Commonwealth Engineering

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Commonwealth Engineering

Commonwealth Railways carbon steel sleeper cars at the Comeng Granville workshops
Industry	Engineering
Founded	1921
Defunct	1990
Fate	Acquired by ABB Transportation
Headquarters	Granville
Number of locations	Dandenong Rocklea Bassendean Braemar
Products	Railway rolling stock
Parent	Australian National Industries

Commonwealth Engineering, often shortened to Com-Eng, later known as Comeng [/ˈkɒmɛndʒ/ KOM-enj], was an Australian engineering company that designed and built railway locomotives, rolling stock and trams.

Smith and Waddington, the predecessor to Commonwealth Engineering, was founded in 1921, in the Sydney suburb of Camperdown, as a body builder for custom motor cars. It went bankrupt in the Great Depression, and was reformed as Waddingtons Body Works and the main factory was moved to Granville, after a fire in the main workshop. The Government of Australia took control of the company during World War II as the company was in serious financial difficulties but had many government orders in its books. The government purchased a controlling stake in the company in 1946 and changed the name to Commonwealth Engineering.^[1]

In 1949 a factory was established in Rocklea, Queensland. This was followed in 1952 by a plant in Bassendean, Western Australia and in 1954 by another in Dandenong, Victoria. Another factory was established in Braemar, NSW in 1973, as Mittagong Engineering.^[2] This was established not only to take some of the workload off the Granville plant but to potentially replace it eventually.

In June 1957, the government sold its shares. In November 1982 Comeng was taken over by Australian National Industries.

The Granville factory closed in 1989 and has been demolished. The site, which was situated between the Great Western Highway and Main Western railway line west of Duck River, has been replaced with new developments including high-rise housing and light industries.

In 1990, the Dandenong plant was sold to ABB (later Bombardier Transportation, now Alstom),^[3][4] while the Bassendean facility was sold to A Goninan & Co.

John Dunn has written a history of Comeng:

• Volume 1, 1921 – 1955, published in 2006^[1]
• Volume 2, 1955 – 1966, published in 2008^[5]
• Volume 3, 1967 – 1977, published in 2010^[2]
• Volume 4, 1977 – 1985, published in 2013^[6]
• Volume 5, 1985 – 1990, published posthumously in November 2013^[7][8]

• 60 Canberra Bus Service AEC Reliance 470s
• 30 Canberra Bus Service AEC Swift 505s

• 50 Leyland OPSU1/1s
• 50 AEC Regal IVs

• 50 AEC Regal IIIs

Leyland OPSU1/1s

• 8 BHP Port Kembla D1 class diesel locomotives
• 6 442 class diesel locomotives
• 10 70 class diesel hydraulic locomotives
• 50 80 class diesel electric locomotives
• 15 XPT power cars

• 1 Mount Isa Mines 302 class diesel-hydraulic locomotive
• 1 Mount Isa Mines 305 class diesel-hydraulic locomotive
• 7 DL class locomotives for Innisfail Tramway operations

• 1 MRWA E class locomotive
• 10 WAGR B class locomotives
• 11 Westrail N class diesel locomotives
• Alco 636 M636 diesel locomotives for Hamersley Iron
• 21 Alco 636 diesel locomotives for Mount Newman Mining
• 12 Alco 636 diesel locomotives for Robe River Mining

• 10 85 class electric locomotive
• 50 86 class electric locomotive

• 18 3100 class electric locomotive
• 68 3200 class electric locomotive

• 5 1100 class Budd railcars

• 24 1800 class railcars
• 2 1900 class railcars
• 40 2000 class railcars

• 30 2000 class Adelaide suburban diesel railcars
• 20 3000 class Adelaide suburban diesel railcars

• 10 West Australian ADK diesel multiple units
• 8 West Australian Prospector diesel railcars
• 5 West Australian Australind diesel railcars

• 6 Tasmanian Government Railways DP class railcars

• Numerous diesel railcars for Indian Railways^[9]

• 80 W set Sydney suburban carriages
• 80 U set Intercity carriages
• 359 S set Sydney suburban carriages
• 246 V set Intercity carriages
• 11 Skitube Alpine Railway electric carriages

• 570 Comeng Melbourne suburban carriages

• 24 carbon steel carriages
• 124 stainless steel carriages

• 10 C1 bilevel cars (design only; built by Tokyu Car Corporation)

• 35 N type carriages
• 67 RUB carriages
• 75 stainless steel carriages
• 47 XPT carriages

• 99 steel carriages
• 35 stainless steel carriages
• 112 suburban stainless steel carriages (SX)

• 100 R1 class Sydney trams

• 230 Z class Melbourne trams
• 70 A class Melbourne trams
• 132 B class Melbourne trams

• 70 MTR Phase I Light Rail Vehicles 1988

Media related to Commonwealth Engineering at Wikimedia Commons