The 5.20pm departure to Melbourne marked the final North East run for the 1980s rolling stock dubbed 'classic' by V/Line and outdated by passengers.

While there was no fanfare from V/Line about its workhorse terminating, rail fanciers were keen to embark on the 12.05pm outward N Class journey as well its return trip.

Among them was Wangaratta enthusiast Daniel Sciberras, who administers a Facebook group of 1200 members with the title Dan The Rail Fan Man.

"I thought there would have been something special but sadly that wasn't the case, but there was a lot of rail fans on board with cameras and videos," Mr Sciberras said.

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"I've grown up travelling on them, going to Melbourne and going to Albury, and it's just another piece of the 20^th century that's no longer with us."

Violet Town's Bruce Cumming, who has driven historical recognition of the 1969 Southern Aurora train crash at his hometown, joined his friend and former railway line worker Charlie Mead for the run to Albury and return.

"It's the end of an era, there's been 149 years of passenger services with locomotives towing trains up and down this line," Mr Cumming said.

"It's easy to miss these spots in history and it's great to be able to take them up."

Perhaps not surprisingly, not everything ran smoothly on the final service.

"I think they had some staff shortages, so the buffet wasn't working, you couldn't celebrate with a cup of coffee," Mr Cumming said.

A Benalla resident, Mr Mead worked on the construction of the standard gauge and track upkeep for three decades before retiring in 1996, saying he had "a fantastic life on the railways".

"It's sad to see them go but the new ones are pretty good," Mr Mead said of the N Class.

They have been replaced by VLocity sets which require no separate locomotive and debuted on the Albury line on December 30 after a long wait.

V/Line declined to comment on the bowing out of the N Class, instead spruiking the new.

"We're excited for all Albury line passengers to have access to our comfortable and modern VLocity trains," a spokesman said.

"We're looking forward to the start of the new timetable later in August, which will allow passengers to realise the journey time savings that come from running a full fleet of new, faster trains on the line."

Trackwork means buses will replace trains from August 6 to 25.

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