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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.

History

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]

Buses

Diesel locomotives

Western Australia

• 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

Electric locomotives

Diesel multiple units

Electric multiple units

Victoria

• 570 Comeng Melbourne suburban carriages

Carriages

Trams and light rail

References

External links

Media related to Commonwealth Engineering at Wikimedia Commons