The Victorian Railways Y class was a series of diesel locomotives that were built by Clyde Engineering, Granville for the Victorian Railways between 1963 and 1968.
In 1963, the first of 25 general purpose diesel-electric locomotives was delivered by Clyde Engineering. As a cost saving measure, they were built with bogies and motors retrieved from scrapped Swing Door electric suburban train sets; the re-use of these components reduced the unit cost of the Y class locomotive from around £52,000 ($104,000) to £40,000 ($80,000). Two further orders saw the class total 75 by 1968.
Although built to dieselise Victoria's shunting operations and replace steam locomotives on branch line services, they were also used on mainline goods and passenger services, including between Spencer Street and Werribee.
Withdrawals commenced from 1985 and large-scale scrappings commenced during 1991 and 1992.
After the mass-withdrawals of the Y fleet up to 1992, engines 101, 102, 104, 150 and 151 were on standard gauge, as 103 had been withdrawn in the late 1980s. Y101 followed in the early '90s after suffering a collision, but it was not directly replaced.
This required replacing the original plain whitemetal axle boxes; in the short term they were modified but eventually they were all replaced with custom units, obviating the need for fortnightly lubrication of the bearings.
Today, 17 of these engines are in service, 6 preserved, 8 stored, and 43 were scrapped.
Trivia[]
- After closure of branch lines across the state and the end of short pick-up goods trains, use of the class dropped.
- In the 1980s, it is thought that four Y Class locomotives were on standard gauge, typically Nos 101–104.
- Only two engines—Y152 and Y165—were repainted into the V/Line Freight scheme, which was essentially the same as previous with a new decal and a lighter grey.
- The 1999 sale of V/Line Freight to Freight Victoria included engines 110, 113, 115, 118–119, 121–122, 138, 150–152, 157, 165, 169, 171 and 174.
- Some of these were upgraded by 2002 using traction motors and gear sets cascaded from the Freight Australia A and X Class locomotive upgrades, permitting operation at 80 km/h.
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