NSWGR Vehicle Coding System

 

The NSWGR had separate coding systems for freight and passenger rollingstock fleets. This page only deals with freight vehicles.

The coding system of the NSWGR has taken various forms. Most changes to a previous system were done due to increase in the wagon fleet or when the system won’t allow for enough versions of like vehicles.

The genesis of our system is a throw back to the very early days of any railway in the world. Most railways used a letter based system were the first vehicle class was coded ‘A’, then each new vehicle class was given the next letter of the alphabet. For example: the ‘A, B, D, S, K’ Open wagons or the ‘E, G’ Flat wagons.

The NSWGR was no different, but everyone had problems when the 27th new vehicle class entered traffic. The system was then developed to reflect more specifically what a vehicle was used for, by adding a second letter (either before or after the first). For example ‘S’ wagons that were modified to carry oil drums were recoded ‘SO’ and ‘U’ open wagons modified with permanent roofs for carrying wheat were recoded ‘RU’.

The second letter was also used to distinguish between identical vehicles that were made from different materials/features. For example the original versions of ‘S’ trucks were made mostly of timber, a later version was built using a steel underframe and was coded ‘SS’.

As even more modifications were made to suit a particular purpose, a 3-letter code was applied.

 

There is a slightly different coding system for both 4-wheel and bogie wagons.

 

If the following gets confusing, the general rule is that, a code was formulated as an abbreviation of how it was verbally described. Simply what a wagon was, or is used for, ie WT - Water Tanker, BMT - Bogie Milk Tanker, RU – Roofed ‘U’ wagon, BWH – Bogie Wheat Hopper etc.

 

4 Wheel Wagons

 

1 letter code – denotes wagon class as introduced.

 

2 letter code

        First Letter – denotes general usage, but sometimes wagon class

S – Steel construction      W – Water Carrier     R- Roofed wagon

C – Covered wagon             C – Covered Van        P – Powder Van

Second Letter – denotes usually wagon class, but sometimes type of vehicle

S – S Wagon            T – Tank wagon        F – Flat wagon

O – Oil                          R – Refrigerated wagon

           

3 Letter code

First and second Letter – denotes purpose of wagon

BW – Bulk wheat              SW – Special purpose (Non-revenue)

TP – Tin Plate                   RS – Rutile Sand

AB – Arnott’s Biscuit       GS – Grated Sheep

        Third Letter – denotes type of wagon

F – Flat wagon          T – Tank wagon        V – Van

 

Bogie Wagons

2 letter code

This was common for new bogie vehicle built in the 1950’s. It very easy to see what they meant: WH – Wheat Hopper, CH – Coal Hopper etc

 

3 letter code

The first newer (post-1950) bogie wagons using this code were easily identified.

BCH – Bogie Coal Hopper                   BWH – Bogie Wheat Hopper              

BLH – Bogie Limestone Hopper          BCW – Bogie Cattle Wagon

BSV – Bogie Sheep Van                    DOT – Departmental Oil Tanker

TLV – Tinplate Louvre Van etc.

Then as bogie exchange started to become more popular, X started to appear as the third letter. This put coding into a bit of a shambles, but was still fairly easy to decipher.

Generally it followed the same idea as the 4 wheeler 3 letter coding system, the first and second letter describes the specific use of the vehicle. With this change, it was usually common practice to use the third letter to denote the type of bogies fitted to the wagon X – Bogie Exchangeable, Y – High Speed, W – Low Height bogie.

This last changed appeared to be a preview to the next coding system to appear on NSW freight vehicles, the ‘ROA’ 4-letter system.

 

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