FFF 35 Friday 24th March 2023
West Block 3 Road.
For Steamrail volunteers who have a special interest in electric traction, 3 Road in West Block is where all the action is. 3 road has one central track and a second track on the west side which diverges just inside the door. The east side of this bay is all workbenches and parts storage.
Elecrail has about 20 carriages allocated, a quarter of which are now serviceable and accredited to operate on Melbourne metro. Some are close to serviceable, others are in various conditions from good to very poor – but at least all are under cover out of the weather. Also on Elecrails list are three L class, 1160, 1162, and 1169, and three E class elec locos 1106, 1108, and 1109. The L class are now all out in the weather on the centre track between centre and WB.
Following the disastrous fire in West Block in March 2015 when the beautifully restored swing door ‘dog box carriages were destroyed, 113M and 156M have been added to Elecrails list. These two motor carriages were heavily stripped when used decades ago as Jolimont workshop pilots and are technically restorable, but only with an enormous amount of time and financial resources. They along with a few Tait carriages and 10CM are stored in East Block. 93M swing door motor carriage and resurrected chicken house, is the next Elecrail major project which is currently well on the way in 5 road WB. E 1109 has also been a longstanding project way down the back of 5 road which hasn’t seen much progress for many years.
Elecrail also have two ZD vans 470, and 600 ZD. Having dual couplers they are very valuable when shunting the screw-coupled Tait carriages in and out of 3 road.
Comments are closed