On the morning of March 4th 2015, Victorian railway enthusiasts woke to news of a fire at Melbourne's Newport Workshops - where the majority of the states' heritage fleet is stored and maintained. As information slowly became available we learned that four swing-door 'Dogbox' wooden suburban EMU cars had been destroyed, including all three operational examples. These were some of the oldest operating rail vehicles in Victoria - 107M (seen leading in the above photo) was built as a steam hauled suburban car in 1888, being converted to electric traction in the early 20th century, and remaining in service until 1974. They were painstakingly restored to a very high standard by a small team of dedicated volunteers.
With these cars destroyed, the number of surviving 'Doggies' can be easily counted on the fingers of one hand, and all are in a poor unrestored condition.
This photo was taken in happier times back in 2002, when 107M-137M ran a tour to Frankston hauling a pair of ABU country cars. Known as an 'E train,' this was a standard operation up until the late 50's - A pair of suburban motors would haul a set of country cars express to the end of the electrification at Frankston, where a steam locomotive would take over for the rest of the trip to Mornington or Stony Point. At the time of writing it seems extremely unlikely that we will ever see a Dogbox set operating on the mainline again. But then, who can ever know what the future may hold?
[UPDATE MARCH 2016:] At the time, the fire was blamed on an electrical fault. It is now known that the fire was deliberately lit by serial arsonist Nick Archer. Nick was a volunteer at Steamrail Victoria, was a volunteer firefighter and worked for Metro Trains Melbourne. He also caused a major derailment of a suburban EMU at Hurstbridge (See image No. 555052). I had met Nick several times. He was arrested on at least 25 charges on Saturday 13th of February 2016.
