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VR luxury car No 52

VR No 52 at Brighton Beach (1955). Photograph Graham Jordan collection.

VR No 52 at Brighton Beach (1955).
Photograph from the Graham Jordan collection.

This tramcar was one of an order of three built by the VR Newport Workshops for the broad gauge Brighton Beach line in 1941, as part of a rehabilitation program. Many of the electrical components were sourced from spare parts acquired for the cancelled four drop centre cars of the same type as No 34.

The design was based on the M&MTB SW6 design then under construction, but they were somewhat shorter and had significantly narrower sliding doors and two piece driver’s windscreens. They also made use of many components common with the Tait suburban carriages being built concurrently at Newport. The design was a significant advance on the passenger comfort available with the rest of the VR tramcar fleet.

On closure of the Brighton Beach line, this tramcar along with its two sister cars, Nos. 53 and 54, were sold to the M&MTB. This tramcar, along with its sisters, was notable for being the only tramcars acquired and operated by the M&MTB from another operator after its initial formation in the early 1920s. No 54 was scrapped in 1967 without seeing further service. The M&MTB replaced the broad gauge Brill 77E trucks with standard gauge No 15 trucks and the tram entered service in 1959. It was allocated to Essendon Depot and mostly used on the Footscray to Moonee Ponds line. These cars were unpopular with drivers due to the central windshield division obscuring the driver’s forward vision. This tramcar was withdrawn from service in 1975 and acquired by the TMSV without trucks in 1982.

It is planned to restore this tramcar to as built condition in the VR Bristol Green and cream livery of the 1940s, but utilising No 15 trucks due to the lack of availability of the original type of standard gauge trucks.