3102 Interior

The interior of Car 3102 at Eveleigh Paint Shop is a vestibule space lined with long timber benches. The benches run along both sides of the car, with brass handrails above them. Floor-to-ceiling timber panelling, polished and waxed. Domed light fittings overhead, original fitments. The car was originally built with separate compartments and individual seats for second-class passengers; the benches in this photograph were a later refit. The chocolate-and-cream paint scheme runs throughout. The wear pattern on the benches is heaviest in the centre, where commuters sat.

Car 3102 was a 1920s-built suburban carriage, electrified along with the rest of the network in 1926. The benches that replaced its original seats had a specific local nickname: the "bunks for drunks". The story is that on late-night services after the pubs closed, intoxicated commuters who couldn't sit upright were laid out on the benches to sleep through the trip home, with the bench design suiting the body more readily than the original seats. The nickname stuck. Whether the design was actually intended for that purpose or was just opportunistically named, the benches saw heavy use across decades of late-night Sydney rail service. Car 3102 was retired and is now held at Eveleigh.