HR workshop transport wagons

HR103, a bogie transport wagon with HR170, a wheel transport wagon.

 

The Victorian Railway's had a large pool of departmental wagons used to transfer materials between the four railway workshops (Newport, Jolimont, Bendigo North and Ballarat North). The wagons were used to transport pantographs, autocouplers, bogies, wheels, traction motors and other components. Some of these were captive in service between particular workshops and were stencilled accordingly.

The original HR's were 4 wheeled wagons, by the 1970's obsolete bogie wagons were also being converted to departmental use. The two HR's that these models are based on were converted from E open or S flat wagons.



These models were scratch built from styrene sheet with styrene I and C channel used for the bracing and wheel stops. The bogies and brake wheel are from Steam Era Models. Offcuts of rail were added to the deck of HR103. The bogies on the deck of HR103 are plastic Athearn bogies, used because they have bracing and brake detail (not included on the SEM bogies) and as their light weight wouldn't contribute to the weight of the wagon.  I'm unsure if I'll keep the wheel load on HR170 as I really need to use wheels with the axle bearing boxes included.

 

Reference photo used to build the model of HR103. Rob O'Regan's website www.robx1.net provides photo's of the majority of VR's 182 HR wagons.

On the layout HR103 and HR170 will be used to replicate the departmental traffic between the VR's railway workshops. HR's for the Ballarat North workshops usually arrived overnight on the Ballarat goods and were transferred to the workshops during the day by the pilot. The pilot would exchange these with other wagons in departmental service together with collecting wagons that had been repaired or newly constructed in the workshops.

In the long term I hope to build a fleet of HR's representing the major variations in roles and styles of these departmental wagons.