PERM / DERM diesel rail motors
VR's most successful railmotor to date, proven by their 63 plus year lifespan. Several railmotor types were tried over the years but a successful railmotor would elude the VR until this design, from the U.S. was put into service. The VR completed “prototype” EMC car 55 RM at Newport Workshops with mostly local materials during 1928 to what, according to remaining documents in the Public Records Office of Victoria and an extensive article in the Victorian Railways Magazine of August 1928, we believe were genuine EMC drawings from EMC in Cleveland. However, most electrical and mechanical parts were imported from the Electro Motive Company’s various suppliers in the United States. After about a 12 month break, work commenced on a further 9 “production” cars at Newport. These cars were constructed with less imported parts and were built to a VR altered design (not the original EMC drawing). These 9 cars were completed between 1929 and 1931. They wewre known as PERMs, Petrol Electric Rail Motors. Over 1951 to 1953 the original, 6 cylinder, Winton 106A gasoline engines were replaced with 2 x General Motors, 6 cylinder, Series 71 engines giving the cars an extended life and henceforth were called "DERMs" Diesel Electric Rail Motor. In the late 70's RM 55 and RM 61 were extensively modified.
ABOVE: RM 57 is as built condition, photo from the State Library of Victoria collection
This is the content for Layout P Tag
ABOVE: RM 57 at Benalla loco depot June 8 1937, at the time it was running the Benalla to Yarrawonga service.
ABOVE: Undated photo of RM 62 at Spencer Street.
The ABOVE photo shows a pretty much original condition PERM, note the bogies compared to other photos, also note that at this time RM 55 is only for second class passengers, first class passengers would have been accomodated in the attached trailer,the photo below shows the second type of bogies they recieved. The photo below shows 55 in its rebuilt state.
ABOVE: Interior view of the mail sorting facilities in an EES, photo courtesy PROV.
ABOVE: D 1 was built by the SAR in 1931, photo at Keswick March 1986. This van was nicknamed "Penny" by some railfans.