Railways of Australia

Codes for guard's vans

New South Wales guards vans had been allocated new codes with the NVxx prefix as early as 1980, with ten different classes allocated. These were, respectively, EHG, FHG, GHG, IHG, JHG, KHG, MHG, PHG, SHG and UHG, to NVEF, NVFF, NVGA, NVIF, NVJA, NVKF, NVMF, NVPA, NVSA and NVUF. Generally speaking, the "HG" suffix was replaced by an "NV" prefix, and a fourth letter added to denote the bogie type and speed restrictions. New codes were not generated for vans affiliated with passenger trains, like the LHO and MHO vans for intrastate and Victorian trains, or the MHN and PHN vans for the Southern Aurora and the HG and HGM vans of the Indian Pacific.^[13]: 181

From late 1982 South Australian, and later Victorian, guards vans were incorporated into the ROA coding structure. In South Australia the majority of the guards vans were of the 8300 class, and these became the AVAY class (later AVAP, with recodings to ABLP and AZXP for other uses).^[16] Other changes were HRD to AVDY and HRE to AVEY, as with New South Wales retaining the unique letter from the old code and surrounding it with new context.^[17]

In Victoria, the guard's vans previously coded CA, ZLP, CP, ZF and ZMF became VVAP, VVBP, VVCP, VVDY and VVEY respectively.^[9] In this case the new unique third letters were simply in order of class introduction, ignoring the short-lived and unique ZZ van. As with New South Wales, van classes that were generally used on passenger trains - the C, CE, CW, CV and joint stock classes - were not recoded. Furthermore, many of those vans were being withdrawn around the same time as the recoding was taking place; the final nineteen C vans were all struck from the register on 3 March 1983.^[18] Later, a handful of VVCP vans reverted to the CP classification as additions to the V/Line fleet in passenger service,^[19] and some VVBP vans were recoded MD for use on maintenance trains.^[20]: 149 However, this was around the same time that two-person train operation, without guards, was being introduced, so not every van received the new code. Of the 15 CA vans, for example, only eight are known to have been recoded.^[21] In practice only about two-thirds of the Victorian guard's van fleet was recoded, with nearly the whole fleet withdrawn in 1985.^[8]: 7

Introduction of check letters

In the mid 1980s Australian National introduced a new, computerised Train Monitoring System (TMS) as a database to keep track of the complete rolling stock fleet, including characteristics like utilisation, reliability and maintenance requirements. The system was developed through the 1984/85 financial year and implemented from April 1985. A subset of the system was the Wagon Monitoring System (WMS), which was implemented on the standard gauge system between October 1984 and December 1985, and later in the Eyre Peninsula and Tasmania. The WMS required a system of check letters appended to the end of vehicle codes, to catch and avoid errors that would have interfered with the database's reliable operation.^[22] The check letter system was designed to detect errors in either the wagon code, number or check letter, by testing for mismatches, and prompt the user to correct the information before submitting it to the database.^[10]

As of 23 August 1983, by circular A.156/83, V/Line began to apply check letters to their goods rolling stock following the same pattern that Australian National had been using for "several years" prior, though where AN had used it on all types of goods stock, V/Line specified only bogie goods stock. This was used in the Victorian parallel to AN's TMS, the VELAS system. The instruction specified that a gap was to be left between the wagon number and check letter, "where possible". The check letters were generally painted to a height of 105 mm (4.1 in), though occasionally the prior 7 in (180 mm) font was used.^{[23]: 281–282} Early sightings of wagons with the check letter applied were VBBX61B, VLCX240N, VLCX393S, VLCX481W, VLCX584K and VOCY1131A, at Benalla on 14 August 1983. Examples from a month later at the same location included G5693R,^[a] VFNX41H, VLCX354S, VLCX406D, VLCX625B,^[b] VLEX815N, VOBX61E, VOCX250E, VOBX399G, VOCX413N, VOCX2029W, VPCX2Q, KMQ186G,^[c] VLEX997K and VTQA255J.^{[d][23]: 282} Several South Australia AVAY guards vans were also sighted with check letters around this time.^[23]: 282 Victorian guards vans were first noted with check letters in 1986, including VVAP4X, VVBP9K, VVBP41Q, VVBP52K, VVBP58S, VVBP64N, VVDY36D and VVDY38V.^[24]: 218

The system implemented converted the nine-character identity of every item of rollingstock by allocating a number in place of each letter (A=1, Z=26), inserting as many zeroes as required between the fourth letter and the first digit, then filling the remaining spaces with the wagon's number. Thus, AOBX502 would become AOBX00502.^[25]

A formula was then used, multiplying each of the nine character slots by an increasing integer (1st x1, 2nd x2, 3rd x3 ... 9th slot x9), then dividing the total by 23. The remainder, plus one (1), is then converted back to a letter in the sequence A-Z, but with I replaced by X and O replaced by Y to avoid the appearance of a number in the tenth wagon ID field.^[25]

In cases where a locomotive did not have a lettered class identity the official rule was to use the word "LOCO" as the first four characters, but this did not always happen; in practice the first four character spaces were often left blank.^[25] For vehicles with a name, the first four letters would be used, and those without an allocated number would be treated as number zero. Comrails gives the example of passenger car Coonatto becoming "COON 0", which would be treated as COON00000.^[25] It is not clear how this system was intended to handle named vehicles which shared the first four letters.

There were a handful of cases where the check letter was applied in accordance with ROA rules, but before the ROA four-letter code had been applied to the same wagon; for instance an undated photo of a Western Australian tank wagon with code WJP, the check letter reflects a then-future recode to ATPF.^[26]

Steel traffic group "C" and "K"

Under the updated rules, the new second letters "C" and "K" were introduced to separate out wagons specifically designed for transporting steel products.^{[27]: 281 [8]: 7} In Victoria this meant recoding of the VFSX wagons to VCSX^[28] and VOSX to VCCX,^[29] for coil steel and, for slab steel, the VOEX to VKEX^[30] and VFKX to VKKX,^[31] among others.

Introduction of "F" and "P" bogie types

The second change made around 1987 applied to the bogie letter; where previously "Y" had been reserved for all non-bogie-exchange wagons, regardless of other constraints, the new letter "F" was added to separate that group into speed tiers.^[8]: 7 "Y" was retained for wagons that were not bogie-exchangeable, but were "capable of higher than normal express freight speed",^[27]: 281 e.g. 100 km/h (62 mph) in lieu of the normal 80 km/h (50 mph).

(Vincent hypothesised that the bulk recode of V/Line stock from "Y" to "F" suffix had been due to an "incorrect application" that was not realised until the mid/late 1980s.^[32])

The change did not impact wagons like the New South Wales' NQOY, NLKY and Australian National AFSY, AQSY, AFTY and AFWY, which were all already capable of higher speed operation, but the vast majority of the V/Line, Australian National and Westrail fleets were expected to be recoded. Many of these were changed to "X" with minor equipment adjustments to meet the bogie exchange requirements, including V/Line's VQCY container wagons being recoded to VQCX.^[27]: 281

Comrails describes an intentional decision at around the same time from "Y" to "P" as the suffix for the Australian National guard's van fleet, allowing operation at 115 km/h (71 mph), and it seems possible that this change to the code was made at the same time.^[17]

Notably, the Victorian Railways guards vans had been split between "P" and "Y" suffixes from introduction around 1983, with the same distinction applied to Motorail wagons VMAP and VMBP to indicate passenger speed; this worked in parallel with other classes where the use of a third letter "P" meant passenger speeds as a subset of a fourth letter "Y" series, as used on the VBPY, VLPY and VSPY wagons, later joined by the VMPY class.^[33] In the 1987/88 change all Victorian wagons formerly with a "Y" suffix changed to "X" or "F" and none changed to "P",^[33] but this could have been a reflection of the split between the freight and passenger systems. For example, in 1979 the Victorian Railways' BMX/BMF medium-size bogie boxvan fleet was recoded as VBAX/VBAY respectively,^[34][35] then in 1982 a handful were pulled from that group and allocated to passenger service as the new VBPY class.^[36] Shortly thereafter the VBPYs became D vans and were painted in the passenger livery at the time.^[37] So, without that last change, it is possible but unprovable whether or not the VBPY vans would have become VBAP in 1987, paralleling the South Australian stock.

Departmental stock "D" and "Z"

Originally exempt from the system, by the early 1980s a handful of wagons had been recoded with a "D" as the second letter. In Victoria the two VDSY (former FVF, later VDSF) wagons were used by shunting crews around goods yards,^[38] while in New South Wales the "D" was used for a wide range of vehicles associated with track maintenance.^[39] From 1985 the second letter "Z" began to see use in all types of maintenance contexts, including track maintenance (sleepers, ballast, rails) but also things like locomotive sand, bogie frame and wheel transport or storage vans. In Victoria the VZxx series started with bogie transport wagons in 1985, adding ballast wagons in 1987 then the vast majority of the maintenance fleet in the following year.^[33] In New South Wales the "D" was retained for the track maintenance group, and "Z" used for special-purpose wagons such as those designed for exceedingly large and heavy loads.^[39]

Lease and sale prefix changes "R", "N" and "V"

When the National Rail Corporation was set up in the early 90s it did not initially have a large enough fleet of its own, so it borrowed extensively from all the state-based freight operators.^[40] The wagons leased were recoded with an "R" prefix in lieu of the former state prefix, and other letters were changed if necessary to avoid duplicate classes.^[41][8]: 7 The former Australian National fleet changed from an "A" prefix to "R" (for example, AQMY to RQMY).^[42] As the NRC fleet grew the wagons were returned to their previous owners and generally reclaimed their prior identities. Later, when Pacific National absorbed National Rail Corporation, Freight Australia and FreightCorp, they did not bother with mass recoding and simply kept the prefixes "N", "R" and "V".^{[41][43]: 26–29}

As of 2026 the prefix system appears to have somewhat broken down. In Victoria, the three main operators are Pacific National, Qube Logistics and Southern Shorthaul Railroad. Respectively, they have wagons accredited for use in Victoria with the prefixes A, N, R, V, X^{[43]: 26–29} and leased C, N, R, W;^{[43]: 30–31} N, R, S, T, W, V^{[43]: 33–36} and leased A, B, C, P, T, W, Z;^{[43]: 37–38} and A, B, C, K, P, R, T^{[43]: 44–46} and leased A, C, M and N,^{[43]: 48–48} alongside One Rail Australia^[43]: 22 and Great Southern Rail^[43]: 11 each having "A" prefix wagons.

List of operator prefix letters

List of wagon type letters

List of bogie suffix letters