Down town

Had to go down town this morning and saw some good units

Sorry about that

some pretty fast looking units there, a modern day rail motor ???

Paul

Hi Paul, these are made in Dandenong for Vline for the country train network. They are Cummins powered and they get up and go!

I believe they are known as a "Sprinter."

Many years ago they would have been called a Railcar.

I wonder why they move 'em by road? they are rail vehicles.

Morris, if you want something moved and you need it there on time you have to send it by road!

These particular units are called Velocities and run as 3 car sets. The end carriages have a driver's cab. The centre one has no cab but you can walk through. Each of the 3 has it's own motor. They often couple 2 sets together to make a 6 car train

They are are only passenger rail service from Echuca to Melbourne.

The reason for trucking them rather than railing then is to do with the changes after privatization. The owner of the broad gauge tracks is either VicTrack or Metro. At the moment all standard gauge track is the responsibility of ARTC. So v/line don't own the tracks they run on and pay an access fee.

As part of this all new rolling stock has to be accredited before it can run on the tracks amongst other trains. So the trains are trucked to where they can be put on track at one of V/lines workshops so it can be tested and accredited in a 'private area'.

The same happens for equipment going to South Australia, NSW and elsewhere as it's cheaper and less paperwork to move them as an oversize load than the paperwork and exemptions to rail them.