Locomotive Allocation

This is a table of Victorian Railways narrow gauge locomotive allocations. I compiled it from information contained in Peter Medlin's excellent book STEAM ON THE TWO FOOT SIX - Volume One Locomotives.

I have made several simplifications to the data Peter has collected to make the table more readable. This page is not meant to replace Peter's book. The following notes explain some of the simplifications:

1. Every date has been reduced to a month. Thus moves made to exchange two locomotives in the one month do not show which one moved first.
2. Locomotives going to the workshops and returning to the same line within a month are ignored.
3. There is some conflict in the original records as to what happened on what date. Locomotives recorded in the "Other" column prior to 1955 means that there is no record (official or unofficial) of where these locomotives were at that time. They may have been at the workshops, or allocated to a line.
4. From 1955 3A and 8A were donated as playground items. The Puffing Billy Preservation Society recovered them for restoration.
5. Workshops generally means Newport Workshops, although repairs were carried out at North Melbourne and Ballarat North Locomotive Depots. There is a record of a locomotive being taken to Upper Ferntree Gully for repairs. Scrappings usually occurred at Newport.
6. A "+" (1A+) indicates the initial allocation of a new locomotive. A "-" (2A-) indicates the scrapping of the particular locomotive. The code "s" indicates that the locomotive was stored "out-of-service".

The table below is some indication of the prosperity of the lines. More locomotives implies more traffic, although this is not necessarily so. In 1953 there was one goods train per week from Moe to Erica and three locomotives at Moe.

The period from May 1905 to November 1907 shows no locomotives at Moe. This was the period when construction stopped on the Moe to Walhalla line. I do not know if any goods vehicles were withdrawn at this time.

Most locomotives were interchanged between lines, although 2A was only used on the Wangaratta to Whitfield line. Some locomotives never got to all lines. I leave discovering which to the reader.