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During 1986, 100 PCO Class
Container Wagons were built for Queensland Railways by
Commonwealth Engineering (Comeng) at Salisbury in Brisbane.
The PCO Class was one of several new and modern
"skeletal" type container wagon designs which
entered QR service during the 1980's and 1990's.
The PCO could carry two 20ft
(6.1m) containers, one 25ft (7.6m) container, or one 40ft
(12.2 m) container. One 20ft (6.1m) container weighing up to
19 tons could be carried single when located on the hand brake
end of the wagon. The wagon could carry up to 48.5 tons on
"S" & "A" class lines, and could be
used on Express Freight trains at 80 km/h.
The 100 Comeng built PCO wagons
were all fitted with QR38 bogies and had a gross mass of 63
tons. Running numbers were 45250 to 45349, and all were
delivered between April and August 1986. When delivered the
PCO's were fitted with auto couplers, transition links, and
buffers on the wagon headstocks. From the early 1990's,
buffers were progressively removed from QR rolling stock, and
the PCO's would have had their buffers removed around the same
time.
A further 3 contracts were
later awarded to ANI Ruwolt for similar wagons, these versions
featured small differences to the Comeng version.
From 1995 onwards, all 310 PCO
and PCOY wagons were grouped together and as part of the North
Coast Line 100 km/h upgrade in 1997 were reclassified as PCUY
Class. During this period the class could be observed on
trains all over the state on the main trunk routes including
the North Coast Line Sea Freighter Services to Fisherman
Island.
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