Victorian Railways V499 - Baldwin Built

Built by the Baldwin locomotive works in America in 1899, and entering service in 1900, V499 was the pattern locomotive of the Victorian Railways' V class locomotives, the first 2-8-0 class in Victoria. It's success lead to a further 15 V class locomotives to be built by the Phoenix Foundry in Ballarat, remaining in service from 1900 till 1930. Originally built as Vauclain Compound locomotives, which used the steam twice to propel the locomotive before exhausting out the chimney, the class was reboilered and converted to Simple Expansion locomotives in 1912-13. Later, from 1923, the lass was renumbered between 200 and V215 (several locos were scrapped prior to renumbering). The first to be scrapped was V513 in June 1924, with V499 (now V200) being the last in 1930.V499, being the pattern loco, arrived and ran with several differences from the rest of the class. The most prominent was the Baldwin builders plates mounted on the smokeboxes sides and smokebox door; the smokebox door plate