Plain sided CW van

17CW trailing S313 on a up Dimboola pass passing Garden City Flour Mill at Ballarat North.

The majority of the CW guards vans were built alongside the other W class cars (AW, BW and ABW) although there were 5 vans constructed with sheet metal sides and elliptical roofs in 1935, 8 years after the last 64ft W cars entered service. These vans had a more austere appearance to the earlier CW's in keeping with the Great Depression in which they were built.



Construction follows the same method as was employed in the building the CE's, layers of styrene sheet of various thicknesses (see recent post). This van was actually built before the CE's to test the method, but has only just been painted and entered service.

By 1983, CW vans were generally employed on the short distance commuter runs where there smaller van capacity wasn't an issue. Roster N12 which was in operation at the start of the year had CW's in services to Kyneton, Bacchus Marsh and Bendigo (3 sets of CW-AE-BW-BW) and sets used on services to Geelong and Bacchus Marsh  (4 sets of CW-AE-BEL-BEL-BEL).  One of these sets operated the 2030 service to Ballarat (Friday's only) returning to Spencer Street Saturday afternoon. 

The Working Timetable Addenda issued on the 16th May 1983, lists that 3 of the plain sided vans were still in service, numbers 17, 19 and 20. At Easter on Thursday 31/03/1983, 17 CW was noted on the 1635 Kyneton service in a consist of 17CW-40AW-38BW-8BW-T351. The set returned from Kyneton to Spencer Street at 2005 and was shunted to platform 7 to form the 0700 Geelong service next morning (Good Friday).



17 CW is thevan at the front of a Ballarat commuter train as it crosses from the Down to Up line in Ballarat yard.

17CW is the only plain sided elliptical roofed van to survive into preservation. It was originally allocated to the South Gippsland Railway although since this group has folded it has been transferred to the care of the Yarra Valley Railway.