Railroad Tracks

Bogie exchange for allowing rail cars to operate on different gauges is very commonplace in Australia and has been for many years.

They actually label wagons that are specifically designed for rapid bogie exchange with an “X” in the wagons classification lettering.

For example, a freight wagon marked BC means it is a bogie container wagon, and a BCX is a bogie container wagon with rapid or easily exchangeable bogies.

Passenger carriages can also be designed with exchangeable bogies and a good example of this was the Great Southern Railway’s Orient Express, which ran from Cairns to Melbourne.

When the Orient Express arrived in Brisbane, the passengers would have a day wondering around Brisbane while the whole train was taken to Acacia Ridge and all the bogies were changed from standard gauge to narrow gauge, or the reverse, depending on which direction the train was travelling.

Thanks Tim. I wondered about brakes and air lines hence the reason for doubting myself. I also thought I’d seen the Sydney-Melbourne train also having a bogie change at Albury. But as I said, I was only a kid of about 7-yo (we actually lived at Hume Weir. Dad would have gone into Albury to watch and taken me with him.)

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Originally Posted by p38arover

Thanks Tim. I wondered about brakes and air lines hence the reason for doubting myself. I also thought I’d seen the Sydney-Melbourne train also having a bogie change at Albury. But as I said, I was only a kid of about 7-yo (we actually lived at Hume Weir. Dad would have gone into Albury to watch and taken me with him.)

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Here you go Ron, your memory is probably fairly correct on this one, like I posted earlier a lot more work at Albury than at Wallengarra

Bogie exchange - Wikipedia