Re: Harris trains

["Ron Bennell" <rbennell@teleport.com>]

Where can I get a copy of "Electric Railways of Victoria"?

I left VR in 1982.  At that time there were more than a few stories running
around the EE Branch about them....

> 2 car sets M-M for Pakenham shuttles
This arrangement with the once every so often when the resident Silver M-DT
was brought in for maintenance.
One story goes that an M-M was made up as required.  Apparently the M's were
the one with 200hp motors (early 500s).  In later life some cars had their
field weakening circuits reactivated (they were deactivated in the 1960's as
an economy measure).  For the M-M combination, this meant a high top speed
capability, with good acceleration.  The rumour was that these capabilities
were often tested to their extreme on late night shuttle runs between
Pakenham and Dandenong.  While not officially known about, some of the old
boys were glad to see "their" machines running as they were designed to do,
even though they never ran to Geelong as originally planned

> Up to the end of Harris running the set
> 501M-601T-602T-502M-501BT-603T-503M (without or without the additional
> 1000 series number for M's and 2000 series for T/BT's )
> remained together. This set was used for all mods and testing from the
> 1960's to the 1980's (except rheo braking ). The last major test was the
> fitting of Westcode Triple valve and EP gear ( no 7 step EP relay ).
>
> The greaser train to traralgon usually ran M-M-Greaser-M-M.
This arrangement I never saw to my dismay.  I worked on the early wire
greaser (447M) when 457M and 460M (plus two others I cannot remember) that
were set up for running to Traralgon.  I was not involved with the original
3CM wire greaser trials, but have many photos of it.

Ron