#Victorian Railways R-class Hudsons

[engineer-gunzelpunk]

(WAY PAST) Traintober 2023: Twins prt 2 + Bird

The VR's Scottish Twins R707 City of Melbourne "Cerberus" and R761 "Andri", with friend.

(Usual disclaimer, this is not a reflection on any person living or dead or the real life locomotives they are based on)

OK, its now November but so... I'm putting these up anyway. The VR's answer to Donald and Douglas, Victorian Railways R-Class Hudson R707 City of Melbourne/Cerberus and VR R-Class Hudson 761 Andri.

Both built at North British Works at Queens Park, Glasgow and brought to Victoria in the early 50's as part of a 70 strong fleet of R-Class Hudsons to replace the aging A2 4-6-0 express passenger fleet. The Rs were quickly superseded by the B-class diesels built at Clyde, Granville, NSW; and all of the class was withdrawn by 1964, with only R707 and R761 remaining in operational condition after their fellow Rs were brutalised by the VR.

Seven members of the class including these two made it into preservation. As these two were paired up frequently during the late and post-steam era on special trains, it was natural that they were close. And they cannot be any more different.

R707/Cerberus (originally "Choin Dubh", but renamed himself to something the Aussie humans could understand) is quite an intense individual, highly intelligent and obsessed with balancing the scales as well as preserving the rest of his family. He's mad as a cut snake that he was not particularly dealt a good hand initially (rust in the bearings kept him in the shop till 1954, STUG equipment fitted to him reinforced his idea of himself as hard done by) or was given the working life he was promised; he was fucked around by the VR in the final years of steam, moved from shed to shed and then left to rot for 6 years from 1974 to 1980; he hasn't forgiven them, even after they are long gone.

He's by turns manipulative, charming, calculating and scary. When he is not pulling his highly lucrative Grainlander and Riverlander trains, he's working out schemes with his underlings, his right hand engine being the Lancastrian English Electric built F-class shunting diesel, Dynon Donk.

R761/Andri (originally "Kelpie" but taunting by the local yobbo locomotives hurt her enough to change it; a particularly humiliating incident of taunting lead to one of them having a rude word scratched on their tender in meter high letters...) couldn't care less about balancing the scales. As a matter of fact, she doesn't care at all. All she want to do is continue to run like the Devil in engine form if she's allowed by the vollies at SteamRail, look at birds (her special interest is birds of all kinds) and sigh over Gordon the Big Engine, her favorite engine in the RWS series. Her particular special train is the Melbourne Snow train but she's taken plenty of other special trains. She's is pretty blunt and forthright when talking with others, but she means no offense.

Her working life was punctuated by long bouts being shedded, for reasons that are not entirely clear or explainable; which would explain why she was in such good condition compared to the other Rs at the time of her preservation.

Both these engines have a monster form, and a demon form like their Newport compadre, VR H220 Heavy Harry.

As a matter of fact, when they both attained a human form sometime around 1964, they ran in the same larrikin gangs as Harry did. And participated in his infamous scrapbreaking activities. To this day, they still live at Newport, at the old sheds in the West Block where the volunteer groups operate their trains out of.

The lil blue bird on Andri's shoulder is a Splendid Blue Wren.

Here's a video of the IRL R761 ripping up the track:

The VR were never that interested in breaking records for speed, but it is estimated the Rs could go as fast as 90/mph if allowed; VR regulations dictated that express passenger engines like the R, the S and the A2 were restricted to 70/mph and H220 60/mph.

[engineer-gunzelpunk]

VR R-Class R700

... he got better...

Sort of...

[engineer-gunzelpunk]

Traintober '23: Twins (sort of)

Victorian Railways R- class Hudsons R 707 "City Of Melbourne" and R761 on the 60th anniversary of the Rs introduction to the VR.

The VR's own Scottish Twins, built at at the North British Loco works at Queen's Park, Glasgow.

They were paired up quite frequently in the dying days of steam for enthusiast tours as they were the only two Rs in operational condition.

Their most famous joint appearance was when they had that parallel run with Flying Scotsman at Aus Steam '88.

To this day, these two are never that far apart from one another. They are both shedded at Newport. As a matter of fact, though they both belong to different enthusiast groups (R707 by 707 Operations, R761 by Steamrail), R761 pulled one of R707's Grainlander trains when he was unwell from a steam leak.

Their Gunzel-verse gijinka versions are very, very close indeed but its for another post.

[engineer-gunzelpunk]

Victorian Railways R-Class Hudsons

Its to be pointed out that it at the time that the R-Class was introduced as an express passenger locomotive, they had already thought to start introducing diesels (which they did in July of 1952, as the poor R-s needed extensive work at the Shops after their trip by boat) and thought to phase out the S-classes. Any blame on the R-classes themselves is pure arse covering and ignores how deeply ideological the introduction of the diesels was and how short sighted at this point the VR had become.

(They had already dropped the ball on rejuvenating the post-war rail network by reinforcing the lines, were cutting a lot of branches, scrapped Heavy Harry's two other siblings before completion; thought to introduce diesels but then ordered the R and J classes... and when they finally introduced the diesels, it was in this arrogant, pig-headed fashion that ignored that the diesels at that point were quite new and a lot of kinks to iron out.

They withdrew and scrapped the S-class Pacifics before any preservationists could save them and painted the diesels in the blue and gold VR express livery as a statement... and refused to let steam engine crews rescue or take over trains from broken diesels because it made VR look bad...

One particular incident at Seymour involved a diesel that was hauling a banana train breaking down, and the crew of an already prepped and ready R-Class Hudson being told it was more trouble than their jobs were worth to go and pull that train, so they had to sit by while fitters were called from the diesel depot at Dynon.

No Super Rescue here I'm afraid.

Sorry about the rant, its kind of a weird bone of contention in gunzel circles apparently... and its awfully convenient the foreign manufactured locomotive gets the blame. Hhhhmmmmmm...).

I headcanon these fellas as Scottish, but we Aussies have a whole thing of Scottish folks we adopt as our own (Jimmy Barnes, Malcolm and Angus Young, etc.) and Victoria itself as a very strong Scottish influence in a lot of place names and culture. They are solidly Scottish-Australian in my view.

[engineer-gunzelpunk]

Revenge!

VR R-class R704 ‘Taggerty Thornton’ for SeaRogue.

[engineer-gunzelpunk]

Another New "Red Steam On Southern Metals" char just dropped... Dynon Donk the Diesel

If he eerily looks similar to the BR Class 08 like Diesel... its because that they are really BR Class 11s exported to the VR as shunters.

Dynon Donk himself is now part of 707 Operation's fleet of preserved diesels... and R707 City Of Melbourne AKA Cerberus' crony.

Dynon Donk in a black, very Dieselish livery... puts R707 to bed at Newport.

[engineer-gunzelpunk]

Happy Service Day R761!

One of my favourite engines, Victorian Railways VR R-Class Hudson R761 celebrated their 72nd birthday, entering service on the 9th of April 1952; after being brought from North British Locomotive Works (Build no 27051), Glasgow to Australia on the Merchant Vessel Helenus, arriving on the 28th of Feb, 1952.

She was one of the fortunate seven Rs that made it to preservation and has not stopped running.

(She is also the IRL basis of my Victorian Railways AU OC, Andri, her character profile along with that of her twin brother, R707 "City Of Melbourne' aka Cerberus is here).

Her caretakers, SteamRail, celebrated the occasion by showing this beautifully eerie, Christine-vibed photo:

’Good evening, sir! You shouldn’t be walking around the sheds this time of the night…’ *soft wheesh*

She was repainted ahead of this year’s open day, where she strutted her stuff.

Here’s to you R761, a survivor who thrives in preservation long after the regime that tried to put you away has gone to dust!

[engineer-gunzelpunk]

VR Hudson R707 "City Of Melbourne" Pulls the Spirit of Progress

Victorian Railways Hudson R707 "City of Melbourne" pulls a Spirit Of Progress to Albury, burning up the track like a racehorse and bears an S-Class whistle!

Given that the S-Classes are all gone, this gives a nice indication of how they sounded like.

To my ears, the S-Class chime whistle has a bit of a NSWGR C-38 sound to it, as does the clean choppy bark of the exhaust beat of R707.

[engineer-gunzelpunk]

VR Chime Whistles

A nice collection of VR 5-chime whistles being displayed by the locos of SteamRail. This is likely as close what you will get to knowing what VR H220 sounded like, since there are no extant recordings of his whistle.

[engineer-gunzelpunk]

Big Harry Is Ailing by Jack Evans

The Argus, Saturday July 21, 1951

I took the text because the article shape is so awkward.

*cues in Sad Henry music*

BIG HARRY IS AILING By JACK EVANS

HEAVY HARRY, the bad boy who later become the pride of the Victorian railways, is ill. Seriously ill. All 260 tons of him. Slumped in hospital - the repair sheds at Newport workshops, Victoria's only H220 engine could hardly raise steam above a whisper yesterday.

Heavy Harry, built at Newport - the heaviest locomotive in the Southern Hemisphere, is the only one of its type in Australia. His massive size and varied adventures made him pride of the rail engine fleet during World War II.

"Overwork, that's what caused it," he gasped yesterday. "I've got something wrong with my boiler." He said sadly: "You know, you're the first visitor I've had since I came to hospital. No one cares."

Work Of Two

"Why, Mr. Hyland, Transport Minister, was proud to drive me when I was launched in '41. Kiddies flocked to see me when I went on exhibition. "But as soon as you get sick you're forgotten. "In 10 years I've travelled more than half a million miles for the Railways. And I've pulled millions of tons of freight between Albury and Melbourne, doing the work of two engines."

He added, indignantly: "These new R Class engines are getting all the limelight now. Running around painted red and black, with all the glamor of Essendon footballers "

"And letting girls ride on their footplates. I was brought up better than that, and I've never worn anything but decent black all my life!

"Going to haul passenger trams from Bendigo, are they? Bah! When the Railways got into a jam with the Spirit, who did none Help they yell for? Heavy Harry! "They tell me those R Class engines stole the show in the Engineering section at the Festival of Britain. They sound more like mannequins instead of machines. "And boasting about their mechanical stokers! Let me tell you, I had the first mechanical stoker in the whole of Victoria. And the best! "I heard my boss, Commissioner Wishart, say that 70 of them -were coming from England. And half-a-dozen streamlined diesels from U.S.A.

"What about accommodation problems? He wants to remember there is a shortage of engine round-houses here." Harry brightened up towards the end of the interview.

"I'll be back on the track soon," he prophesied. "All 92ft. 6in. of me, and fighting fit. "Those glamor jobs had better hunt a quiet siding. If I meet them on a foggy night I'll show them that Old Harry hasn't lost his punch."

A couple of notes:

Jack Evans seems to be using the character of Heavy Harry to critique the VR, which is entirely valid since the railways were about to get absolutely slaughtered by our own native version of Beeching and didn't recover for another 60 years.

The North British Works-built Hudson R-class "glamor jobs" they talk about weren't bad engines, just wholly unsuited to the jobs VR assigned to them, which were goods trains rather than express passenger trains like they were built for.

(And they're Scottish, Harry! They were built at Glasgow! You know this!)

They did bear a scarlet and black color scheme... possibly to connote in a new era their passenger engine status (red, used on express passenger locos in the pre-Clapp era on A2s and other passenger locomotives), wedded to standard VR black.

(Hudson R 707 "City Of Melbourne")

The Lancastrian built J-Classes, the last steam engines built for VR, also bore this scarlet and black scheme.

Essendon Football Club were the glamor team of the Victorian Football League (Australian Rules football) at the time, having appeared in almost every single Grand Final since 1941, which is kinda funny that he gives the Rs a serve for their color scheme... as I have Harry as an Essendon supporter in my OC headcanon, lol. (strong IRL historical associations between Essendon and Heavy Harry).

(Outside of Essendon Railway Station, bearing a photo of ‘Harry on the Express to Albury at Essendon, 1949’… old timers living here would recall Harry shaking the earth as he passed).

Him threatening to bash the "glamor jobs" though... is dead on like my OC Harry! Cranky, prone to melancholia, painfully aware of how alone he is. That is Heavy Harry.

Also:

"Overwork, that's what caused it," he gasped yesterday. "I've got something wrong with my boiler." He said sadly: "You know, you're the first visitor I've had since I came to hospital. No one cares."

"I SUFFER DREADFULLY AND NO ONE CARES"

Both rebellious, troublesome engines with issues.

Canonically both melancholy and lonely engines with wide angry streaks.

Both are fairly unique engines. Harry is the sole Pocono with a third cylinder that exists, sole member of his class. Henry was a failed hybrid turned Black Five, the sheer fact of this makes him fairly unique.

Both seem fond of flowers (see the illustration in my earlier Heavy Harry post).

Both he and Henry were originally meant to be express passenger locomotives but turned to the purpose of night/early-morning fast goods.

Both are fond of their "special coal" (Harry worked best on the Oz version of Welsh coal, Maitland coal).

"Harry" is a variant of the name Henry.

This particular article was put out less than two weeks after the publication of the book "Henry the Green Engine", on the 10th of July 1951.

Neither seem interested in ladies, canonically.

The little drawing they put in it is basically Henry…

Just sayin'! If Twin Flames existed... It’d be these two. Har’ is basically an Oz version of Henry…

So fucking weird when you find such off-kilter content about something you are interested in. Also, H220 and its the 22nd of the month so...

[engineer-gunzelpunk]

Funny Names We Give Our Locomotives

New South Wales Government Railways D57 Mountain Class "Chuckling Charlies/Lazy Lizzies"

NSWGR C36 4-6-0 "Pigs"

VR A2 4-6-0 Express Passenger locomotives "Ned Kellys" (look at the smokestack...)

VR R-Class Hudson Express Passenger locomotives "Bombers", "Percy Bushbys" or "Rudolphs’

Percy Bushby (#35, Essendon Football Club, ‘the Bombers’, Victorian Football League/Australian Football League)

From The Argus, June 20, 1952