25' and 40' Refrigerated RACE Containers

Following the earlier introduction of 20’ steel ventilated and dry containers under the Railways of Australia Container Express joint branding, the NSWPTC introduced two new refrigerated types in the early 1980s. These were predominantly used for fresh fruit and vegetables that required refrigeration and meat products, much of the fruit and vegetable traffic originated in northern NSW and parts of southern Queensland.

For meat traffic, 40’ containers were built by Reinforced Plastics Melbourne and were fitted with an external Thermo King refrigeration unit mounted on one end. NSWPTC owned 160 of these containers and they entered service in early 1980, they were coded LRC. It was common for these units to be fixed semi permanently to a variety of 45’ long container flat wagons, ICX and OSF being the most common wagons used. 

For fruit traffic the containers were a unique length of 25’ and the refrigeration was provided by a Thermo King unit mounted on one end. NSWPTC shared ownership of 100 units with QR, these were coded SRC and QR owned another 100 units outright and these were coded QRC, both are to the same design but  with varying sized signage to denote ownership. They were built by Domino Industries between 1980 and 1983. The could be found on parts of the QR network and they were forwarded to Clapham Yard for transhipping to Standard Gauge.