page_title: Commonwealth Engineering
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Commonwealth Engineering / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Ex-M&gt;Train refurbished Comeng in Connex colours at Coburg. Picture taken by myself.
context_page_description: Commonwealth Engineering was an Australian engineering company that designed and built railway locomotives, rolling stock and trams.
context_section_description: Commonwealth Engineering was founded in 1921 as Smith & Waddington, in the Sydney suburb of Camperdown building bodies for motorcars and buses. It was reformed after the Depression as Waddingtons Body Works and moved to Granville. The Government of Australia took control of the company during World War II to produce materials in the Granville factory. The government purchased a controlling stake in the company in 1946 and changed the name to Commonwealth Engineering.
  In 1949 a factory was established in Rocklea, Queensland. This was followed in 1952 a plant in Bassendean, Western Australia and in 1954 by another in Dandenong, Victoria. 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 sat between the Great Western Highway and Main Western railway line west of Duck River, has been replaced with new developments that include high rise housing and light industry.
  The Dandenong plant was sold in 1990 to ABB Transportation and is now operated by Bombardier Transportation while the Bassendean facility was sold to A Goninan & Co.
  The history of Comeng has been published by John Dunn:
  Volume 1, 1921 – 1955 published in 2006
  Volume 2, 1955 – 1966 published in 2008
  Volume 3, 1967 – 1977 published in 2010
  Volume 4, 1977 – 1985 published in 2013
  Volume 5, 1985 – 1990 published posthumously in November 2013
caption: Connex Melbourne Comeng in December 2005
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot A60", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2005:12:28 16:34:10", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "196", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "2036", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5141", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/640", "EXIF FNumber": "7/2", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2005:12:28 16:34:10", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2005:12:28 16:34:10", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "149/16", "EXIF ApertureValue": "29/8", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "29/8", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "301/32", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1024", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "768", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "1024", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "768", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1540", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "512000/103", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "153600/31", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}