Victorian Railways rail tractors

The Victorian Railways rail tractors are a small shunting unit used by the Victorian Railways of Australia for moving railway wagons in at country stations and private sidings. Varying in power output and size, they are agricultural tractors on top of a four-wheeled steel rail wagon frame. RT1 was of a different design to the remainder of the class and is preserved at the Newport railway museum. RT46 was a standard Aresco Trak Chief, the only one of its type built for the VR and entered service in 1966. Unit 54 is a one off unit acquired from the Portland Harbour Trust who used it on their private siding.

These shunters (except RT 54) are not fitted with air brakes but are through piped to enable them to be worked dead as part of a normal train.

An ongoing refurbishment program was noted in Newsrail (March 1989) at Ballarat Workshops, and as units went through the program they were repainted into the then-current V/Line orange livery.

Units currently authorised to operate on Victorian tracks are RT 3-40, 42-43 and 45-53; the second group being more powerful, and all being permitted to travel at 15 km/h maximum. Units RT 18, 28 and 43 have been gauge converted and transferred to Sydney for use on the construction of the Epping to Chatswood railway.

Liveries
The first RT tractors were painted red or silver, although by the 1970s yellow became the norm.

They were stencilled as number-code, exceptions being RT42, RT46 and RT51 in the period 1982-1983. As they were refurbished for V/Line most tractors had the code placed first, except 20RT at Redcliffs in 1988 and 48RT at Maryborough in 1987. Of the refurbished units, 5, 11, 20, 29, 45, 47, 48 and 53 had orange underframes with white steps while 7 and 21 had black underframes and steps.

Maximum loads
As of mid-1986, RT units were limited to 30 km/h and the following loads:

Fleet details
Note: Zero prefix is not accurate, but displayed here for sorting function.