Victorian Government Rlys 0-6-0 Locomotives in Australia

Class R (Locobase 9552)

Data from Howell, Comparative Statistics of the Australasian Railways, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, March 1899, pp. 94-95.

Locobase 9551 shows the passenger-type D class that came from Phoenix Foundry in 1887. They were preceded by very similar freight locomotives that used the same boiler but smaller drivers in an all-adhesion layout. The last of these small goods engines went out of service in 1944.

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Class R - Belgian (Locobase 10652)

Data from [], last accessed 12 July 2009.

Locobase suspects these are a subclass built to requirements similar to those issued for the Rs that were produced 2 years earlier (Locobase 9552). They were smaller and less powerful, however.

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Class T (Locobase 2394)

Data from the Australian Railway History Museum (ARHS) website, [] -- accessed 23 December 2006.

The ARHS explains the reasons for this class:"The T class were built for operation on the lightly-built branch lines around Victoria and were used on goods, passenger and mixed trains."

The prototype was built by Beyer, Peacock & Co. in England. Her 22 sisters were produced by Phoenix Foundry in Ballarat beginning in 1884. Phoenix followed the inside-cylinder, plate-frame pattern closely, but added a cab and trailed a 6-wheel tender in place of the 4-wheel tender supplied by BP. By the time Victorian took over the railway in 1923, only 6 were left. 1933 saw the last two, now designated T92 & T94, given flangeless drivers on the middle axle for tight-curve radii at the Newport Powerhouse. These two carried on until 31 March 1951 for T92 and 13 June 1952 for T94.

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Class X (Locobase 9554)

Data from Howell, Comparative Statistics of the Australasian Railways, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, March 1899, pp. 94-95

Using the same firebox as the New A and Y classes, the X classes sported bigger boilers and drivers that undoubtedly made them useful as dual-service locomotives. The last of these was scrapped in 1920.

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Class Y (Locobase 2395)

Data from Bruce Payne, " A Brief History of the Victorian Railways Y Class", written on behalf of the Australian Railway Historical Society and written for the tour notes accompanying the return of Y 112 to service on 30 March 1996 and archived at []

Bigger, more powerful "goods" engines than the earlier Ts. Designed by VR's Richard Speight, the prototype, like that of the T, was built in England, but by Kitson & Co, not Beyer, Peacock & Co. in England. Another 30 sisters were produced by Phoenix Foundry. As built, they had an evaporative heating surface of 1,151 sq ft (107 sq m) in boilers pressed to 140 psi. According to [] (visited in November 2002) , "The price per engine was shown as 4127-9-11 pounds ($272,382), the same for both Phoenix and Kitson types, a price that seemed an obvious average." The Phoenixrises website adds that these were the heaviest 0-6-0s to run "in the country" (not sure if that's Victoria or Australia.)

Aaron Collins emailed steamlocomotive.com with a correction to this entry in January 2013. He told us that all of the Ys were rebuilt between 1904 and 1909 with the boiler that was pressed to 175 psi (12.07 bar) and increased heating surface to 1,424 sq ft (132.3 sq m).

[] notes that they were known as "free steamers and were reasonable riders for their 0-6-0 wheeel arrangement." Y-class engines often were used with suburban tank locomotives on the Box Hill/Ringwood and the Caulfield lines as well as for special race trains and Sunday excursions.

Scrapping began in 1926 and the number was gradually reduced until the last was withdrawn in 1963.