Railways and Tramways of Australia

Mainline electric

 

The first Victorian Railways mainline electric locomotive entered service on 21 April 1953.

 

L Class leader no. L1150 underwent trials in March 1953, initially hauling one carriage, and then starting on a 1 in 50 gradient with a 608-ton (618-tonne) freight train. The performance was trouble free and it officially commenced service on 21 April. L1150 was named RG Wishart, after the Victorian Railways Chairman of Commissioners.

 

Built by English Electric in the United Kingdom, 25 of the L Class units began service. Rated at 2400 horsepower (1790 kW), they were around four times more powerful than the 1100 Class electric locomotives of 30 years earlier.

 

Development of coal resources in the Latrobe Valley was a major priority of Victoria’s State Electricity Commission following the Second World War. In anticipation of significant traffic increases, the Gippsland railway line was upgraded and electrified to Traralgon in the early 1950s. The main duty of the L Class was working coal and briquette traffic between Gippsland and Melbourne. They were also used extensively on Gippsland passenger trains and were capable of speeds of up to 75 miles per hour (120.7 km/h). Other duties included operating Melbourne suburban goods trains.

 

Initially the L Class worked alone, but from 1968 they began to operate as multiple units, increasing the loads of trains that could be hauled.

 

The L Class continued in service for many years, but declining traffic and the need for major reconditioning led to a decision to replace them with diesel power. L1150 worked the last electrically-hauled passenger train from Traralgon to Melbourne on 13 June 1987.

The last L Class units were withdrawn from service a few days later.

 

Victoria’s first mainline electric locomotive can still be seen in preservation at Newport Railway Museum.

 

Bibliography

J Scott, Power to the rails: a history of Victoria’s diesel and electric locomotives, self-published, 2011.

‘V.R. loco performs well on initial load tests’, Railway Transportation, vol. 2, no. 4, April 1953, p 19.

‘Victoria’, Here and There, Australian Railway Historical Society Bulletin Supplement, August 1987, pp 62–3.