New express stock cars were built and issued to service from 1906. The Second Class cars were coded BVE. Presumably the 'E' designating 'Express'.
Car numbers 1 to 31 were built between 1906 and 1909.
In the 1910 recoding the class was relettered to BE, with the same numbers retained.
Eight more cars were built in 1910. This brought the car numbers to 1 to 39.
Four V&SA Joint Stock cars were built in South Australia in 1923. Cars already in Joint Stock service were numbered 5 to 10.
Cars BE 44 to BE 48 were converted from BDSE mail sorting cars during 1922 and 1929.
BE 49 was altered from _AE_ 36 in 1961. This was the first VR air-con car and featured an air con duct along one side of the pent roof. It was scrapped in 1978 after a rather nasty derailment at Laverton.
Cars BE 50 to BE 61 were altered from AE / ABE_ cars during 1981. This was the start of the transition from wooden stock to all steel cars, altered rostering and the makeup of carriages into small fixed sets.
To overcome problems with different seating capacities within the BE group, two prefixes were added to the class in 1982. Using the standard BE capacity of 72 passengers, cars with a greater capacity ( 76 passengers ) were coded BEL_ and cars with less capacity ( 64 passengers ) were coded BES_
Cars listed as BEL were 44 to 47 converted from BE cars with the same number. The author has only traced BEL car numbers 44 to 46 to date.
Cars BE 50, 53, 55 - 61 were reclassed to BES, same numbers, during 1982. All these cars were withdrawn during 1983/1984. One official publication only shows BES cars as numbers 53 to 61.