Victorian Railways E class

The E class was a class of suburban tank steam locomotive that ran on Australia's Victorian Railways (VR).

History
The pattern locomotive, named "Tasmania", was built by Kitson & Co of Leeds, England in 1888, and was a typical British tank engine with a 2-4-2 wheel arrangement. This engine was displayed in the Centennial International Exhibition in the Melbourne Exhibition Buildings in 1888.

There were seventy-one engines in the class, numbered 426 (pattern engine), 346 to 394 (even numbers, Phoenix Foundry), 12, 34, 36, 428 to 460 (even numbers, Phoenix Foundry), and 472 to 520 (even numbers, David Munro).

Phoenix delivered five additional locomotives designated as the EE class, numbered 462, 464, 466, 468, and 470. These had a new wheel arrangement of 0-6-2T, specifically designed for shunting use. After evaluation, engines 482 and 496 in 1898, followed by 490 and 478 in 1906-1907, were converted to the same format, although the latter two used 170psi boilers and 18-inch cylinders in place of the earlier 140psi boilers and 17-inch cylinders.

The pattern locomotive was withdrawn in 1915, and two more units in 1917. Melbourne's suburban electrification project made the 2-4-2T engines quickly obsolete. Between 1919-1923, twenty were converted to match the nine existing shunters' 0-6-2T configuration (all bar 494 upgraded to 18-inch cylinders), while another twenty-five were withdrawn. Of the latter group, twenty were sold to the South Australian Railways to become their second M class. An additional eighteen were withdrawn in 1924, leaving only a single 2-4-2T type in service.

In the 1923 locomotive renumbering scheme, the EE class engines were reclassified in the 350-379 group. By 1929, this had expanded to 390, and the group was reclassified as E.

The original 2-4-2T engines were intended to take numbers 236-245 without a class letter. However, only one engine survived long enough to have the new number applied. Thus, 506 became 236.

Retirements and preservation
In November 1937, E359 became the first 0-6-2T type to be taken off the register, while the remaining engines stayed on the register until the 1950s, with six of them continued to operate until the early 1960s. The last original 2-4-2T engine, 236, was used as a shunter at Newport Workshops until it was taken out of service in 1953. It was then stored for almost ten years and later allocated to the newly established ARHS Railway Museum in Newport as one of its first display pieces.

The last two locomotives in service, 369 and 371, worked as yard pilots at Newport Workshops until their withdrawal in 1972. After retirement, E369 was allocated to the ARHS for static display at the Newport Railway Museum.

In the 1980s, attempts were made to restore E371, initially at Steamrail's tarp shop facility and later at the Spotswood reclamation depot. Unfortunately, the engine was found to have suffered significant damage during its career, including damage to the frame and boiler that would be prohibitively expensive to rectify; in short, it would likely be cheaper to build a new locomotive from scratch. Therefore, E371 was reassembled and transferred to the Victorian Goldfields Railway (VGR).

Around April 2022, E371 was cosmetically overhauled with a brand-new coat of black paint, including painted cab and number plates in the form of stickers, and was moved to the Maldon Dock Platform for display.