4052 Exterior

Carriage 4052 at Eveleigh Paint Shop is a single steel-bodied suburban car, sitting on a parallel track to the Centurion. Where the Centurion is timber-bodied, 4052 is all steel. The body is painted in the same chocolate-and-cream NSW Government Railways livery, but the panels show the rivet lines of riveted steel construction rather than the timber-board joins of the older carriage. Doors are double-leaf sliding, fitted with the original window glass. The exterior has been restored where necessary but is largely original. Bogies under the carriage are the heavier steel-framed type that came in with the all-steel build.

Carriage 4052 was built in 1924 as part of Australia's first all-steel electric train fleet. The introduction of steel bodies to Sydney's suburban network was a major engineering shift. Steel was heavier than timber but stronger, harder to break in collisions, and less prone to fire. The first all-steel cars went into service in 1926 alongside the network electrification. They displaced the older timber stock over the following decade. 4052 is one of the survivors of that original steel fleet, retired from active service decades ago and now held at Eveleigh as a heritage exhibit. The build year is stamped into the metalwork in several places.