Railways and Tramways of Australia

Fully air-conditioned

 

Australia’s first fully air-conditioned train departed from Melbourne on 9 July 1937.

 

Victorian Railways (VR) Chairman of Commissioners Harold Clapp had observed the benefits of air-conditioned trains in the United States when he made an official visit during 1934. One existing VR wooden carriage, AE36, was fitted with air-conditioning as a demonstration in 1935. Another six cars were air-conditioned by the first week of July 1937.

 

A fully air-conditioned train departed from Melbourne’s Spencer Street station at 7.20 pm, running overnight and arriving in Mildura at 7.15 am the following morning. It was the first fully air-conditioned train in the Southern Hemisphere. The train consisted of three carriages: a First Class sitting car, a Second Class sitting car and a sleeping car. A regular service began operating three nights a week in each direction.

 

The Secretary of Mildura Council wrote to the Secretary for Railways praising the new service:

The Mildura Shire Council are pleased to note that your Commissioners have

installed the first air-conditioned train in Australia and are operating it on the Mildura Line.

This will give additional comfort for second class passengers, and also induce others to patronise the train instead of undertaking the journey to Melbourne by motor car now that the journey has been made more comfortable.

This service will be appreciated during the hot and dusty summer.

 

Mildura is one of the hottest places in Victoria so air-conditioning would certainly have been welcomed by passengers.

 

It is sometimes stated that Australia’s first fully air-conditioned train was the Silver City Comet, running between Parkes and Broken Hill, or the Spirit of Progress, running between Melbourne and Albury. These were fully air-conditioned trains introduced in 1937, but they both began operating after the Mildura service.

 

Fully air-conditioned trains were ready to go in 1937.

 

Bibliography

‘Air-conditioned train: first in southlands,’ Sunraysia Daily, 12 July 1937, p 5.

‘Arrives today: first air-conditioned train,’ Sunraysia Daily, 10 July 1937, p 12.

‘Air-conditioning praised by Mildura Council,’ The V.R. Newsletter, no. 84, September 1937, p 1.

C Banger & P Medlin, ‘Ninety years of the E cars, Part 2, Newsrail, vol. 24, no. 9, September 1996, pp 263–85.

I Brady, ‘The Blue: the story of the Spirit of Progress’, Australian Railway Historical Society Bulletin, no. 841, November 2007, pp 411–48.

‘Brief items of news,’ The Argus, 10 July 1937, p 16.