S.A.R. Steel Cars

General Information

The S.A.R. steel carraiges were all built at the Islington workshops between 1936 and 1942. The "500" and "600" class cars bogies were all fitted with plain bearings, all the others had roller bearings. All cars were painted green and cream with a black roof until the late 1960s when they were repainted maroon and silver to match the air conditioned rollingstock.

The SteamAge "500", "600" and "700" steel carriages that were refurbished for Melbourne Limited were all given the names of Victorian lakes. These cars initially departed Adelaide on 3.12.1981 with all 14 purchased carriages in a single consists. The inaugural Melbourne Limited trip was on Saturday 15.6.1985 to Swan Hill. At this time only some of the carraiges had been updated, then rest being scheduled for refurbishment at a later date.

After SteamAge collapsed, the carraiges were resold in 1987 to Australian Vintage Travel and used to form a standard gauge train called The Southern Cross Express. Some additional cars were refurbished to provide Dining and a Power car, with the new service being launched on a special to Seymour on Friday 11.12.1897 and a promotional tour to Canberra on Friday 22 to Sunday 24.1.1988. Australian Vintage Travel went into receivership July 1988, and all the rollingstock was put up for tender.

Late 1989 two of the carriages were sold to a private individual in Sydney, who intended to use them for private trips, the rest where sold to the Northern Rivers Scenic Railway (NRSR)in NSW who intended to operate them at Murwillumbah. On 29.12.1989 all the cars on standard gauge were transferred to Goulburn Roundhouse, the rest being stored at SteamRail's depot at Newport. The Goulburn based cars were eventually transferred further north, but do not seem to have been placed into any regular passenger service. The four stored at SteamRail's depot were evetually sold to West Coast Railway who have been slowly restoring them to service.

The last four broad gauge carraiges in Australian National service were leased to V/LINE from 1983 to 1992, at which time they returned to South Australia were they were put into storage. Eventually they were returned to service for use on a short lived train called The Explorer, before being returned to storage until sold to Great Southern Railway on 1.11.1997. Great Southern sold the four Explorer cars plus two others on standard gauge to SteamRail in June 1998.

Jump to:

500 Class	600 Class	700 Class	750 Class
780 Class	800 Class	850 Class	860 Class