Railways and Tramways of Australia

Pioneer railcars

 

McKeen motor cars nos 1 and 2 entered service in Victoria on 13 May 1912.

 

McKeen cars were self-propelled railcars built at Omaha in the United States. The McKeen Motor Car Company built 152 motor cars, plus matching trailers, between 1905 and 1917. The two motor cars built for Victorian Railways and five for Queensland Railways were the only ones to be exported from the United States.

 

Victoria’s two motor cars were shipped from Omaha to Sydney, then placed on temporary standard gauge bogies before being hauled to Wodonga. Here they were placed on broad gauge bogies. A short test run operated on the Tallangatta Line before they worked under their own power to Melbourne.

 

The McKeen cars featured a steel car body measuring 66 feet (20 metres) in length. The front end was wedge shaped and the sides had porthole windows, leading to one description of their appearance as ‘a combination of an armoured train and a submarine.’ They were powered by a six-cylinder 200-horsepower (149 kW) petrol engine.

 

From late April to early May 1912 the McKeen cars operated various test runs, as well as a special trip for members of the Victorian Parliament. Car no. 1 commenced regular service between Ballarat and Maryborough on 13 May. Car no. 2 entered service on the same day, running between Warrnambool and Hamilton. It was considered that they would be particularly suited to country branch lines.

 

Various problems were experienced and the McKeen railcars were withdrawn from service around 1915. They were converted to locomotive-hauled carriages in 1919, then scrapped in 1926.

 

Although the McKeen cars were not successful, they pioneered the use of railcars with internal combustion engines on Australian railways.

 

Bibliography

N Bray & PJ Vincent, Rail motors and brake vans of Victoria, Brief History Books, Melbourne, 2007.

B Payne, ‘McKeen car history’, Newsrail, vol. 35, no. 5, May 2007, pp 140–50.