee Locomotive Depot before moving to Casino in October 1996.[4][5]

A few remained in service when Australian National's passenger operations were sold to Great Southern Rail in November 1997. Others were sold to SteamRanger. Today many are owned by Steamrail Victoria.[1][6]

References

  1. 1 2 3 South Australian Steel Cars Chris' Commonwealth Railways Pages
  2. ↑ "Southern Cross Express" Railway Digest October 1988 pages 365-369
  3. ↑ "Southern Cross Express cars sold" Railway Digest February 1990 page 47
  4. ↑ "The Northern Rivers Railroad" Railway Digest December 1996 page 28
  5. ↑ "Northern Rivers launches a Ritzy train" Railway Digest July 1999 page 22
  6. ↑ Carriages Steamrail
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