Between
1925 and 1953 the Railways took delivery of 75 mainline large
capacity brakevans, all had a high elliptical roofline and
full canopy ends. This profile complemented the mainline
72'6" sitting and sleeping carriages of the period. 20 of
these vans were coded as VHO, this coding denoted that these
vans were fitted with through doors and vestibuled gangways.
The remaining 55 vans were coded as MHO and these had non
through ends. These larger vans continued with the same basic
layout of the earlier EHO brakevan, with a centralised Guards
compartment and double sliding door access to luggage space at
each end. All of the vans were built with coffin chambers and
dogboxes, the VHO had these arranged longitudinally on one end
and the MHO had the same fittings arranged transversely across
one end. These vans were used across the entire state on all
forms of mainline expresses and branchline mixed goods and
mail trains. Later, as traffic requirements changed, these
brakevans were rebuilt and reconfigured many times, 23 vans
were coded KB for Parcels traffic in the early 1970s.
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