page_title: Victorian Railways Z type carriage
hierarchical_section_title: Victorian Railways Z type carriage
caption_attribution_description: Interior of a ACZ type carriage. V/Line, Victoria, Australia
context_page_description: The Z type carriages are an air conditioned steel passenger carriage used on the railways of Victoria, Australia. The carriages were constructed by the Victorian Railways from 1957 for use on intrastate services.
  Two major types of carriage were constructed - thirteen AZ first class cars with closely spaced but smaller windows, and twelve BZ second class cars with wider spaced but larger windows. Carriages were provided with a saloon layout, with 2+2 reversible seating provided, with each row lining up with the windows. First class was provided with more legroom than second. An internal partition existed between the two ends of the saloon, but was removed in later years. A single twinette sleeping car was also built in a Z type body shell, entering service in 1963; it had 20 berths.
  A number of carriages were placed onto standard gauge bogies from 1962 for use on interstate trains such as the Spirit of Progress. With the end of these trains in the 1980s they were placed back onto the broad gauge. During this time a number of AZ type carriages were provided with conductors work stations / compartments and recoded to ACZ at this time.
context_section_description: The Z type carriages are an air conditioned steel passenger carriage used on the railways of Victoria, Australia. The carriages were constructed by the Victorian Railways from 1957 for use on intrastate services.
  Two major types of carriage were constructed - thirteen AZ first class cars with closely spaced but smaller windows, and twelve BZ second class cars with wider spaced but larger windows (the thirteenth BZ entered service on standard gauge). Carriages were provided with a saloon layout, with 2+2 reversible seating provided, with each row lining up with the windows. First class was provided with more legroom than second. An internal partition existed between the two ends of the saloon, but was removed in later years. A single twinette sleeping car was also built in a Z type body shell, entering service in 1963; it had 20 berths.
  A number of carriages were placed onto standard gauge bogies from 1962 for use on interstate trains such as the Spirit of Progress. With the end of these trains in the 1980s they were placed back onto the broad gauge. During this time a number of AZ type carriages were provided with conductors work stations / compartments and recoded to ACZ at this time.
  The Z type cars were made redundant by the early 1990s with the introduction of the Sprinter railcars, this most of not all Z Sets were broken up, with the formation of West Coast Railway effective Sunday 19 September 1993 to run Melbourne ~ Geelong ~ Warrnambool Passenger Rail Services under contract to the Victorian Governments Dept. of Transport, Carriages: ACZ's: 252, 255, 257 & BZ's: 267, 269, 270 were obtained by West Coast Railway. After the demise of WCR, V/Line reacquired ACZ 252, ACZ 257 & BZ267, with preservation groups such as R707 Operations acquiring ACZ 255 & BZ 270 & Steamrail Victoria acquiring BZ 269.
  The cars still with V/Line were refurbished from 1995, being provided with 2+3 seating in the N type carriage style, with some carriages also receiving wider doors and toilets with wheelchair access. Today only a handful of Z type carriages remain in unaltered form, these being ACZ255 & BZ270 with R707 Operations.
  V/Line maintains ACZ 257 (now reclassed as  BCZ 257 ~ an economy class carriage, with the WCR 2001-era upgraded conductors work station / compartment) now reversed to be at the West End, while still maintaining its Z type interior as modified & refurbished by WCR in there DDA-compliance upgrade of 2001. 
  (As part of these upgrades for DDA-Complience by WCR: ACZ's 252 & 257 were permanently turned, with the old east end {that once formerly housed the 1980s-era fitted larger conductors work station / compartments} being subsequently removed & replaced with a DDA-complement disabled toilet, similar to that fitted to V/Line BZN Carriages, this was hence renamed the new west end of the carriage. The old west end, that once housed the former toilet and washroom compartments divided by the central aisle & saloon entry} was subsequently removed & replaced with a new smaller conductors work station / compartment and hence renamed the new east end of the carriage.)
  The remaining Z type carriages in the V/Line fleet were temporarily removed from service in January 2013 due to cracking occurring in the bogies. The carriages have gradually been returned to service, and as at mid December 2016, only BTN253, BTN254, BZN258, BZN262 and BTN268 were out of service.
caption: Interior of a first class ACZ carriage
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