J - Fixed Wheel Cement Hopper

These wagons have their heritage in the seven _CK_ class wagons built for pulverised coal locomotive trials from 1949.

With the introduction of the letter "X" to indicate bogie exchange, the _X__ class wagons were relettered to class "J" in 1963. The wagons numbers were 8 to 77. Wagons 1 - 7 had been converted to _FX_ flour wagons from the X code..

The main traffic depended upon the points of major construction work. The wagons were loaded at Geelong and were sent to various locations in Melbourne and country locations. There were always several wagons on turnaround traffic at Dandenong. Victoria Park received wagons during the construction of the Eastern Freeway. The underground loop works were supplied from a siding near Brunton Avenue; the "Collingwood Sidings", now redeveloped to apartments.

In the main, the hoppers were replaced by an order for fifty VPCX wagons, in the early 1980's. The last remaining J hoppers were used to transport locomotive sand; sand required for wheelslip control.

Types

There were four distinct types of J hoppers

• Group 1 were the ex CK hoppers: raised hoppers, marks showing where the old CK fittings had been removed.
• Group 2 were J wagons with low hoppers ( "pots" ). This group were designed to suit the wagon capacity so the hoppers were only built large enough for cement traffic. Numbers were 8 to 27 and they can be found on railways diagram J-2/10-5-78.
• Group 3 were the wagons with high hoppers built new, numbers 28 - 77, except 41, 42
• Group 4 were two J wagons with notched hoppers and there is no information as to why the notches. It is presumed the hoppers were built with a different hopper contour and were "trimmed" back for guage loading or to suit a specific traffic site. These were J 41, 42. Diagram J-3/10-5-78 shows the hoppers with shallower tapered hopper top.

Vehicle history list

Note: Unable to segregate J hearse, J cement and J hopper wagons for the photo search at the moment