Historic Photo of the Day: 2025-09-19

Today's historic photo of the day: Diesel loco T352 hauls a VLine train of wooden-bodied E class compartment carriages, with economy car 33BE at front, away from Spencer Street station, Melbourne, March 18 1985. The wooden-bodied E class compartment carriages date back prior to WW1. Even by this time, those carriages were grossly outdated, being potentially over 70 years old. The last non-airconditioned wooden-bodied passenger carriages were withdrawn by VLine five months later in August 1985. The locomotive, T352, is one 95 members of Victorian Railways' T class 8 cylinder EMD-engined Bo-Bo diesel-electrics built by Clyde Engineering. This unit was a 'high nose' variant delivered in 1959 as part of the second order. A few T class units remain is service today, but T352 was scrapped some years ago, as were most (but not all) of the high nose variants. Note the then near-new N class carriage in tangerine at lower left, and the silver Hitachi EMU in the left background. Some N sets remain today, but the Hitachis were withdrawn by 2014. The extensive rail yards and docks in the background have since redeveloped as Docklands with the Docklands stadium now occupying the site of the majority of the goods sidings seen in the background here.