 R 743 was in the process of conversion to oil firing as part of a major overhaul in February 1957 when instructions were issued to halt the conversion program and was returned to service as a coal fired locomotive.Because they were superseded so early in their lives by more modern forms of traction, and because they spent so much of their remaining lives stored for seasonal grain traffic and/or in poor condition, the R class achieved one of the lowest average mileages of any VR locomotive.The lowest was that of R 716, which recorded just 88,909 miles (143,085 km) in just four years of service before being withdrawn in 1956 and scrapped in 1962.