The E type carriages were wooden express passenger carriages used on the railways of Victoria, Australia. Originally introduced by Victorian Railways Chairman of Commissioners Thomas James Tait for the interstate service between Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide, these Canadian-inspired carriages remained in regular service for 85 years over the entire Victorian network.

Design Carriages on Victorian long-distance express services at the start of the 20th century were, in comparison to the Pullman cars operated by the New South Wales Government Railways, relatively cramped and austere. Chairman of Commissioners Thomas Tait, previously the Transportation Manager of the Canadian Pacific Railway,Lee, p. 122. introduced a carriage design that was long, and as wide as the loading gauge allowed. Much of their external appearance was based on typical Canadian carriage design, with a clerestory roof curved at the ends, doors only at the ends of the car, and six-wheel bogies, although their interior design retained the compartment & corridor layout typical of English railway practice. Tait was the Chairman of Commissioners from 4 May 1903 to 30 November 1910, but it is not known how involved he was personally with the design of the carriages.

The cars were built over a steel truss underframe, with wooden bodies constructed in cedar, six-wheeled bogies with eight brake blocks each (two to the outside of the outer wheels, two each per centre wheel), and clerestory roofs to give ventilation as well as daytime lighting. Night-time lighting was initially provided with Pintsch gas. Separate drop-toilets for males and females were provided in all passenger vehicles except the dining cars, along with staff toilets in the twelve mail vans.

About three decades into their lives, 15 first-class carriages had air-conditioning added, the first (36AE) being out-shopped in December 1935. The Victorian Railways claimed it was the first such car in the British Empire, but the Canadian Pacific and the New South Wales Government Railways already had air-conditioned carriages.Lee, p. 160.

Construction Four and six wheeled bogies as used under the cars.

Of the joint stock carriages, the first class and sleeping carriages were constructed at Newport Workshops by the Victorian Railways; the second class carriages and most of the vans were constructed by the South Australian Railways' Islington Railway Workshops. Later carriages of the E design were constructed at Newport Workshops, either by the Victorian Railways employees directly or by Butty Gangs, who were contracted to build carriages within the workshops complex. Butty gangs had been used around the state on various projects; for example when discussing in Parliament the construction of the narrow-gauge railway from Moe to Walhalla around 1900, consideration was given to setting an average daily wage per worker on the project of ; this was changed to the minimum figure instead, and later still to a minimum figure of .

The first batch of E-class carriages were built between 1906 and 1911, with 38 AVE 1st class cars, 16 ABVE 1st/2nd composite cars, 39 BVE 2nd class cars, 25 DVE guard's vans, 10 ESBV, 2 EES, and 2 EEB mail vans, 6 Sleeping cars, and 2 Parlor cars; a State Car was built in 1912, having a similar design to that of the Parlor cars. The DVE, EEB, and EES classes were long, the remainder . All had wooden bodies, clerestory roofs and six-wheel bogies. On his website, Peter J. Vincent notes that he suspects the 'E' classification referred to 'Express'.

All cars were re-coded in 1910, without being renumbered: AVE to AE, ABVE to ABE, BVE to BE, DVE to CE, EEB to D, EES to DS, and ESBV to BDSE. All the BDSE cars were later converted to BE and BCE cars. In addition to the original 144 carriages, a further 31 were built from 1919 onwards, however, three of these were replacements so the total in service never exceeded 172 at any one time.

Maintenance of Joint Stock fleet Notably, the Joint Stock series of carriages, primarily built for and used on The Overland, were owned by both the Victorian and South Australian railways so each side kept their own records, which did not always match. For instance, the build dates for the 1923 BE cars (numbers 40-43) diverge. The hypothesis proposed by Parsons was that the Victorian Railways' records were the dates that the cars first arrived in Melbourne, rather than their entry to service. While the 1885 agreement between the Victorian and South Australian railways for joint stock fleet maintenance originally specified three-year terms, by 1934 this had been altered to five-year terms. Therefore, the Victorian Railways took the period 1934-1939, then the South Australian Railways to 1944, and so on until 1959. This explains the VR being responsible for automatic coupler conversion in the mid-late 1930s, and the SAR had influence over liveries until 1949, when an agreement was reached that new steel carriages for the Overland would be painted red.

Parsons highlights in particular that 7BE, 3CE, 1D and 4D were red in the late 1940s, and 26CE from 1949, but 3D was red in 1944 then black in 1945, and 1D was black in 1942/43, but red in 1946; and that the Victorian Railways had no other use for dark green paint at the time, while the South Australian Railways continued to use green paint on their rolling stock, e.g. the Centenary cars, through to their retirement. Where the Victorian Railways initially used a crimson red and later tomato red, the South Australian Railways' shade of red was a "regal red" which, when applied to wooden carriage bodies, gave a distinct brown tinge, with 27CE being a noted candidate for this scheme. South Australia also tried short-lived a polyurethane paint formulation which ended up with a purple hue.

Details First Class sitting cars

These carriages were built from 1906 with eight compartments, each seating 6 first-class passengers for a total of 48 along with a lavatory/wash basin arrangement at either end of each carriage. In the first four carriages, two compartments at the Gentlemen's end were reserved for Smoking travellers, while another two compartments adjacent to the Ladies lavatory were reserved for ladies only; this was later reduced to one Ladies compartment, with the Non-Smoking compartment count increased from four to five.

26 cars were built and numbered 1AVE to 26AVE. In the 1910 re-coding the class was re-lettered to AE, with the original numbers retained. Construction continued with a further twelve cars released to traffic until 1910 (Nos. 27 to 38), and a final four cars added in 1923 (Nos. 39 to 42). Cars 5 to 10, & 39 to 42 were in Joint Stock service (shared) between Adelaide and Melbourne, on trains such as the Overland. Although all construction was at Newport, only around 25 of the carriages were constructed by the Victorian Railways; the remainder (spread fairly randomly throughout the class) were constructed at least partially by contractors in the Newport area.

Car 36AE was notable as this car was the prototype car for air conditioning carriages in VR service, the test for the "Spirit of Progress" cars. 36AE entered service 13 December 1935, after air conditioning modifications, which took seven months to complete. In 1961, it was renumbered 49BE. The car was destroyed in a derailment at Laverton during 1978.

Some cars were leased to the South Australian Railways following World War II; as of 1950 they included 4AE, 11AE, 13AE, & 14AE. In 1952 cars 7 & 8AE were sold to the South Australian Railways to become their 550 & 551. The cars were later forwarded to the Commonwealth Railways, with 550 being written off in 1993, and 551 (after other incarnations) preserved by the Ghan Preservation Society in Alice Springs. 9AE was also leased to the SAR for a period in February 1954.

Cars 15AE, later replaced by 38AE and finally 5G were coupled between two electric swing door motor cars or parcels vans, to run around the entire suburban system while fitted with Hallade track recording equipment. The consist with an AE car was sighted on the Port Melbourne and St Kilda lines in 1952, and 2CM-38AE-1CM was seen on 4 December 1955, in that case with the leading CM powered and the trailing CM dead-attached with the pantograph lowered.

In the early 1960s, some AE cars had their bogies switched with those formerly under the Spirit of Progress carriages, as those cars were converted to standard gauge. However, while the bogie frames were transferred, it is thought that the AE cars may have retained their spoked wheelsets(?). Around the same time, AE 36, 1, 3, & 12 were re-coded as BE cars 49 to 52, with their seats removed and replaced for eight per compartment, total 64. 50BE stayed in that form, though the latter two cars were converted back to AE classification in the early 1980s as numbers 51 & 52.

In 1970 car 37AE was taken off register, but in 1971 it was converted to the second HW 1 as a crew car for the Weedex train. In this form it ran around Victorian lines, while the train sprayed weed-killer onto the tracks. It was used in this form from 1971 to 1995.

1AE (still coded 50BES), 2AE, 18AE, 30AE, & 1BG are in the custodianship of the Seymour Railway Heritage Centre, along with the frame of 39AE. 12AE is currently in the care of Steamrail Victoria, and 1HW ex 37AE is stored under their care, unserviceable, in Newport Workshops East Block yard. 18AE was with the Victorian Goldfields Railway, but it was purchased by Seymour Railway Heritage Centre and moved by rail to Seymour for restoration in late 2010. The body of 24AE was donated to a community farm in Brunswick East, and is reportedly used as an administration office. It can also be hired as an event venue, and has been redeveloped to have two separate hireable compartments and be more accessible. Coordinates are 37°45'57.8"S, 144°59'03.7"E.

28AE's body was sold privately and spent some time in Warrnambool before being moved to Codrington.

Buffet & Restaurant cars

34AE was converted to a buffet car in 1937 and named Taggerty two years later. In this form a kitchen and long counter facing eighteen seats filled most of the carriage, with three first-class compartments seating the same number of passengers in the rest of the carriage. Taggerty ran in VR long-distance services, most often on the 12 noon Melbourne to Bendigo, returning on the 5:04 pm.

It originally retained the dark red scheme of the Victorian Railways' passenger fleet (though with a silver roof), but by March 1963 it had been repainted into the blue and gold scheme. The vehicle was sold in 1983 and it now resides in a park in Donald.Visual sighting at Lions Club Heritage Train Park in Donald, Victoria. 18 January 2021.

21AE & 26AE were intended to follow Taggerty, but this work was held off during World War II. As work had already started the vehicles could not be pressed back into service, so they spent the war in the Newport Workshops compound. In 1955 the cars were finally finished, re-entering service as air-conditioned Restaurant cars: three compartments were retained but the rest of the car stripped out, being replaced with a buffet module with an eating area. The cars were named Kiewa and Moyne respectively.Bray, Vincent & Gregory, Steel & Special Coaching Stock of Victoria, 2009, A John Buckland photo of Moyne in 1958 at Dimboola shows that it was fitted with ex-Spirit of Progress bogies.

It is possible that, had Kiewa and Moyne entered service in 1939, they would have been identified as Composite Buffet No.6 and No.7 respectively.

Partial-Saloon cars