V/Line Grain livery.

Rollingstock

VHGF grain hopper

The Victorian Railways VHGF class is a bulk grain hopper, originally built in the 1960s. Starting off with the classification GJX, many were first reclassified to GJF, to retain the wagons in Victoria. Later, they were reclassified again to VHGY.

According to Peter J. Vincent's data1 the Y was often incorrectly read from a distance. As a result, in the late 1980s, the class was again reclassified to VHGF.

The wagons operate on both broad and standard gauge in both Victoria and NSW.

When built, the wagons consisted of either aluminium

or steel construction. They have featured various liveries, pre-privatisation including unpainted aluminium with VR emblem, wagon yellow with VR emblem, wagon yellow with V/Line Grain emblem. Post-privatisation includes V/Line Freight emblem on grey, Freight Australia emblem on green and Pacific National emblem on

V/Line Freight. This livery was applied just prior to the privatisation process.

blue or green.

The wagons have also featured other liveries or alterations, with those carrying rice featuring the Sunrice emblem for example, amongst others.

The models featured here are all Steam Era Models kits, which are representative of the 1980 built steel constructed wagons. Auscision have produced the aluminium variety in various liveries, however many have currently sold out.

Their appearance changed during the late 1990s and early 2000s, with the addition of ground operated controls for the roof hatches on many wagons.

The SEM wagon kits are a basic injection moulded

styrene construction and come with either V/Line Grain or Freight Australia decals. Various suppliers provide the V/Line Freight decals or Pacific National decals for those that wish to build these varieties while SEM also provide V/Line grey and V/Line orange enamels.

These SEM kits have been fitted with Kadee #58 couplers and the SEM shunter's steps which are available separately.

Freight Australia livery, as worn in the late 1990s/early 2000s.