Most of the Southern Aurora cars entered service in February, March or April 1962, and except for those destroyed at Violet Town in 1969, they lasted until 1991. The first five were constructed for the Brisbane Limited Express from 1959, and the design was repeated with 9 cars built for the Southern Aurora, three built for the Spirit of Progress, and two built as replacements for cars 2339 and 2343 destroyed in the Violet Town crash of 1969. Each car had a side hallway, serving an attendant's compartment at pone end plus ten individual compartments. Each of these could seat three passengers in day mode, but were only fitted with two berths (in a bunk arrangement) for night travel. The berths were set up while passengers were in the dining room for dinner, and restored to seating format following breakfast each day. The name "twinette" indicates two people per sleeping compartment. The ten FAM cars built for the Brisbane Limited and Gold Coast Motorail were based on a more modern design, as applied for the Indian Pacific fleet from 1970. Compartments were a little larger each, and as such the cars only had capacity for 18 passengers in 9 compartments (or 27 sitting).
Deluxe Twinette cars (DAM) One deluxe twinnette sleeping carriage was built for each system – Victoria had DAM2333 on 2BU bogies at 42 tons, and New South Wales had DAM2334 on 2BS bogies for 43 tons. The cars were almost identical to the NAM sleepers, with compartments attached to a side corridor and a small conductor's cabin at one end. The main difference was that the DAM cars' centre two compartments were merged, with the internal wall removed and the whole space allocated to only two sleeping passengers, rather than four. This luxury compartment provided a wider bed at one end, with two armchairs and a full WC and shower, and was placed in the centre of the carriage for maximum comfort. The cars entered service in February and March 1962, and were both in use until 1991, then stored to August of 1994.
Power vans (PHN & PHA) Three PHN power vans were initially built for the Southern Aurora, to provide head end power for air conditioning and on-train lighting as well as an additional 6 tons of luggage capacity. The vehicles were PHN2361, 2632 and 2363. A further three vehicles were built in 1962 for the Spirit of Progress when that was transferred across to standard gauge, and numbered 2369, 2370 and 2371. The six entered service respectively in December 1961, then February and March of 1962, with all three of the Spirit vans entering service in April 1962. The vans were fitted with three engine mounting points, and weighed 48 tons with two fitted or 51 tons with all three. In 1984 five further vans were built for the Gold Coast Motorail service to a similar design, but with deeper skirts and other minor finish differences, this was due to these vans being built by
A Goninan & Co instead of Commonwealth Engineering who built all the other stainless steel cars. These vans became PHA 2392 to 2396.
Luggage vans (MHN) Three MHN vans were built for the Southern Aurora, to provide 24 tons of luggage capacity for the train as well as a guard compartment. The three were identified as MHN 2364 to 2366, and were jointly owned by the Victorian and New South Wales railways but allocated to NSW for maintenance purposes, and fitted with 2CA bogies. Each van weighed 34 tons, with a central 6'6" guards compartment and two 34'3" luggage compartments, one either side.
Individual carriage details Columns "Code" through "Withdrawn" are derived from Banger (2012) pp. 180–186, except where marked as another source. () ==See also==