For countless travellers, the slam of a compartment door, the corridor’s patterned light, and the steady ride of an S type carriage defined the experience of railway travel in New South Wales for over half a century, from the 1930s to the end of the 1980s.

Built by Clyde Engineering between 1937 and 1939, the fleet were the first steel-bodied carriages to be used on the network and initially comprised thirty-five first-class BS vehicles and eighty-six second-class FS vehicles. A BS carriage seated forty-two people in roomier first-class compartments, while an FS could carry sixty-four.

From their debut, the S cars quickly became the versatile “go-anywhere” stock of the NSWGR. They worked to Newcastle, Bathurst, Goulburn and Bomaderry, and appeared on long-distance trains and nightly mail services deep into the West and North. Their compartment layout offered privacy, while the steel construction reduced maintenance compared with earlier timber designs