From 1928 to 1938 the majority of the freight rolling stock of the Victorian Railways was converted from screw couplings to auto couplers or auto coupler fittings.
To reduce costs, some groups of wagons were modified with autocoupler gear but were still fitted with screw couplings. These took the form of 'transition hooks' which were hook couplings that fitted into the auto coupler pocket.
Fifty sheep vans, class _L__, were autocoupler modified at one end only and coupled in pairs. The configuration was with the transition hooks and buffers on the outer wagons with the pair coupled together by autocoupler.
The wagons were coded LB and were suitably marked to indicate the wagons could not be separated in traffic.
From workshops records it is possible to work out the wagons numbers for each of the paired groups.
What is not known as yet is when the wagons were fully autocoupled, the twin sets broken up and the class altered back to L. Main records only show the conversions without dates.
The writer presumes the wagons were modified and coded back in the 1950s when the main effort was removing screw coupled stock from service. At this time the wagons would have become auto coupled singles not requiring block service.
The individual LB numbers are listed below; there are no lists of the paired sets:
8, 20, 26, 27, 34, 106, 126, 137, 189
198, 202, 213, 215, 240, 274, 300, 308, 317
334, 338, 348, 351, 359, 382, 389, 403, 408
430, 434, 461, 467, 484, 491, 495, 498, 511
524, 527, 560, 563, 576, 580, 581, 589, 617
636, 638, 642, 677, 681, 683, 720, 722, 733
755, 761, 774, 775, 811, 836, 844, 849, 889
892, 919, 951, 958, 972, 979, 982, 989, 1004
1029, 1046, 1054, 1062, 1083, 1092, 1095, 1099, 1101
1111, 1119, 1130, 1142, 1143, 1145, 1157, 1163, 1175
1178, 1179, 1189, 1199, 1200, 1213, 1214, 1225
1241, 1252