PHA Class

A PHA-class power van at the Eveleigh Paint Shop sits on its own length of track inside the workshop. The van is a steel-bodied carriage with a flat side profile broken by a row of access doors along the lower part of the body, where the on-board diesel generator sets were housed. Ventilator grilles are set into the upper part of each access panel. Roof-mounted condenser units run down the centre line of the carriage. The body is painted in a heritage interstate livery, the lettering still legible. End vestibules carry standard sliding doors. The bogies under the carriage are heavy steel-framed.

PHA-class power vans were the source of electricity for long-distance NSW Government Railways passenger services from the postwar era onwards, generating power on board for the lighting, the air-conditioning, the kitchen equipment, and the on-train services across the sleeper cars and the dining car. Each train consist carried at least one power van between the locomotive and the passenger fleet. The PHA in this photograph is part of the Historic Electric Traction collection at the Eveleigh Paint Shop, retired from regular service when the long-distance services it powered were withdrawn. The diesel generators inside the body are still in place; they are not connected for working operation.