From 1956 to 1958, 40 guard's vans of the CP design were constructed by A.E. Goodwin (NSW), and painted in a Passenger Red livery. They were intended to run on passenger trains and some fast goods trains, and had a freight capacity of 10 tons. The vans were of all-steel construction and welded to an underframe, which rested on two 4-wheeled bogies fitted with roller bearings.
To eliminate the ZJF vans from service between Melbourne and Adelaide, nine of the 40 vans were recoded to JCP in the late 1960s, the 'J' representing Joint Stock. They were not needed from the mid-1980s and so were then re-lettered back to CP with their old numbers.
Over time some members of the class were repainted into Wagon Red, representing their move from passenger to freight service.
Between 1983 and 1986 the entire class was recoded to VVCP. However, in 1987 vans VVCP 34, 16, 25 and 6 were reclassed to CP 291-294 respectively and painted into the then-current V/Line orange livery. The first three had corridor connections added at both ends, though CP294 only had the connection installed at one end. These connections were based on the design used for the N sets.
All four vans were later transferred to West Coast Railway in 1993, and repainted directly from the V/Line orange scheme into West Coast Railways' blue with white and yellow in mid-1994.
At the end of 1996, vans CP292 and CP294 were converted to include head-end-power generators in the west end, and recoded to PCP.
In 2000, van CP291 was sold to Steamrail Victoria. It was last used in that year when the Millennium Aurora special train visited Melbourne from Sydney. It was spotted stabled in the westernmost storage siding of Newport Workshops' West Block on 12 November 2016. The van appeared to have had a single coat of Victorian Railways royal blue applied over the top of the West Coast Railways scheme, but fifteen years of weathering has worn that down with the outline of the West Coast Railway decals showing through; and in other places the light blue and even the V/Line orange have been exposed. Underframe markings indicate that the van was last examined for serviceability sometime in 2000
With the demise of West Coast Railway in 2004, PCP292 became the property of Steamrail, which repainted the van blue and gold with Steamrail Victoria lettering. PCP 294 was acquired by 707 Operations and repainted in the Vintage Rail Travel red and silver livery with 707 Operation logos. Both vans are used as observation vans on railfan tours. I would like to thank S301 for allowing me to use his script and taildisc on this asset and everyone who has helped me with this project
Тип: traincar