Daylight Overland



B69-X48 lead the Daylight Overland through Ballarat North Thurs 13/01/1983.

The Daylight Overland is probably the train that best places the location and era of the layout. From Monday 20th December 1982 until Tuesday 1st February 1983, a daylight Overland operated in each direction between Melbourne and Adelaide. This was a trial to determine if a market existed to justify the operation of a regular Daylight service.

The westbound service ran combined as far as Horsham with the regular 0755 Horsham pass. The loco for the Horsham train was marshalled ahead of the locomotive for the Overland. The N set and VLPY or VBPY van were placed at the rear of the Overland cars and were detached on arrival in Horsham.

B72-X39 lead the combined Daylight Overland and Horsham pass. on Fri 21/01/1983.

The eastbound service ran as a separate service throughout. The X or S were exchanged for a 930 at Serviceton. The services were timetabled to cross at Diapur. The services operated Monday to Saturday, although due to public holidays, services operated on Sundays for Boxing Day and New Years Day.

S312 leads the Up Daylight Overland across Macarthur Street at Ballarat North on Sat 15/01/1983

X48 leads the Daylight Overland past Ballarat C Box on 23/12/1982

To provide the two carriage sets, all spare Overland carriages and three Australian National AD class sitting carriages were used.  The AD cars were temporarily spare due to the conversion of the Adelaide - Port Pirie line from broad to standard gauge. The consist of the two sets were:

• CD-BJ-BJ-RBJ-AJ-PCO
• PCO-Club-AD-AD-AD-SCD  

It appears that the consist of the set with the Overland cars remained the same for the majority of the trial. This set being marshalled as 2CD-2AJ-1RBJ-4BJ-6BJ-2PCO.

Date	Locos	Comments
Mon 20/12/1982	X-B Down, S313 Up
Tues 21/12/1982	B78-S304 Down, X49 Up
Wed 22/12/1982	B68-X48 Down
Thurs 23/12/1982	B69-S303 Down, X48 Up
Fri 24/12/1982	B78-X49 Down
Sun 26/12/1982	X48 Down
Mon 27/12/1982	B65-X49 Down, X48 Up
Wed 29/12/1982	B74-X49 Down X48 Up
Fri 31/12/1982	B68-X49 Down
Sun 2/01/1983	X48 Down B60-B75 Down	operated as two separate trains
Mon 3/01/1983	B82-X49 Down	No VLPY
Tues 4/01/1983	B84-X48 Down
Wed 5/01/1983	B68-X49 Down
Thurs 6/01/1983	B66-X48 Down	VLPY between Horsham and Adelaide trains
Fri 7/01/1983	B66-X49 Down
Sat 8/01/1983	B83-X48 Down
Mon 10/01/1983	B84-X49 Down
Tues 11/01/1983	B64-X48 Down
Wed 12/01/1983	B63-S310 Down
Thurs 13/01/1983	B69-X48 Down
Fri 14/01/1983	X42-S312 Down	X42 No.2 leading
Sat 15/01/1983	B63-X50 Down
Mon 17/01/1983	X43-X48 Down
Tues 18/01/1983	B67-S315 Down
Wed 19/01/1983	B66-S309 Down
Fri 21/01/1983	B72-X39 Down
Sat 22/01/1983	B80-X48 Down
Mon 24/01/1983	B79-X50 Down
Tues 25/01/1983	B62-S313 Down
Wed 26/01/1983	B75-X53 Down
Thurs 27/01/1983	X36-S315 Down
Fri 28/01/1983	B61-X50 Down
Sat 29/01/1983	B68-X53 Down
Mon 31/01/1983	B70-X31-X50 Down	B70-X31 ran up Horsham with 2 N sets
Tues 1/02/1983	B84-X49 Down

The Daylight Overland is formed by modified Lima Indian Pacific cars. Modifications include filing all the corrugations off the roof, filling in the ridges above the windows and adding a new section of fluting. The ends have also been filed flat with new ducting, piping and vestibule connections added. 
Each car has had the fluting removed from the lower parts of the side and new underframe added (either BGB or scratch built). I use the one set of carriages to form both the Down and Up services.



2 BJ, a modified Indian Pacific sitting car.



1 RBJ, additional modifications include filling in of half the windows and filing flat. Gas bottles have been added to the underframe.

6 BJ

Underframe modifications
 

2CD, a BGB kit riding on Powerline bogies.

I only have 2 photo's in my collection of the Daylight Overland in operation.  These were taken at Sunshine and show X49 on a Up service on Boxing Day 1982. The consist is 2CD-2AJ-1RBJ-4BJ-6BJ-2PCO.