All passenger carriages operating under the Victorian Railways were painted a deep red, with black underframes and white lettering. In the early preservation era, vehicles managed by the Puffing Billy Preservation Society had a yellow band painted across the side, indicating the change in responsibility, although this practice slowly fell out of favour in the Emerald Tourist Railway Board era with few (if any) carriages now carrying this indication.
Victorian Railways stock Saloon-style carriages
When the Wangaratta to Whitfield line opened in March 1889, it was provided with two American-style second-class bogie saloon vehicles coded BB, and two bogie composite passenger car/brakevans coded BDBD. This could have led to confusion in official correspondence, so the codes painted on the carriages were amended with an N prefix in front of the carriage numbers before they entered service, i.e. N2BDBD.
The new carriages were built on a trussed steel underframe, on a pair of Fox bogies of wheelbases at centres and with wheels; the same arrangement as the narrow gauge goods fleet. The bodies were of teak, kauri and white pine timber with a clerestory roof over the carbodies.
The carriages were designed to operate in pairs, each of which had a net capacity of 31 passengers. The arrangement was originally two seats for ladies at one end of the passenger car, opposite their lavatory; a 22-seat saloon area for non-smoking passengers making up the remainder of that carriage, and smoking passengers were accommodated in the seven seats provided in the second carriage opposite the men's lavatory.
An additional vehicle of each type was constructed in 1900 for the line to Gembrook, followed by two more of each in 1901. 4NBDBD and 4NBB functioned as spare vehicles, replacing those which had been transported to Newport Workshops for maintenance, while 5NBB and 5NBDBD were held in storage until the Beech Forest line opened in 1902. 1904 saw the sixth NBB enter service at Wangaratta, and in 1905, the sixth NBDBD was delivered to Moe for the then-under-construction line to Walhalla.
The pattern vehicles were built at Newport Workshops by Victorian Railways staff. Of the thirteen total carriages, four, nos 2 and 3 of each class, were built by external contractors using space in Newport Workshops under the Butty Gang system. All other vehicles were then constructed at Newport Workshops directly by the railways.
In 1910 the codes were changed from NBDBD to NBC and NBB to NB respectively. Around the same time, a seventh NBC carriage was constructed, entering service near the end of 1910 on the newly-opened Walhalla line, though by this time the saloon seating arrangement for wholly passenger cars had been superseded by the below compartment style.
Automatic couplers were fitted in lieu of the original Chopper style progressively between 1926 and 1928.
All external doors were originally glazed with a single drop-window in the top half and protected with five steel bars, but this was later changed to a much smaller window.
NBB, later NB (saloon type)
The passenger cars had capacity for 24 passengers. Originally a single internal bulkhead with doorway was provided two windows away from one end of the carriage, to create a Ladies compartment with a two-seat bench on one side and a lavatory compartment on the other. The remaining ten windows' length of the carriage had an 11-seat bench along either side facing the central aisle. The compartment was later divided with a second internal bulkhead (four windows from the non-Ladies end) to make a central non-smoking compartment of , and a smoking compartment of , the latter provided with two brass spittoons set into the floor. These compartments had room for 14 and 8 passengers respectively. The end platforms, under a roof extension but without the clerestory, featured steps, moveable barriers, and a drop plate that would allow passengers to walk between cars.
The original design was for only the doors on the ends of each carriage to include a glass pane, but in practice two windows were provided at the smoking end and one at the Ladies end. The cars were originally provided with three kerosene lamps, and all but 5NB were later upgraded to Pintsch gas lighting with underfloor tanks and pipes via the carbody ends up to the roof. Around 1922, in response to complaints, the smoking compartment was converted to a longer Ladies compartment (with the inscription "LADIES" sandblasted into the glass) and smoking accommodation was removed.
To avoid the need to reverse the two carriages at each end of every run, the NBB cars were permitted to trail behind the NBDBD vans on each train with the guard working from the van area, but walking to the rear of the NBB when required.
By 1914, both 3NB and 5NB were fitted with a vertical hand brake on one of the end platforms. This allowed their use as a trailing vehicle on a train if no guards van was available.1914 Victorian Railways rolling stock diagrams book
5NB was a permanent fixture of the Walhalla line fleet from 1920 through to its withdrawal from service on 2 October 1950.
3NB was erroneously recorded as scrapped in 1928, but later recorded in the workshops in 1931, and was stored at Wangaratta following cessation of passenger services on the line from there to Whitfield, though it did see occasional use after that time. It was recommended for scrapping in December 1937, and this took place in March the following year, along with 4NB. 6NB was sold privately along with compartment car 8NB, and these were recovered by the Puffing Billy Preservation Society from Ocean Grove in the 2000s. 1, 2 and 5NB were retained in service until 1950, when the bodies were transferred to Pakenham for use as staff accommodation during the Gippsland line electrification project. They were officially recorded as scrapped at Newport Workshops in February 1951, but in 1959 all three bodies were purchased by the Puffing Billy Preservation Society and transported by road from Pakenham to Menzies Creek.Daryl Gregory
Puffing Billy Railway currently has 1NB, 2NBD (formerly 2NB but with guard's compartment fitted) and 5NBD (formerly 5NB but as guard's van and catering car) available for service, along with 6NB awaiting restoration.
NBDBD, later NBC
The composite carriage had a single saloon area fully enclosed and fitted with seating for seven passengers. The composite van's passenger area was unofficially reserved for gentlemen, with smoking permitted (two spittoons were mounted in the floor) and access to the male lavatory area between the passenger and guard areas. The passenger area had four windows on one side and three on the other, the latter adjacent to a pair of frosted windows for the lavatory compartment. Though the original design only specified the passenger compartment end with the door including a window, additional windows were provided either side of that. Three kerosene lamps were provided in the van and one in the saloon.
The guard's compartment of the vans was provided with four parcel shelves, two desks, a seat for the guard and an internal handbrake.
Passengers could only access the gentlemen's saloon through the guard compartment, or via the end-of-carriage doorways included at both ends of the NBBD vans which were designed to link to the saloon car's end platforms when coupled. Passengers were also permitted to walk through the train via the guards compartment if under supervision; for this purpose a step the width of one door was provided either side of the sliding van doors, though this was subsequently extended to the full width of both doors for safety, and at least two of the seven cars had full-length steps added.
The NBDBD van area was designed with a workspace, capacity for up to four tons of goods or luggage, and a booking office compartment obviating the need for on-platform ticket sales staff.
4 and 5NBC were scrapped in 1938, 3 and 6 in 1951 and 7 in 1954. 1NBC had been sold in 1954 and transferred to a private property in Colac, from which it was recovered in 1995. 2NBC had been condemned in 1954 but, like much of the Puffing Billy rolling stock, it was restored for use on that line. The Puffing Billy Railway today has 2NBC in service, along with 1NBC and 6NBC stored awaiting restoration.
Compartment-style carriages
From 1906 the design of passenger-accommodating carriages on the narrow gauge was updated to reflect more modern design principles. Instead of coupled pairs of American-inspired saloon carriages, miniature versions of normal broad-gauge rolling stock were constructed with compartment interiors, accessed by outward-swinging doors with full-length footboards provided. The new general design was a clerestory-roof carriage with fifteen windows each side and three on the ends.
The second-class NBB carriages were split into five equal compartments each seating eight passengers across two benches for a total capacity of 40 second-class passengers, with the outermost compartment at one end for smoking passengers and at the other for ladies.
The NABAB carriages had six compartments, the outer two seating eight smoking passengers of first and second class respectively, the middle two seating four, and the inner two seating four ladies, each with access to an offset lavatory, for a total of 16 first and 16 second class passengers. The seating was sprung, and upholstered with leather for first class and duck for second class passengers. Each compartment was provided with a single pintsch gas lamp. Sandwiched between the two ladies' lavatory half-compartments was a water tank, from floor to ceiling. Each compartment was separated by a full-height partition.
The compartment cars were the only ones provided with non-standard underframes, long in steel with truss rods fitted, and using "more elaborate" equalised bogies with a wheelbase at centres.
Five carriages entered service from late 1906 through mid 1907, initially 1NABAB, 7NBB and 8NBB in December 1906, joined by 9NBB in January 1907 and 2NABAB in July 1907 all for the Gembrook line. The next delivery was 3 and 4 NABAB for the then-under-construction Walhalla line, entering service in September 1909, delivered alongside 1NDD.
Under the 1910 recoding scheme, the NBBs of both types reclassed as NB, the NABAB to NAB. That year also saw 10NB constructed, as the first compartment style carriage delivered with the new code; the latter vehicle was recorded entering service only four days after Saloon type composite van 7NBC, but it is not clear whether 10NB was provided to the Walhalla line, or why it was constructed to the new compartment style rather than the old saloon style designed to pair with the NBC type. However, 10NB was present on the Walhalla line as of 1940, along with 14NB and 27NB ex 4NAB.
In 1911 the Colac to Beech Forest line was extended to Crowes, and in December 1912 cars 11–14NB were constructed to reflect both that and increased traffic elsewhere on the system; they entered service shortly after van 2NC. These were followed by cars 15–17NB in December 1914, then 18–23NB in 1915. The total build was 21 vehicles.