Daylight Overland commences

Today marks 38 years since VicRail and Australian National commenced running a trial daylight Overland service between Melbourne and Adelaide. From Monday 20th December 1982 until Tuesday 1st February 1983, both a daylight and overnight Overland operated in each direction between the state capitals. The trial was to determine if a market existed to justify the operation of a regular daylight service.  

S313 hauls the inaugural eastbound Daylight Overland past Ballarat C Box on Monday 20th December 1982

To provide the two carriage sets, all spare joint stock Overland carriages and 3 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 gauge to standard gauge. One set was marshalled as PCO-Club-AD-AD-AD-SCD with the other as CD-BJ-BJ-RBJ-AJ-PCO.

B68 and X48 haul the combined Horsham pass/Daylight Overland past Ballarat North's Garden City Flour Mill on Wednesday 22nd December 1982.

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 loco for the Daylight Overland. The N set and VBPY ot VLPY van were placed at the rear of the Overland cars and were detached on arrival at Horsham. The eastbound service ran as a separate train throughout. The services were timetabled to cross at Diapur. 

B69 and S303 haul the combined Horsham pass/Daylight Overland over the Doveton St level crossing on Thursday 23rd December 1982.

X48 leads the eastbound Daylight Overland past Ballarat C Box on Thursday 23rd December 1982.

The X or S were used scheduled to haul the train, combining with the B westwards as far as Horsham. At Serviceton the X or S were exchanged for a 930 for the run to Adelaide.

One item that intrigued me with these services was the loco from the westbound service sat idle at Serviceton until the afternoon of the following day to run the next eastbound service. This was a very efficient use of one of VicRail's higher horsepower locomotives. 

The photos in this post show some of the locomotive combination employed on the train during the first week of the trial service (based on observations recorded in Newsrail).

X49 leads the eastbound Daylight Overland through West Footscray on Boxing Day 26th December 1982.