Victorian Railway records in action

We hold many records related to the Victorian Railways here at Public Record Office Victoria. Recently, researcher Sean Kelly was exploring our collection of Railway rolling stock drawings and tracings, this is what he discovered:

Winton 106A Gasoline Engine drawings

Recently railway locomotive Fitter Foreman Mr. Ian Kemp and I accidentally came across a set of (US) Winton 106A Gasoline Engine drawings in the Public Record Office Victoria collection at the Victorian Archives Centre.

The Winton Company was a subsidiary of The Winton Motor Carriage Company.  Winton was a pioneer United States automobile manufacturer based in Cleveland, Ohio and one of the first American companies to sell a motor car. Winton also was a Marine, Rail and Stationary gasoline engine manufacturing company until their sale to giant Detroit-based General Motors in 1930.

The Victorian Railways purchased ten Winton powered, locally built electric motored trains that the prototype’s assembly was completed in about March 1928 at Newport Workshops (and the last at Newport in April 1931).  This was I believe THE FIRST full size “Internal Combustion-Electric” train in Australia that, with its American counterparts, ultimately led to the worldwide demise of the steam locomotive due to electric transmission being superior to mechanical transmission.

Ian and I knew of a near identical Rail Motor train in Wisconsin (The Montana & Western, “M-31” built by the Cleveland based, Electro Motive Co. in St Louis in 1925) that still operates with one of the only four or five of these remaining Winton 106 engines worldwide (not all operate). We suspected the Museum that has custody of the train did NOT have engine drawings. This turned out to be a correct assumption according to the archive Curator at the Mid-Continent Railway Museum in Wisconsin.

So, we had the drawings scanned and printed in high resolution digital format and posted the full size printed drawings and digital copies on quality memory stick to the U.S. providing a missing piece of Winton history. 

This shows the IMPORTANCE of Public Record Office Victoria and their documentation in storage of our railway assets.

About the author

Sean Kelly has been interested in trains and railways since he was a kid - even admitting to wagging compulsory Saturday sport so he could ride the 7am D.E.R.M train to Seymour! He joined the Railways in Victoria in 1985. Over the next 20+ years he drove trains all over Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales and qualified to drive trains in the Pilbara of Western Australia. In Victoria he was fortunate enough to operate the last Royal Train in Australia (to date) conveying H.R.H Queen Elizabeth II and H.R.H Prince Phillip on April 28, 1988. He retired from the Railways in 2009.