Old Kwikasair SARs

Thats a pretty complex numbering system.So what about the trailer in my tnt road boss photo.It has IKV...?

Okay, I'll go out on a limb here. From my memory, and I will stand corrected, the fleet numbers can be worked out as follows;

Example: 1PA350
1 = State where vehicle originally based
PA = Comet
350 = Fleet Vehicle Number

The first digit relates to the State where the vehicle was originally based;
1 = NSW
3 = Vic
4 = QLD
5 = SA
At Comet we had trucks that started out in NSW and had '1' at the start of the fleet number, but when there became Victorian based that first number stayed as a '1'.

The second and third digits relate to the Company;
KT = TNT
KA = Kwikasair
PA = Comet
AA = Ansett Freight Express
QA = NQX (I think)
There are heaps more for divisions such as Contrans, Alltrans, Railfast, etc, etc. I just can't remember them.

The last three digits are the fleet vehicle numbers. These were spread across the entire TNT group of companies fleet. For example;
347 = Ansett Freight Express LTL
348 = Comet T600
349 and 350 = Comet LTL
351 and 352 = Kwikasair LTL
353 to 358 = Comet LTL
359 = Comet T600

Hope that sheds some light on the numbers. I'm sure there is a lot more to it than what I can remember.

Thanks Young Fella I had a feeling that it was something like that but was never sure.
I will add to it a little

7 must have been Tasmania....so would 6 have been WA???


Do you, or anyone else, have a faint idea of the years of the last numbers.....eg. I know 7KA156, the tassie SAR, was pre 1982. What would a 1985 SAR be?....roughly....200-300??

Werk, the Road Boss I drove was about 81 was 216, there was a W model there similar vintage probobly a bit newer was 232.

Hey bigcam,Is this the one you drove [216]?

I think it was Richie, though my dodgy memory thinks it had a different prefix on the fleet number, 4TA or 4DA. There was 217 at Refridgeration, ended up getting tipped over in the early 90's I think, pretty light roll, but that was the end of 217.

It's right bigcam,Carpentaria Transport was set up in 1973 through the merger of TNT's Queensland general freight operations with East-West Freights,owned by the Jackson family.Under the agreement TNT held a controling interest (56%) in Carpentaria Transport.

Bigcam, yes, the number never changed, just the prefix. We had LTL 1PA321 at Comet, it ended up going to TNT Contrans in Melbourne. It was repainted orange and white, had the aero kit taken off the roof, but was still 321 with a different prefix (can't remember what that prefix was though).

Werkhorse, I couldn't tell you what the first digit of Tassie and WA vehicles was. But '7' on Tassie trucks rings a bell. As far as numbers go, mid 80's SAR's probably would have been high 200's and low 300's. The last SAR I drove was 309, that was around 1990. But 306 was the first LTL in the Comet fleet. We even had SAR 1PA161 doing the Melbourne to Maryborough run. That was a good old jigger that one, it was replaced on that run with LTL 1PA321.

Here's a run down of the Comet fleet into and out of Melbourne from my time there (1989 - 1994);
161, 309 = SAR
339, 348, 361 = T600
321, 323, 324, 325, 326, 333, 334, 349, 350, 353, 354, 355, 356, 357, 358, 381, 382, 390, 407, 408 = LTL
413, 421, 422, 423, 424 = LTS

The last truck I drove for Comet was 390. I remember it had one of the horizontal bars missing out of the top half of the grille. I was doing a Melb-Sydney run into the markets in 1995 and saw it, by then it was a local truck in plain white with a TNT emblem on the door.

Bizzare, I can remember garbage like that, but can't remember peoples names, ain't getting old fun.

Yes werkhorse QA = NQX

and I am pretty sure TA = Roadfast

I wish I'd taken some photo's when I was there, anyway, looks like the Road Boss in the pictures is one I used to drive, never thought I'd see that again. LOL.
Very interesting the fleet numbering system.

So... would Leyland Octopus 1RD619 be Rudders? Any history known?