3642 made a trip to Melbourne for The Phantom of the Opera which included a parallel run with Victorian locomotive R 766.
The Gippsland line, which was electrified to Traralgon by 1955, was the first line to see the complete withdrawal of the R class from service.
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Other modern features included SKF roller bearings on all axles and the innovative, lightweight SCOA-P type driving wheels, which were specially developed for the R class by the Steel Company of Australia.
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An order for 20 locomotives was placed with the VR's Newport Workshops in 1946, but remained unfulfilled for years as shortages of steel and manpower saw other projects (such as the overhaul of badly run-down infrastructure and the building of extra X class goods locomotives) given precedence.
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R 707, which due to various defects had still not been put into service by 1954, was selected for modification for pulverised brown coal (PBC) operation, in conjunction with trials of this fuel being undertaken with X class 'Mikado' X 32.
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A long overdue replacement for the 1907-era A2 class 4-6-0, their development and construction was repeatedly delayed due to financial constraints caused by the Great Depression and later the manpower and materials shortages of World War II and the immediate postwar period.
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The R class adopted the bar frame construction of the H and S class express passenger locomotives, which had proven to be far more robust in coping with the VR's varying track quality than the fracture-prone plate frames of the A2.
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