WSC W1502 on 7/9/79 at Clyde WW. John Miller

The WSC wagons were designed to carry timber sleepers from the forests of Northern NSW (and to a lesser extent, Central West NSW) to the sleeper dressing (or boradze) plants at Taree and Dubbo.

In 1979-81 the NSW PTC converted 34 condemned bogie wagons into sleeper carrying flat wagons. The first 26, chronologically, were converted from standard flat wagons of the MLE/UME type (22 wagons) or from LLV louvre vans (4 wagons). These wagons, converted in 1979-80, were numbered WSC W1500 to W1525. The last eight were derived from fishbelly MLV louvre vans and were converted in 1980–81. These wagons were numbered WSC 1526 – 1530 and WSC 1497 – 1499.

Both types of wagon had a fixed bulkhead at each end and four (or three for the fishbelly version) hinged bulkheads (or sail plates) designed to prevent the longitudinally stacked sleepers moving fore and aft. The sleepers are stacked on bolsters (facilitating forklift handling) and restrained with removable stanchions. The larger, flat wagon derived, WSCs carried five stacks of sleepers whereas the smaller fishbelly wagons carried only four stacks.

Date Introduced: 1979-1981

Running Numbers: WSC W1497 - W1530

WSC	Converted from	WSC	Converted from
1497	MLV 543	1514	MLE 24406
1498	MLV 6688	1515	MLE 9942
1499	MLV2732	1516	MLE 26311
1500	MLE 24373	1517	LLV 10084
1501	MLE 26301	1518	MLE 7056
1502	JME 25666	1519	UME 26371
1503	JME 25671	1520	UME 26451
1504	MLE 24440	1521	TME 26379
1505	JME 24449	1522	UME 26413
1506	JME 26287	1523	MLE 11103
1507	JME 26324	1524	MLE 9950
1508	MLE 25673	1525	MLE 4962
1509	LLV 11130	1526	MLV 1917
1510	LLV 11507	1527	MLV 1109
1511	LLV 9985	1528	MLV 377
1512	JME 7069	1529	MLV 1875
1513	MLE 25658	1530	MLV 9124

Table data from AMRM issue 188, p45

Length: 13.72 m Tare: 19.5 t Capacity: 40 t Gross: 59 t (long version)

10.97 m (fishbelly version)

Bogies: WSC wagons retained the bogies used at the time of conversion

Coding:

- They carried the WSC code most of their operational lives, however some were recoded NFCF towards the end.

Colour Scheme:

- The WSCs were painted bright yellow with a red sidesill on early conversions. This dirtied rapidly due to the sticky timber resins

Further Modifications:

After they were withdrawn (c. 2000) ten of the MLE type wagons were acquired by CFCLA. The bulkheads, sail plates, bolsters etc were removed and the deck modified. The modified wagons were recoded CQJY. After further modification these wagons were recoded CQPY. Wagons acquired by CFCLA were 1507, 1510, 1512, 1514, 1517, 1518, 1519, 1520, 1521, 1522 and 1524.

Operation: Used in the carriage of rough sleepers from the sleeper cutters’ loading point to the Boradze plants at Taree and Dubbo and, to a lesser extent, for the carriage of dressed and drilled sleepers from the Boradze plants to the final destination.

Modelling:

- Sydney Hobbies have a kit of the MLE version of the wagon.

- A kit of the fishbelly version was available from Hanovale Model Castings.

- Trainmaster released a ready to run model of the MLE/UME derived wagons late in 2006.

- Auscision Models produced an RTR HO model of the Fishbelly type in 2017.