PME / PMX Wide Steel Sheet wagon

PME 29522 in Pt Kembla, 1964. Jack Southern

In the early 1960’s, the maximum sheet width that came out of the Pt Kembla Steelworks increased to 10’6” (3.2m). The railways needed a wagon that would carry this width sheet without having to run expensive and complicated ‘Out of Gauge’ trains.

Originally coded PME, these 13 wagons were converted from HME Flat wagons by the Perway Workshops. The full-length support frame was designed to be removable, the load braces ‘clipped’ onto the deck. The load support frame is made up of 2 bulkheads and 7 load braces, set at an angle of 26.6 degrees.

The original ‘cantilever’ load brace design quickly proved to be too weak, they were permanently fixed and extra strengthening bolsters were fitted between the deck and load braces. Additional cross braces were also fitted. The date of the modification is unknown, but it is thought to have been around introduction.

Road numbers:

- Original 5 PME coded wagons: 29502, 29505, 29522, 29535 and 29539

- All 13 PMX’s: 29501, 29502, 29504, 29505, 29511, 29513, 29522, 29523, 29526, 29531, 29535, 29539 and 29546.

Length: 45’ (13.72m) Tare: 25t Capacity: 48t Gross: 73t

Bogies: 2CL - XCL

Colour Schemes:

- Painted in gunmetal grey only. Weathered down to dirty grimy brown.

Coding:

- Introduced as PME,

- Recoded as PMX when modified for bogie exchange traffic,

- Recoded as NZSX in 1980,

- Recoded as NKSX sometime between 1989 & 1992,

- Recoded as RKSX in 1994 for NRC traffic. All except 2 wagons (29502 & 29513) passed into NRC ownership.

Period of Service: Early 1960’s – 1995.

Modelling:

- Hanovale Models have available a kit of the wagon, as introduced, in HO scale

- Nagasaki Model have available a kit in N Scale