This group represents the four and six wheel passenger vehicles which were built from the 1850's to the 1880's. From the 1880's they were gradually replaced by bogie carriages. Their full life was much longer. The majority of stock built before 1880 were removed from rails by the 1930's. The stock built after 1880 ran until the 1980's ending service as workmen's sleepers.
The cars were built by various companies in Victoria with imports from major car building companies in England. From the 1860's to the 1880's cars from private rail companies taken over by the VR were absorbed into the fleet.
With the massive influx of bogie carriages from 1887, many cars were downrated to Second Class as _B__ class. Car A 1 (2nd) was built in 1889 by Brown & Marshall and was noted as an "Exhibition Car". It survives today as a carbody on a farm, 160km north of Melbourne.
The car car built was A 4, in 1893.
The final car numbers were 1 - 128, 130 - 274. However not all these cars were in service at the same time. Some car numbers were re-used. In fact there were 276 'A' cars listed after 1886.
Conversions between 1886 and 1910 saw the group modified to _AB_, B, Ministerial and Dynagraph cars.
In the 1910 recoding the class was altered to _X__ and _XH_.
There is reason to believe that the early First Class bogie carriages were numbered into this 'A' group, taking unused numbers to fill gaps. By 1886, these vehicles had been given a new class of their own ( _AA_ ) and were renumbered out of this group.
File c362m compiled by Peter J. Vincent, updated 21/10/2007