Railmotors RM 74 sole survivor.

Friday Fact & Fotos FFF 56Friday 18th August 2023

Railmotors RM 74 sole survivor.

The Daylesford ‘Spa country railway’ are involved in a long-term restoration of RM 74, one of those cars we talked about last Friday. Unlike the cars which were converted at Newport to be railmotors, RM 74 was imported as a Dodge LE 1936 chassis and engine for a 1 ½ ton truck. It was railed straight across to Adelaide because the South Australian Railways (SAR) had similar vehicles built by T. J. Richards, a local coachbuilder. In 1928 T. J. Richards had bought rights to from Chrysler to manufacture bodies for Chrysler, Dodge, De Soto and Plymouth cars which became its main production activity. After many name changes and takeovers, the company eventually became Chrysler Australia. So, RM 74 started as an imported engine and chassis which was widened by 8 inches. Then, from the firewall back most of the body parts were 1935 Dodge panels and fittings which were ‘modified’ by the builder to fit. So, it is very hard to identify what is original from which model, and what other bits have been scrounged from other cars of the same vintage. The SAR provided the rail parts and carried out testing, before it returned to Victoria as loading on a freight train. Then it had a very varied service history for 30 years which included the branch from the main SW line at Birregurra to Forrest. One photo shows RM 74 being rolled out of its custom-built shed at Birregurra. Another shows it hauling a trailer at Cosgrove on the line out from Shepparton to Dookie & Katamatite. There are also records and photos of it working in the NE. It was finally ‘rescued’ from a scrap dealer in Benalla in 1974. It spent another 26 years in the Rail Museum at Newport as a ‘one of these days we will finally get to restore it’ project. The Daylesford Spa Country Railway deserve our support as they have the restoration well underway with the body work being done by a professional vintage car restorer in Bayswater. Certainly RM 74 it is a foreigner, but it is the ONLY remaining one in a group of interesting vehicles most of which were built or converted at Newport. If you have any information or photos of this group of railmotors, please add to this post. (Thanks to David Smithwick from the Daylesford Spa Country Railway who provided most of the information and photos for this post)