28/05/2024
Newport modified imported J wagons in 1925. The story of J 3.
Photo 1 is a VR photos of J1, J2 and J3 shortly after they were assembled at Newport in 1925.
Photo 2 is a current VicTrack photo of VHJA 8-H in Newport east yard. We believe that this wagon was originally J3
(The following article was written by Bob Carlisle and appeared in the February ’24 edition of the Diamond Valley Railway newsletter, ‘Diamond Rails’, and appears with its editor and the authors permission.)
In 1925, under the auspices of Railway commissioner Webb, the South Australian Railways (SAR) was part-way through an order for a large number of coal wagons from an American supplier. The Victorian Railways decided to make use of this opportunity and chose to experiment with a number of wagon styles, by tacking twelve 40-ton capacity hopper wagons, on to the SAR order.
The 12 coal wagons were imported as kits from the American Car and Foundry (ACF) Co., delivered to Newport Workshops, assembled there and classified as “J”, and then released to traffic over a seventeen-day period late in 1925.
The order to ACF Co. also included two each of the standard American Car and Foundry Company 40-ton capacity E open, V louvre, and S flat wagons, all of which the SAR purchased in much larger quantities.
The design of these coal wagons is very interesting, During World War I, the US railroads experienced a critical equipment shortage due to increased traffic needs. The United States Railroad Administration (USRA) designed a standard 55 ton capacity hopper wagon to relieve this shortage. Built from 1918, 25,000 of these cars were primarily assigned to the great coal-hauling roads of the east and mid-west of the US. The car design was very successful and later became one of the standard cars of the American Railway Association as well as the basis for building longer and higher cars to carry larger coal loads. However, the Australian version was reduced in height by ACF to reduce the load to 40 tons in order to meet the lower axle load specifications of both the SAR and VR.
VR intended to use the hopper wagons for “slack coal” traffic between Wonthaggi and Newport Power Station. The wagons were designed however for anthracite coal as found in the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. Consequently, the rather shallow discharge angles of the wagon hoppers resulted in discharge issues, probably because of the higher water content of Victorian brown coal compared to the drier black (denser) coal mined on the east coast of North America.
Because the wagons were failures in their intended traffic, some other use had to be found for them. In the late 1920s they were used for ballast, then they spent a short time in briquette traffic in the late 1930s, then coal traffic in the 1940s again between Wonthaggi and Maryvale (reversing at Dandenong), before returning to ballast traffic by the 1950s. Another experiment was conducted in 1957 with J 8 being given a temporary roof as a trial for bulk grain transport. The wagon hopper was covered the entire length with a raised top, similar to the CJ wagons at the time.
In late 1958, these 12 wagons all re-entered Newport Workshops and were converted to carry cement from Fyansford to Bandiana for the Kiewa Hydroelectric scheme. J 8 was the first of the J wagons to be converted. It was followed closely by 12, 11, 10, 6, 7, 9, 1, 4, 5, 3 and 2 over the following two years. These conversions were known as the CJ class, numbers 51-54 and 80-87.
After this traffic finished, the CJ’s sole traffic was bulk cement from Fyansford near Geelong to Arden Street (North Melbourne) in block trains. (They were coded CJF from 1966 - 1970).
In summary, the bogie hopper wagon currently stored in the East yard at Newport, entered traffic in 1925 as J 3. It became CJ 3 in 1959/60, then CJF 53 in 1967/69, then back to CJ 53 in 1969/70. CJ 53 was reclassified to VHCA 53 in 1979. There the trail stops and there is no further mention of when it became VHJA 3-H and what modification were made which required this latest renumbering. From then on the trail dries up. Does anyone know when this wagon was modified and reclassified to become VHJA 3 and what those modifications were?
This wagon is one of many that has a unique history and graphically illustrates the capacity Newport workshops had in machinery and workers skill to carry out design changes as different types of traffic occurred. As the only remaining example of a whole group of modified wagons with a unique history, this wagon deserves to be preserved and properly displayed at the Newport Workshops.
Photo credits: ‘J’ wagons brand new assembled at Newport in 1925.
