Class VF bogie vans

Class VF bogie vans

The VF class van was a development of the VD class. The same 36'-0" chassis was used but the doors were arranged to give a single wider opening in the centre of the van and only the upper half of the sides were louvred. A total of 156 VF class vans were built in 1961 (23201-23279, 23281), 1962 (23280, 23282-23323) and 1963 (23324-23356).

In 1970 ten of the VF class vans were fitted with load dividing equipment and reclassified VFL. A similar conversion was also applied to some VD class vans, which became class VDL. The vans involved were VF23207/9, 23216, 23257, 23283/7, 23300, 23328, 23333 and 23340. Two of the VFL conversions later reverted to class VF. These were 23209 in 1980 and 23328 in 1984.

From 1975 members of the class began to be written off and converted to other classes. The conversion of VF to VFA paralleled that of the VG to VGA conversions whilst vans of most classes on the standard chassis were eventually converted to class RCJ.

1975 1976	23275 written off 23223, 23235, 23286 written off	1986	23201/5, 23220/4/7, 23233, 23243, 23260/1/3/9, 23272, 23280/8, 23293, 23318, 23323, 23351-3 to RCJ
1977	23341 written off	1987	23208, 23230/2, 23242, 23250, 23305, 23312, 23320, 23338, 23346/7 to RCJ
1983	23212, 23234, 23256, 23282 written off	1990	23251, 23281, 23291 written off
1984	23245/6, 23296 (all w/o 1983) converted to JOC 23204, 23210/8, 23222, 23231/7/9, 23247/9, 23254/8/9, 23268, 23273/8, 23285, 23294/9, 23301/2, 23316, 23321/6/7, 23330/1/5/9, 23343, 23350 to VFA	1991	23203/6, 23211/3/4, 23225/8/9, 23248, 23252/7, 23262/4, 23276, 23292/5/8, 23300/3/4, 23310/5/9, 23325/8, 23337, 23342/4/8/9 written off
1985	23209, 23219, 23240, 23265, 23270, 23313, 23354/5 to VFA