Swing Door (train)


Swing Door trains, commonly known as "Dogboxes" or "Doggies", were wooden-bodied electric multiple unit trains that operated on the suburban railway network of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Swing Door cars had outward-opening doors and were reasonably narrow, to ensure that two passing trains would not foul each other if doors were accidentally left open. At certain locations, clearances were tight and there are stories of Swing Door cars losing doors that were not closed. The fleet could be seen running in any arrangement, from one car, using a double-ended M car, to seven cars.

History

The Swing Door carriages were originally steam-hauled bogie passenger cars, long or long, the majority of which were built between 1887 and 1893. When converted to electric traction between 1917 and 1924, the cars were extended by two compartments to a total length of, and the driving cars were placed on new under-frames and bogies to accommodate the extra weight of the electrical equipment. The conversion process was suddenly halted in 1924, with partially converted cars being patched up and returned to service as steam-hauled carriages, with their original codes and numbers.
Converted Swing Door cars originally entered service with class codes such as 'AT', 'BCM', and 'ABCD', indicating both class and type. In 1921, that was largely simplified to 'M', 'T' and 'D', the trailers being first class and motor cars second class, with some exceptions.

Fleet

The maximum size of the Swing Door train fleet was:
  • 144 'M' motor cars, numbered 1-164M, with gaps but including:
  • * First class motor cars 1, 8, 15, 46, 65, 78AM
  • * Double-ended composite motor cars 155-159, 162-164ABM; 157-159, 162-164 were later converted to Parcel Vans 10-15CM
  • 32 'D' driving trailers, numbered 1-32D
  • 112 'T' First class and Second class 'BT' trailers, numbered 1-111, 126T

    Driving motors - AM, ACM, ABM, ABCM, BM, BCM, CM, M

M

It had been intended to convert 164 locomotive-hauled carriages, including 1st-class and 2nd-class cars - with and without guard's vans, as well as composite cars, to M cars. When the conversion program was terminated, only 144 had been completed, leaving 20 gaps in the sequence. Each M car had 7 or 8 compartments, depending on the configuration of the original carriage, with three compartments per car usually allocated for smokers When initially issued to service, most were designated ACM and BCM denoting either 1st- or 2nd-class accommodation respectively. When that system was abandoned, motor cars all became 2nd class, except for six which were retained for special duties, and the double-ended single units. On 10 February 1935, 18M and 44M were damaged in a serious collision at Croydon, and the bodies scrapped. The frames and electrical equipment were retained, and were rebuilt with new bodies of the current Tait design, being renumbered 442M and 443M.

AM

Motor cars 1, 8, 15, 46, 65, and 78, were built as ACM units, and retained as 1st-class AM cars until single-class suburban travel was introduced in 1958. In that form they were used, paired with a standard M car, as locomotives for E trains. Those trains ran to the end of the electrified sections of line at Lilydale and Frankston, hauling non-electrified passenger trains. At the terminus, the motor cars would be uncoupled and the remaining carriages split, with steam engines hauling each portion to Warburton or Healesville, or Mornington or Stony Point, respectively. Consequently, those six AM cars were configured for 850 Amperes current load rather than the normal 650, and the trailing motor car would often be cut-out whilst starting a train, to avoid excessive jolting. Those motor-pairs were also occasionally used for goods trains, and sometimes an ABM would be substituted for the AM car.

ABM

In the original electrification plan a group of ten single-unit, double-ended motor cars were proposed for use on the St Kilda and Port Melbourne lines during lower-patronage periods. Records at the time, however, only show plans of steam-hauled cars being converted to trailers, single-ended driving trailers or single-ended motors of various lengths, with no double-ended variants. By 1914, a conceptual diagram had been drawn up for double-ended composite motor cars, although no detail was given about the use of those vehicles if any were built. Without a guard lookout at the second driving end, the necessary marker lights were to be installed in a canopy attached to the end of the curved roof clerestory.
This group of vehicles were to be constructed similarly to the rest of the Swing Door motor fleet, with a large guard/driver compartment at one end. However, eight of them had a small driver-only compartment added at the opposite end, all but two being rounded in the same manner as the van end. There were eight compartments with room for ten passengers each and, from the van end, the layout was two 1st-class smoking compartments, two 1st-class non-smoking compartments, two 2nd-class non-smoking compartments, two 2nd-class smoking compartments, and the smaller driver's compartment. Like the rest of the suburban electric passenger fleet, the cars were painted all-over dark red-brown. The later livery was crimson with a black underframe, and moonstone grey along the window line. In the 1950s, this was changed to "tomato red", with moonstone grey on the window frames only.
Routes where those trains operated included Hawthorn-Kew, Camberwell-Ashburton and Eltham-Hurstbridge. While they often operated individually, they were sometimes coupled to trailers and driving trailers in busier periods. 162M was a regular on the Kew roster.
When the first two cars, 2 and 3, entered service in mid-1917 they were classed ABCM. In the 1921 recoding, they became 156M and 157M respectively and, over the following years, cars 155M and 158M-164M were planned to be converted ex AC, BC or ABC cars. In the period 1921-1922, they all entered service as single-ended M-coded vehicles. The first to be converted to double-ended operation was 162M in 1926, followed by 159M, 163M and 164M in 1929, 155M in 1932 and 158M in 1937, each recoded to ABM as they were released from the workshops. The last two conversions retained their flat ends at the non-guard end, instead of having a full rebuild applied.
160M and 161M were never modified and ran as single-ended motors until their withdrawal in 1974 and 1969 respectively.
Parcel motors CM
After World War II, the population of Melbourne boomed, and with it the need for increased suburban parcel traffic capacity. Consequently, 157ABM was withdrawn from passenger service in 1955 and converted to parcel van 10CM. In 1961, 3CM was damaged, so 10CM had a raised cupola added in the middle for viewing of the overhead wiring. The design was tweaked in 1962. Otherwise, the sides were completely stripped and replaced with a similar style to that of the Tait parcel van fleet, though the car maintained its thinner body of. Outward-swinging doors were kept, in three pairs, at spacings which divided the car into four roughly equal sections, although the outer two were partially driver's compartments. The guard facility at the raised-roof/pantograph end was retained. When complete, 10CM was painted in blue with a thick yellow stripe along the sides, curving to a point in the middle of the ends. The number and code was adjacent to the outer sets of doors and, on either side of the middle door, there was advertising for the Victorian Railways' parcel services, identical to the Tait design.
162ABM, 163ABM and 164ABM were converted in a similar fashion to 155M, with new identities 11CM, 12CM and 13CM respectively, entering service in 1957 and 1959. Also in 1959, 155ABM had the controls removed when it was converted to a workmen's sleeper carriage, becoming 70WW, the only motor carriage to be so-converted, and ran in that form until December 1975.
That left 158ABM and 159ABM as the only double-ended swing door electric cars in passenger service, though not for long. They were converted to further parcels coaches as a stopgap measure while 10CM and the repaired 3CM were busy with various electrification works, so the conversions were minimised. Instead of a full rebuild, the seats were removed and a walkway down the centre was cut between all the compartment partitions, but the cars did not have the sides replaced, and they stayed red. They were recoded to 14CM and 15CM. The pair were withdrawn in 1970 and scrapped in 1971.
The remaining four Swing Door CMs, 10-13, were kept in service until 1986. 10CM is stored at Newport Workshops, awaiting restoration, and 13CM is stored at Moorooduc behind the Mornington Tourist Railway workshops. 12CM, formerly at Mornington, was moved to Newport as a chassis only in 2017 or 2018, and is being used as spare parts for 93M. Its body was scrapped some years prior, due to its poor condition.
113M & 156M, [Jolimont Workshops] yard pilots
156M was removed from normal passenger service in 1932, and replaced by 155M converted to ABM. It had its seating removed and the destination board replaced to show "parcels van", for use as a relief vehicle when any of the Tait CM coaches were unavailable. It spent the rest of its time as a pilot in Jolimont Yard, performing shunting around the sidings and in the workshops, and had been fitted with a second pantograph by 1948. It was never recoded to ABM and, although officially struck from the register in 1963, it continued to operate in service well into the 1980s. By the late 1970s both vehicles had been repainted into a scheme similar to the parcels vans, and were officially allocated to the Jolimont yard pilot roster, with small lettering above the middle-side .
Near the end of its career, 156M was painted in all-over green in place of its previous blue livery, but retained yellow stripe along the sides. The ends were painted white with a yellow outline, and the standard Met yellow/green stripes along the lower edge of each end.
When 113M was painted into the new livery, the destination board was altered to read "Petronius 210", because staff apparently thought that the new livery represented an "illusion of progress".
Both vehicles have been preserved and are stored at Newport Workshops awaiting restoration.