North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex

General

Classification

State Heritage

Register status

Entered

Date entered

21 April 1997

Types

Transport—rail: Locomotive/engine shed

Transport—rail: Water tower

Transport—rail: Workshop

Themes

3.3 Developing secondary and tertiary industries: Developing engineering and construction industries

5.3 Moving goods, people and information: Using rail

Architect

Nutt, Mr

Builders

Barbat & Co

Baumber, GA

Brown, Peter

Carrick, DD

Cowan Sheldon & Co (Glasgow)

Day labour

Marshall, FH

Vincent, RP

Wilson, R & Co

Wilson, R & Sons

Worley & Whitehead

Designers

Chief Engineer for Railways Office

Jones, Francis

Pagan, William

Price, Vincent

Queensland Railway Department (1887-1932)

Queensland Railways

Railways Department

Stanley, Henry Charles

Construction periods

1863–1982, North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex (1863 - 1982)

1863–2021, North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex - Railway Sidings and Alignments

1863, North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex - Mihi Line Alignment (1863)

1885–1923, North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex - Wheel Shop (1885, extended 1923) [IS3093]

1885–2021, North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex - Landscape Features (incl. open squares, mature trees, embankment west of Power House, and boundary fences)

1885, North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex - K Mill (1885) [IS3092]

1885, North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex - Trimmers and Electroplating Shop (1885) [IS3086]

1886–1903, North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex - Tarpaulin Shop (1886; extended c1901-3 [IS3091] to connect to K Mill) [IS3090]

1887–1924, North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex - Spring Shop (1887, extended 1924) [IS3100]

1903–1927, North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex - Maintenance Carpenter’s Shop (1903, extended 1927) [IS3106]

1903–1938, North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex - Erecting and Machine Shop (1903, extended 1928 and 1938) [IS3050]

1903–1944, North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex - Boiler Shop (1903, extended 1918, 1936 and 1944) [R14 and R14A]

1903–1946, North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex - Blacksmith Shop (1903, extended 1922 and by 1946) [IS3096]

1903–1982, North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex - Traverser and Traverser Track (1903 and 1982), incl. views along Traverser 'streetscape'

1903, North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex - Carriage and Wagon Shop (1903) [IS3052]

1903, North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex - Pump House (1903) [R52]

1903, North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex - Power House (1903) [R10]

1904–1925, North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex - Supply Warehouse (1904, extended 1914 and 1925) [IS3095]

1904, North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex - Water Tower (1904) [R28]

1904, North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex - Bogie and Brake Shop (1904) [IS3109]

1906–1908, North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex - Loco Store (1906, extended 1908) [IS3060]

1909, North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex - Fibreglass Shed (1909) [IS3079]

1911, North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex - Timekeeper’s Office (1911) [R17]

1912–1935, North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex - Dining Hall (1912, extended 1935) [R16]

1912, North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex - Paint Shop (1912) [IS3053]

1939–1941, North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex - Laboratory (1939, extended 1941) [R21]

1940, North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex - Lighting Up Shed (c1940) [IS3063]

1941, North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex - Tool and Gauge Shop (1941) [IS3025, R18, R19 and R20]

Historical period

1840s–1860s Mid-19th century

1870s–1890s Late 19th century

1900–1914 Early 20th century

1914–1919 World War I

1919–1930s Interwar period

1939–1945 World War II

Style

Classicism

Functionalism

Romanesque

Location

Address

North Street, North Ipswich

LGA

Ipswich City Council

Coordinates

-27.5977393, 152.75810764

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Significance

Criterion AThe place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland’s history.

The North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex, established in 1864 and relocated to this site from 1885, are important in demonstrating the development of Queensland’s railway network. The workshops were the first railway workshops constructed in Queensland, assembling and maintaining rolling stock for the railway system, and later expanded into constructing locomotives. As the main railway workshops for Queensland until the 1960s, the scale and complexity of the site illustrates the importance of the rail system to Queensland. The major investment by successive governments in the workshops reflects its importance to the operation of the rail network and demonstrates the increasing self-sufficiency and sophistication of Queensland industry and technology.

The Trimmers’ and Electroplaters Shop, Tarpaulin store, K Mill, Wheel Shop, and Spring Shop are significant as some of the first buildings constructed as part of the workshops expansion in the 1880s. The Wagon and Carriage Shop, the Erecting and Machine Shop, the Boiler Shop, Supply Store, the Blacksmith Shop, the Bogie and Brake Shop, and the Pattern Shop were constructed in the early years of the 20th century as part of a new phase of larger purpose-built structures intended to improve, modernise and expand the functions of the workshops.

The Power House, completed in 1903, is a demonstration of the increased use of electricity at heavy industrial sites in Queensland from the early 20th century. Constructed to support 2-phase, 60 cycle AC power, it is an early surviving powerhouse containing rare early 20th century electrical machinery, and is supported by the cast iron Pump House and Water Tower.

Additional buildings constructed after 1904 (the Loco Store (built as the Spray Paint Shop and Westinghouse Brake Shop), Paint Shop, Fibreglass Shed (built as a sawmill) and Lighting up Shed) demonstrate the ongoing use and growth of the workshops.

The North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex illustrates the distinctive planning geometry which formed the model for late 19th century railway designers and engineers worldwide. This includes parallel rail tracks leading into rows of fairly equally-spaced workshop buildings, intersected by a transverse distribution axis (Traverser and Traverser Track). The railway tracks laid across the site, including within the buildings and the southern yard, are significant in providing essential connections between the workshop buildings.

Technological facilities constructed in the 1930s and 1940s (the Laboratory and Tool and Gauge Shop), demonstrate the evolution of the railway rolling-stock production process. The Tool and Gauge Shop is significant for the production of necessary tools used in the manufacture of munitions during World War II. It is one of only two known purpose-built tool munitions buildings constructed in Australia at that time.

The Mihi Line Alignment (1863) is significant as part of the first railway line in Queensland, a major step in the development of Queensland’s transportation network. The alignment continued to serve the workshops after the main line was diverted in 1875, playing a vital part in the operation of the workshops.

Criterion BThe place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland’s cultural heritage.

North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex is uncommon as one of only four large-scale railway workshops established in the 19th century in Queensland (including Rockhampton, Townsville and Toowoomba). Retaining a high degree of intactness and integrity, the place is distinctive as it featured the most extensive facilities and manufacturing departments in Queensland, and was the only railway workshop in the state in to build new locomotives.

Criterion CThe place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of Queensland’s history.

The place has the potential to contribute information that may lead to a greater understanding of the manufacture, maintenance and repair of railway rolling stock in late 19th and early 20th century, and the associated activities and infrastructure in Queensland. Substantial evidence of industrial work practices from this time survives, including an extensive range of machinery and plant.

The buildings illustrate the changes to technology and workplace amenity over more than a century. In association with documentary evidence, detailed analysis of site planning, interior layouts, fabric, and associated machinery and plant may provide further information on the nature of historical operational activities, staff working conditions and amenities, and the manufacture, maintenance and repair of railway rolling stock (including blacksmithing, heavy steel fabrication, boiler making, fabrication, and laboratory material testing) used in 20th century industrial practices and on this site.

Criterion DThe place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places.

North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex, a purpose-designed facility for the manufacture, maintenance and repair of railway rolling stock, is an excellent and intact example of a railway workshops complex constructed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Through its spatial arrangement, form, fabric, materials, circulation patterns and open spaces, the place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type, with its large site comprising an interconnected network of buildings and railway tracks organised for the efficient movement of personnel, materials, machinery and rolling stock to, from and between workshops buildings and the main railway line. Other principal characteristics demonstrated include: features for the generation and supply of power and water; staff office, amenity and recreation buildings; a main site entrance; facilities for the research and testing of railway equipment; railway yards; and machinery, boilers, gantries and furnaces associated with the manufacture, maintenance and repair of railway rolling stock.

The place retains excellent, intact examples of railway workshop buildings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These buildings (including the Trimmers’ and Electroplaters Shop, Tarpaulin Store, K Mill, Wheel Shop, Spring Shop, Supply Warehouse, Maintenance Carpenter’s Shop, Boiler Shop, Erecting and Machine Shop, Carriage and Wagon Shop, and Paint Shop) are important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of their type, which include: a long, large-scale building form; large door and window openings; large-span roof trusses allowing for sheltered and unimpeded workspaces (or bays of work spaces); high ceilings; well-lit and ventilated interiors; construction of simple and robust materials; provision of electrical, compressed air, hydraulic and water services; connection to railway tracks (running through, near and/or adjacent to buildings); features facilitating the manufacture, maintenance and repair of railway rolling stock (including machinery, boilers, gantries, furnaces and inspection pits).

Criterion EThe place is important because of its aesthetic significance.

Highly intact, North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex has aesthetic importance for its expressive and beautiful attributes. The place is also a landmark of Ipswich and is central to the area’s identity, with the industrial aesthetic of its extensive collection of buildings and associated structures juxtaposed against its surrounding residential setting.

As Queensland’s principal facility for the manufacture, maintenance and repair of railway rolling stock between 1865 and 1965, the place expresses a prevailing spirit of progress, prosperity, confidence and optimism of the railway industry in Queensland in the 19th and 20th centuries. This is embodied in the complex’s: substantial size; cohesive set of structures that feature a balanced uniformity of scale and a common material palette (of face brick, corrugated metal, timber, and polychromatic brick ornamentation); provision of extensive staff facilities; high-quality workshop buildings that feature simple, strong and functional forms, durable materials, and detailed face brick exteriors; ornamentation and high level of detail to otherwise utilitarian structures (including the Power House, Water Tower and workshops, which feature articulated decorative treatments, and Romanesque and Classical-style details); and its open setting (allowing for set-back views of buildings including the Power House, Dining Hall, Boiler House, Timekeepers’ Office, Laboratory and workshops along the Traverser) with mature trees. Photographs of the complex featured heavily in contemporary Queensland newspapers, railway promotional material and in postcards.

The place is also important for its well-composed attributes as a cohesive set of structures laid out in an ordered manner in an open setting with strong axes and view corridors. The workshops buildings display a high degree of architectural uniformity of design, scale, and materials (face brick, corrugated metal, timber, and polychromatic brick ornamentation). The strong axes and open nature of the Traverser frames views of the manufactured ‘streetscape’ of workshop buildings fronting the north and south sides of the Traverser; and to, from and between the east and west sides of the complex. The complex, in particular the visually distinctive Traverser ‘streetscape’, has featured in photographs and been used as a backdrop in various films. 

Standing on a rise with a commanding presence over the complex, the Power House (1903) has particular aesthetic significance for its beautiful attributes, which are embodied in its: composition; grand scale; use of a complementary material palatte of polychromatic face brick, render and stone; and restrained use of Romanesque Revival style details (including heavy masonry walls, small openings, round arches to openings, prominent towers, vigorous gable roofs, robustly textured and polychromatic brick ornamentation, and stone voussoirs). Its imposing design and the high level of careful detailing also express the importance placed on the new form of power at this period of history, and the pride of the Workshops in its adoption of the new technology. Important views include those to, from and between the Power House and Traverser, facilitated by an open, landscaped space that slopes down from the south of the building.

Criterion FThe place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period.

North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex contains evidence of a high degree of technological achievement, demonstrated by its intact surviving fabric and machinery. Forming a self-sufficient, extensive complex of interconnected buildings and railway tracks with its own electrical, compressed air, hydraulic and water services, the place’s site planning facilitated complex functional patterns that maximised the efficient transport of material and rolling stock across the site (ensuring components passed easily from one building to another, from stages of manufacture across the Traverser for assembly). The complex’s scale and design drew considerable public attention, with details of the its buildings featuring in Queensland newspapers and journals, and its advanced machinery contributing to early 20th century heavy engineering practice. 

The Power House was a major technological achievement of its time and supplied electricity to the complex 16 years before power was supplied to Ipswich by the Ipswich Electric Light Co. Details of the Power House’s equipment and functioning were detailed in international electrical engineering journals shortly after its opening. Considerable evidence survives that enables an understanding of how it functioned; in particular, it retains historic machinery and equipment, including a 1901 overhead travelling gantry crane, hydraulic accumulator (that supplied water under pressure to the riveters and flanging presses of the Boiler House), coal fuel bunkers, ash removal system, electrical equipment, part of an early switchboard, and a steam-driven hydraulic pump.

Criterion GThe place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons.

North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex has a strong association with its current and former employees. For most of its history, the workshops employed more than 1,500 people at any one time, peaking at more than 3,000 just after World War II. The Workshops created a community within itself, demonstrated through the establishment of sporting and music clubs, together with its own workplace culture. Workmen took pride in their workplace, including its technical achievements, and personalised the industrial environment through landscaping and other impacts still visible in some of the buildings. Communal buildings and spaces, including the Dining Hall, Timekeepers’ Office and the Traverser Track, served as popular social places for workers to hold lunchtime concerts, debates, lectures, political meetings and strikes.

North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex also has a strong association for the people of Ipswich with the development of their community. As one of the largest places of employment in Ipswich, the workshops had a major ongoing impact on the lifestyles of thousands of individuals and families who resided in the city. At various times the workshops community interacted with the outside community through its own sporting and service clubs. As a result of its central location, the daily routine of Workshops life was noticeable to people in other walks of life. Ipswich people took pride in the achievements of the Workshops, as evidenced by numerous newspaper articles and features in commemorative magazines over a very long period of time. The use of some of the Workshops buildings as a railway museum since 2002 has rejuvenated the community connection to the Workshops, allowing public access to a space long regarded as a significant part of the North Ipswich landscape.

Criterion HThe place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland’s history.

North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex has a strong association with the Queensland Railway Department, as its main maintenance facility serving all of Queensland for over 100 years. It continues to have a strong association with Queensland Rail, successor to the Queensland Railway Department, as a maintenance facility that has been operating since 1865. The buildings on the site are part of a tradition of railway architecture and design in Queensland, and are significant for their association with the work of several important architects, engineers and railway planners employed by the Department, including Henry Stanley, William Pagan, Henrick Hansen, William Nisbet, Francis Jones, Vincent Price and Charles Da Costa.

History

The North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex, established in 1864 and moved to this site from 1885, was Queensland’s premier railway maintenance facility. Constructed in two main stages, the workshops provided a comprehensive, large-scale facility for constructing, assembling and repairing rolling stock to supply the railway network across Queensland. Six large brick workshop buildings (one later demolished) were constructed in the 1880s, followed in the 1900s by seven additional large workshop buildings designed around a Traverser; a Power House and water facilities to supply electricity to the complex; and a network of railway lines connecting the workshops. Additional buildings, including administrative and staff facilities (Timekeepers’ Office, and Dining Hall) were built in the 1910s, and technological facilities (Tool and Gauge Shop, and Laboratory) during World War II. The workshops, one of the largest employers in Ipswich and one of the largest industrial undertakings in Queensland, operated on the site until the 1960s, when its functions were gradually transferred to new railway workshops at Redbank. The North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex continues to function with a small number of staff, and a railway museum opened in the complex in 2002. The complex also includes a section of the alignment of Queensland’s first railway, the Mihi Line, surveyed in 1863.

Establishment of the workshops

In the Australian colonies, governments fostered the development of railways as a means of developing the country and encouraging settlement. Queensland’s first railway survey was undertaken by the New South Wales Government in 1856, and following separation, Queensland Parliament passed the Railway Act in 1863, enabling railways to be constructed in the colony. The railway network developed along decentralised lines extending from ports to pastoral and mining centres.[1] 

The construction of Queensland’s first railway line started in early 1864. Unusually, the line did not start from the capital: the colony’s most urgent need was to improve transport to the productive Darling Downs region, while transport between Brisbane and Ipswich could be serviced by river.[2] The first section of line, running from Ipswich 34km west to Bigge’s Camp (later Grandchester, QHR600729), was opened in July 1865, gradually extending to the Darling Downs and further west. This was the first stage of the four-stage Southern and Western Railway project which linked Ipswich to Toowoomba in 1867, Warwick in 1871, and Dalby in 1878. The link between Ipswich and Brisbane was completed in 1875.

An essential feature of the railway network was a workshop where the Queensland Railway Department could assemble and maintain its rolling stock. Queensland’s first workshops were built in North Ipswich, about 1km south of the present site (Lot 382 SP275337 in 2021). The site, situated on the northern banks of the Bremer River opposite the Ipswich town centre, was chosen for its proximity to shipping facilities and the railway terminus.[3] From 1864, an array of general purpose of workshop buildings were constructed,[4] including two pre-fabricated ‘erecting shops’ shipped from England.[5]

Initially the workshops undertook assembly and maintenance work only, as locomotives were imported pre-fabricated from Britain. In 1865, however, the workshops began building rolling stock in-house, commencing with an engine truck and progressing to ten wagons in 1866. In 1877, the workshop staff constructed its first locomotive, an A10 class constructed mainly from existing spare parts. The workshops also maintained a fleet of vehicles, some of which experienced significant wear on the Main Range line; assembled locomotives, which were still imported into Queensland; and built castings and fittings for the Brisbane railway extension.[6]

Additional railway workshops were opened at Rockhampton, Mackay, Cairns and Townsville, serving the central and northern divisions of Queensland’s divided railway system. Supplementary workshops for the southern division were opened at Toowoomba, but the North Ipswich workshops was the only one which built new locomotives.[7] The workshops became one the largest employers in Ipswich, with skilled workers arriving from England and southern colonies.[8] Between 200 and 400 men were employed at the workshops in the 1870s and early 1880s.

Mihi Line Alignment (1863)

The workshops were reached via a section of railway line known as the ‘Mihi Line’. This line – the first section of the Ipswich to Bigge’s Camp railway – was Queensland’s first section of railway, surveyed in 1863 and built in 1864. The line followed the north bank of the Bremer River, passing through the workshop site and crossing three iron bridges at Wide Gully, the Mihi Creek junction and Iron Pot Gully, before extending southwest to Wulkuraka. A bridge was constructed across the Bremer River to connect the line to the terminus at Ipswich. The first test locomotive (Faugh-a-Ballagh) was run along the Mihi Line, between the workshops and Wide Gully, in January 1865.[9] The line was officially opened in July 1865.

After flooding and embankment collapses, a section of the Mihi Line near Mihi Creek (1 mile 5 ½ chains from Ipswich) was realigned in 1868.[10] The Mihi Line was bypassed in 1875 in favour of a shorter route between Ipswich and Wulkuraka across Sadlier’s Crossing,[11] but a small section of the Mihi Line was left operational for the workshops and surrounding coal mines.[12]

1880s buildings

By the 1880s, the North Ipswich Railway Workshops had reached capacity. Its buildings were cramped and unable to produce sufficient rolling stock to equip the new railway lines opening across the colony.[13] From 1879, private manufacturing firms were engaged to construct locomotives and other rolling stock,[14] but these were also inadequate for the growing volume of work. In January 1884, funding was set aside for new railway workshops at North Ipswich.[15] The original site was unable to expand further, so additional land was obtained directly north of the railway workshops.[16] The new site, a large flat area between the Bremer River and the main road to the Ipswich waterworks (later North Street), was accessed from the old workshops via a recommissioned section of the Mihi Line, with branch lines constructed into the buildings.[17]

Six new workshops buildings were constructed on the new site between 1884 and 1889: the Carriage Erection Shop (later Trimmers’ and Electroplating Shop); Wagon Shop (later Wheel Shop); Paint Shop (later K-Mill) and Machine Shop (later Tarpaulin Shop); Fitting Shop (also used as a Wagon Shop; not extant)[18]; and the Blacksmith or Smithy (later Spring Shop). Most of these were arranged in a formal east-west row, with parallel buildings aligned north-south, establishing the basic layout of the workshops.

The six buildings, designed by staff within the Queensland Railway Department under the direction of Chief Engineer Henry Stanley, were both functional and attractive. Though simple and robust industrial buildings – each building comprising a large open space in which relevant machinery was installed[19] – they were carefully articulated and detailed with contrasting coloured brickwork, giving them a ‘very attractive appearance’.[20] The buildings applied similar form and materials to create a cohesive but imposing ‘colony’ on the site.[21] The impressive scale and design drew public attention, with journalists and officials visiting the workshops.[22] The two sets of purpose-built large beech timber doors of the Carriage Erection Shop (6ft 9in x 10ft 6in) were displayed at the Brisbane Exhibition in 1885, a month before they were installed at both ends of the building. [23]

Carriage builders, fitters, blacksmiths and carpenters were transferred to the new workshops as the buildings were completed. The 102 acre workshop site was formally gazetted in 1892.[24]

1903-4 buildings

Twelve buildings had been planned for the 1880s expansion,[25] but financial restrictions, political considerations and flooding postponed further construction.[26] Workshop functions over the next decade were undertaken at the old and new buildings, though this situation was less than ideal. The rail connection between the two workshops was cut by floods on multiple occasions, and the 1880s buildings were ‘never properly used’.[27] Engines were left in the yards awaiting repair for long periods of time,[28] and boiler repairs were undertaken in the open air as there was insufficient room undercover.[29] As Queensland’s railway system expanded further through the 1890s, the North Ipswich workshops again became inadequate to carry out the necessary volume of work.[30] Plans were prepared for a new set of workshops to be built alongside the 1880s buildings.

In 1898, two boilers which had been repaired in the North Ipswich workshops exploded at Roma Street station. A Court of Inquiry was held and recommended that the workshops should be ‘enlarged, extended and equipped with most modern tools and appliances.’[31] As plans had already been prepared and funding set aside, a contractor began work on the new buildings in March 1899. At the same time, a new Chief Mechanical Engineer, William Nisbet, was appointed and began a tour of inspection of workshops in America. On his arrival in Queensland in August, he redesigned the layout of the building and site plans.[32]

Construction recommenced in September 1899. Eight new workshop buildings were constructed over the following four years: a Boiler Shop; Erecting and Machine Shop; Carriage and Wagon Shop; Power House (1903); Blacksmith or Smithy (1903); Pattern Shop (1904); Foundry (1904); and Stores (1903, later Supply Warehouse); as well as a cast-iron Pump House (1903) and Water Tower (1904), both associated with the Power House. Timber sheds were also constructed for the woodwork section, but are no longer extant.[33]

The buildings in the complex were again designed within the Queensland Railway Department. The department employed a number of well-regarded engineers, draftsmen and architects in the late 19th and early 20th century. Those who signed plans for the North Ipswich Railway Workshop Complex buildings included: Henrick Hansen (also responsible for the design of station buildings at Emerald (QHR 600490), Mount Morgan (QHR 600752), Archer Park in Rockhampton (QHR 600777) and Longreach (QHR 601970)); Vincent Price (who also designed the railway stations at the Townsville Railway Station and North Yards Railway Workshops (QHR 600906), Gympie Railway Station (QHR 602036) and Cairns Railway (QHR 600755)); Henry Stanley (Chief Engineer of Railways 1872-1901, and responsible for the design of railway bridges including the Burdekin River Bridge (QHR 600442) and Albert Bridge (QHR 600232)); William Pagan (Chief Engineer 1902-1911, and responsible for the design of railway bridges on the Mungar to Monto line, the Toowoomba to Helidon line, and Swansons Rail Bridge (QHR 600871));[34] and Francis Jones (who later designed the Isis District War Memorial and Shire Council Chambers (QHR 601507)).[35]

The new buildings revealed the range of activities that were performed at the workshops. Boilers were repaired and manufactured in the Boiler Shop. Rough castings, fittings and forgings were machined in the Machine Shop, and locomotives were built or overhauled in the Erecting Shop (dismantled, parts replaced, new boilers fitted and reassembled). New wagons and passenger cars were built in the Carriage and Wagon Shop, and old ones were repaired. The Pattern Shop created and stored timber patterns, which were used to produce castings. The Foundry cast the moulds from scrap metal fed into a furnace. It featured separate iron, brass, copper and tinsmith sections, multiple cranes and moulding beds.[36] Materials were kept in the Stores, ‘from the proverbial needle to beyond, even the proverbial anchor.’[37]

The 1880s buildings were converted for new purposes: the Carriage Erection Shop became a Trimmers’ shop (for manufacturing upholstery for carriage fittings) and later also performed electroplating; the Paint Shop, which had been used as a sawmill since its completion, became the K-mill; the Wagon Shop became a Wheel Shop (preparing new wheel-sets and axles, and repairing old ones); the Erecting and Machine Shop held woodworking machinery, linked to the K-mill by a new corrugated iron structure; and the old smithy, after a brief stint as a training centre, became a Spring Shop, manufacturing and repairing laminated and spiral springs.[38]

The layout of the new buildings followed the ‘distinctive planning geometry’ adopted in late 19th century railway workshops around Australia (including Sydney and Launceston) and the world (including Crewe and Swindon in England).[39] The plan centred on rows of workshop buildings, accessed by parallel railway tracks and a traverser (a transverse distribution track which carried locomotives and equipment between the workshop buildings).[40] Ipswich’s buildings were positioned in two rows, aligned with the 1880s buildings; the rows were separated by an east-west aligned Traverser Track. The buildings were grouped by function: those associated with assembly, repair and maintenance (the Boiler Shop, Machine and Erecting Shop, and Carriage and Wagon Shop) were positioned south of the track; those involved with supply, manufacture and storage of components (the Smithy, Store, Foundry, Forge, and Pattern Shop, as well as the timber mills and sheds) were laid north of the track, adjacent to the 1880s buildings.[41] Ancillary buildings were positioned to the northeast ‘overseeing’ the workshops.[42]

The layout aimed to maximise the efficient transport of material across the site. As the shops each operated separately by task, they were positioned so that components could be passed easily from one building to another, from manufacture (the Pattern Shop, Blacksmith and Foundry; the Stores, timber storage and sawmills), then across the Traverser for assembly (in the Boiler Shop, Erecting and Machine Shop, and Carriage and Wagon Shop). An array of rails was laid from the Mihi Line to the southern end of the Boiler Shop (which had 2 bays or ‘roads’ running through the shop), Erecting and Machine Shop (13 bays[43]), and Carriage and Wagon Shop (14 bays). Rolling stock that required repairs and maintenance, was railed along the Mihi Line to the bays at the southern ends of the Erecting and Machine Shop or Carriage and Wagon Shop. Obsolete machinery, or that awaiting service, could be parked in this southern yard. A further fan of lines ran from the Mihi Line to the northern end of the Blacksmith, Foundry, Forge and Pattern Shop. A coal line ran to the Power House.[44]

The use of electricity to power the machinery was a major feature of the modernisation. Ipswich lacked an electricity supply, so a Power House was an essential new building. It was positioned on the elevated ground to the northeast of the workshops. Underground cables and overhead circuits connected the workshop buildings to the Power House, and powered around 200 machines across the site. The provision of electricity also allowed the installation of improved machinery, such as travelling cranes, added to most of the buildings to carry heavy equipment. Details of its functions were published in contemporary electrical journals in London and New York.[45]

In order to provide a water supply, a cast-iron Pump House was constructed on the banks of the Bremer River, and a 50,000 gallon water storage tower was built on the high northeast ground near the Power House. Water was pumped from the Bremer River by machinery in the Pump House, into the Water Tower for storage, and distributed to the Power House.[46]

The construction site became a popular outing. Visitors included the new ‘Federal Premier’ EJ Barton, who ‘manifested the keenest interest in this growing branch of the Railway Department’.[47] Contemporary visitors commented on the visual appeal of the facility. Like the 1880s buildings, all of the new buildings were constructed in red brick.[48] They featured saw-tooth roofs with glass on the upward angle and galvanised iron on the slopes; arched entrances and rounded windows; and restrained ornamental dressings; as a contemporary newspaper reported:

There has been nothing attempted in the way of external elaboration beyond the white brick segmental arches over the whole of the windows on the side faces; the cement arches, bands, quoins, and base course on the end elevations; and the string and dental courses which relieve the walls.[49]

The Foundry and Blacksmith Shop also featured restrained use of coloured brickwork. The buildings lined the sides of the traverser track, which provided ‘an avenue as wide as an ordinary street’,[50] giving the workshops a village-like appearance. Contemporary reports emphasised the use of ‘nothing but the best workmanship and material… as it is apparently the desire that nothing faulty or inferior shall find a place on the ground.’[51]

The size of the shops – particularly those south of the Traverser, which were up to 300ft (91.44m) square – also impressed visitors.[52] Buildings such as the Blacksmith Shop and the Foundry were about three times bigger than their predecessors. Photographs of the new workshop buildings were featured in newspapers in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.[53]

Staff were transferred to the new buildings from February 1903, and an official opening ceremony was held in July 1903, when the Power House was switched on.[54] The final employees to leave the old workshops – the moulders – were transferred to their new premises in June 1904.[55] The entire workshop yard was also fenced with an 8ft (2.44m) high galvanised iron fence.[56] The building programme had cost £450,000.[57]

The old buildings on the original workshop site were demolished,[58] except for the 1879 Railway Store Building (later the Railway Historical Centre, QHR 600604), which was put to use as a tarpaulin shop.

1906 – World War I

On completion of the building programme, the workshops were considered ‘extensive enough to build all the engines required for Australia, and most of the rolling stock too’.[59] While not the largest in the country, the Ipswich workshops had experienced the most comprehensive overhaul of the Australian railway workshops. The Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Adelaide workshops, visiting in 1905, declared the workshops ‘excellently built, planned and equipped’, with the electric plant and tools ‘of the most modern type’.[60] The Chief Mechanical Engineer, however, had predicted that extensions would be necessary within ten years of the workshops’ completion.[61] By December 1907 ‘… the premises, large though they were thought to be six or seven years ago, are in a rather congested state in some departments’.[62]

Requirements for additional buildings, largely for ancillary or administrative functions, were considered from 1904. Post 1903-4 buildings were constructed on a less expensive scale than the earlier buildings. A Spray Paint Shop (later Loco (Locomotive) Store), erected in 1906 and extended in 1909 to include a brake shop, was built using material from the old workshop buildings.[63] A new Paint Shop was constructed west of the Carriage and Wagon Shop in 1912; the large building was built in galvanised iron sheeting on timber posts, supported by bed logs.[64] Timber drafting and administrative offices were built in the ancillary section of the workshops (giving rise to the name ‘administrative hill’[65]), but were later demolished. A roundhouse, accommodating 50 engines, was built to the south of the workshops in 1910, but is no longer extant.[66]

Improvements to the 1903-4 buildings were also made. The Smithy was altered in 1908, as it was prone to overheating. The output of the woodworking section was increased with the construction of a band sawmill (also known as the Waterhouse mill, or the ‘breaking down mill’; later the Fibreglass Shop), at the northwest end of the site circa 1911.[67]

In 1910, attention turned to the section of the workshops fronting North Street. A two-storey timber Timekeepers’ Office was constructed at the front gates in 1911, providing office accommodation for the timekeepers and gatekeeper, and a focal point for the entrance to the workshops.[68] A single-storey timber Dining Hall was constructed near the Timekeepers’ Office in 1912 to provide the workers with a low-cost daily lunch. Funded by the Railway Department but operated by the employees, the Dining Hall included a main dining room, kitchen, pantry, office, reading, smoking-room and wide verandahs.[69]

With its new facilities operational, rolling stock production boomed at the workshops in the 1910s.[70] Over 4,500 items of rolling stock were produced in the decade, including C18 locomotives from 1913, and the first petrol-powered rail motor in 1916, to serve small country lines.[71] Between 1900 and 1910, 2,000km of new railway lines were laid across Queensland,[72] and the workshops workforce expanded fivefold between 1900 and 1912.[73]

During and immediately after World War I, events undertaken at the workshops gave it particular prominence in the public eye. About 300 of the 1600 employees were engaged in production of munitions during the war, particularly shell casings made using BHP steel.[74] The work was undertaken in a purpose-built structure, which was later removed. In April 1918, an experimental smelting of iron ore from Biggenden was carried out in the moulders’ furnaces.[75] In December 1919, the Vickers Vimy aircraft of Ross and Keith Smith broke down near Charleville after completing the first flight from England to Australia by an Australian crew. North Ipswich Railway Workshops repaired the engine and built a new propeller blade. They were proudly displayed outside the workshops before being railed to Charleville.[76]

Interwar and WWII expansion

The workshops remained busy in the 1920s, constructing engines and locomotives and repairing rolling stock from across the state. In 1923 the workshops produced its one hundredth locomotive, a C19 class nicknamed ‘Centenary’. [77] The shops were also kept busy with demands for suburban and passenger carriages, sleeping carriages, lavatory cars, coal wagons, cattle wagons for meatworks and drought-affected sheep, fruit wagons, open wagons for carrying concentrates from Mount Isa, training cars, luggage and mail brake vans.[78] Extensions were added to the Erecting and Machine Shop, Wheel Shop, Pattern Shop, and Stores to try to keep pace with requirements, and some of the new contracts were outsourced to private enterprises.[79] By 1925, 2,047 workers were engaged at the workshops,[80] though employment numbers fluctuated as staff were put on reduced time or retrenched in quiet periods.

Inquiries into the administration and function of the workshops were held in 1923 and 1929. The former proposed few changes, but the latter, undertaken by railway experts from Victoria, recommended extensive improvements at Ipswich, including the creation of a testing laboratory. The 1929 inquiry also criticised Queensland’s numerous but underfunded railway workshops, and recommended that railway design, research and manufacture be centralised at Ipswich.[81]

The Great Depression put improvement works on hold,[82] though contracts for rolling stock continued in the 1930s. The workshops’ first diesel locomotive was built and dispatched to Etheridge in 1939. Some building extensions were made in the late 1930s, including an extension to the Boiler Shop in 1936 and a second extension to the Erecting and Machine Shop in 1938.[83]

By 1937, the Railway Workshops comprised ‘the largest of all engineering works in the State’, employing 2,000 men across the 50 acre site.[84] It was also the largest and most extensive of the railway workshops in Queensland. Over the course of the 19th and 20th century railway workshops had been opened at Toowoomba, Willowburn, Rockhampton (QHR 600783), and Townsville (QHR 600906); with repair depots at Roma, Mayne, Maryborough, and  Normanton; and small repair facilities at Bundaberg, Gympie, Mackay, Cairns, Emerald, Woolloongabba, Alpha, Innisfail, Wacol, Charters Towers, Cloncurry, Hughenden, Wallangarra and Warwick. These workshops and repair facilities focused on repairing and maintaining rolling stock in their local districts, and lacked the extensive facilities and manufacturing departments of North Ipswich.

The testing Laboratory, recommended in 1929, was finally constructed 1939 to provide facilities for testing materials used in the workshops. Initially a single storey building of brick and concrete,[85] the Laboratory featured a central work room, a special lab, dark room and space for micro photography, an office, store and balance room.[86] It was constructed on the ‘administrative hill’ at the northeast of the workshops site, and was accessed from within the workshops via a path behind the Dining Hall.[87] The ‘attractive red brick building’ was the first brick building in the precinct.[88]

When World War II began in 1939, the workshops again became involved in wartime production. In 1941, the Commonwealth and State governments entered a joint arrangement to build a new Tool and Gauge Shop at the Railway Workshops, to supply tools for accurate mass-production at a munitions factory opened at Rocklea.[89] The Tool Shop was anticipated to catalyse a post-war mass-production industry, bringing long-term benefits to Queensland.[90] Charles Da Costa, employed by the Queensland Railway Department in the mid-20th century and designer of the Landsborough Station Public Air Raid Shelter (QHR 602709) and Charleville Railway Station (QHR 602368), prepared the designs of the Tool and Gauge Shop.[91] The shop was erected south of the Laboratory, the second brick building on administrative hill.

The munitions work also necessitated the addition of a second floor to the Laboratory in 1941.[92] Two open timber-framed buildings – a Lighting-up Shed and a Wagon Repair Shed – were built in the southern yards. A timber tank stand was also built next to the Water Tower, to supplement the workshops’ water supply.[93]

A 30-ton casting, the largest ever made at the workshops, was produced in 1942.[94] In 1944, an x-ray plant was commissioned for the Boiler Shop to detect flaws in casting and welding.[95] In 1946, a ‘modern apparatus for determining copper content by electro-deposition on rotating platinum electrodes’ was approved for installation at the Laboratory.[96]

Postwar to 21st century

In the immediate post-war period, Queensland was faced with ageing stock and little immediate capacity for new production. Reports began circulating in 1946 that the railway workshops would be moved from Ipswich: the workshops were again cramped, and the site, once believed to be large enough for future development, lacked room for expansion. An inquiry held in 1947 recommended that a new workshop should be built in southeast Queensland for locomotive construction and repair, as well as new workshops in the Rockhampton and Townsville areas.[97] It was also decided that future rolling stock would be steel where possible, reducing the need for large sawmills at the Workshops.[98]

New railway workshops were opened in 1958 in the Ipswich suburb of Redbank, on the site of a decommissioned army camp. Although it was originally intended for steam locomotive production and repair, its construction coincided with the change to diesel electric and it became the centre for diesel locomotives.[99]

The Ipswich workshops, set up to build and maintain steam-powered rolling stock, became increasingly obsolete with the conversion to diesel. The last of its 216 steam locomotives had been constructed in 1952, before diesel electric locomotives replaced steam across the railway network.[100] In 1965, the Foundry and Pattern Shops were transferred from Ipswich to Redbank, and the buildings were repurposed as the Bogie and Brake Shop, and the Maintenance Carpenters Shop, respectively.[101] Attempts were made to modernise the Ipswich Railway Workshops, with new functions introduced to the foundry, Erecting and Machine Shop and Boiler Shop. New buildings were constructed at the northern end of the North Ipswich Railway Workshops site, including training centres and plan printing buildings (not extant). The rest of the workshops focused operations on maintaining steam locomotives and wooden carriages, but by the 1990s this rolling stock had been almost completely removed from service.[102] In 1995, the relocation of remaining activity from North Ipswich to Redbank was commenced.[103]

Buildings on the workshops site were removed in the late 20th and early 21st century, including the roundhouse;[104] part of the Forging Shop; the Prescott sawmill at the southern end of the site; the timber tank stand; and part of the sawmill at the northern end.[105] The Traverser was replaced in 1982.[106] Most buildings added to the site after WWII were also removed in the 2010s.[107]

In 2001 the Queensland Museum acquired part of the site for use as a railway museum.[108] The Railway Workshops Museum opened in the Boiler Shop, and Erecting and Machine Shop in 2002, with museum storage included in the latter building.[109] The Dining Hall was converted for patron use as a café. In 2005, other parts of the site including the northern end, a section of the southwestern corner, and the site of the former roundhouse were transferred to private ownership.[110]

In 2015, the Railway Signal Cabin and semaphore signal (QHR 602464) from nearby Ellenborough Street was dismantled and removed to the Fibreglass Shed. In 2021, the Signal Cabin remains in the Fibreglass Shed.[111]

In 2021, railway workshop operations continue to be carried on in some of the buildings on the workshop site, employing a small number of staff. [112] The Boiler Shop and Erecting and Machine Shop continue to function as the Workshops Museum.

Machinery and infrastructure

The technical work carried on at the workshops required specific machinery, largely imported either from overseas or other colonies or states. The unique nature of this work required machinery not found elsewhere in Queensland. Much of the historic machinery has been retained at the Workshops, providing a source of information about railway manufacturing in the 19th and 20th centuries. This includes wood machining equipment (originally held in the sawmill building (K-Mill)); drop hammers, forges and tools (originally held at the Blacksmith Shop); smithy equipment (originally held in the Spring Shop); electrical equipment (first held in the Power House); and specialised measuring equipment (originally held in the Tool and Gauge Shop), including a steel tensile testing machine (J Brabant, 1 ton). Machinery associated with the Power House remains on site, including parts of the 1903 white marble switchboard, the fire alarm and time whistle.[113] Ceramic electrical conduits remain in place in a number of workshops, reflecting the original power supply. Travelling cranes erected in most of the workshops from 1903 remain in situ. Inspection pits and rail tracks also remain in the Carriage and Wagon Shop, and Erecting and Machine Shop.[114]

Landscaping

Landscaping features were added to beautify the ‘drab’ industrial site.[115] Formal gardens were designed in 1911 for the Power House forecourt, and two fig trees were planted in the social space between the Traverser Track, the Power House and the Dining Hall.[116] In 1939 Governor Sir Leslie Wilson addressed the employees from a dais erected beneath one of the ‘giant Moreton Bay figs’ at the workshops.[117] A pair of fig trees were also planted in the central gathering area, flanking the war memorial.[118]

Palm and pine trees were planted in the administrative section from the mid-1910s. Some were removed in the 1940s for the Tool and Gauge Shop, with one pine tree reported to be replanted elsewhere on the site.[119]

Workers were also encouraged to beautify the site with gardens, tended to during lunch breaks and awarded at an occasional garden competition. Features included a fish pond, flower beds, vegetables, avocado and mango trees; a bowling green.[120] Though some of these were later removed, visible remnants remain throughout the site.

Social

Over the course of its operation, the workshops employed on average more than 1,500 people at a time, reaching up to 3,000 just after WWII.[121] As one of the largest places of employment in Ipswich, the workshops had a continuing and major impact on the lifestyles of thousands of families who resided in the city. The workshops provided direct employment to generations of families, indirect employment to shopkeepers and other local businesses, and supported the growth of industrial firms in the district.[122] Workshop employees also took part in social, cultural and other institutions of the town; in 1902, for example, the supervisor of the electrical machinery at the workshop Power House began conducting classes at the Ipswich Technical College, which included guided tours of the workshops.[123] The workshops formed such a fundamental aspect of Ipswich that in 1946, when they were proposed for removal to Wacol, the President of the Ipswich Chamber of Commerce declared, ‘We might as well pack our bags and get out.’[124]

The workshops also created its own community with its own culture, particularly after its unification on a single site in 1903-4.[125] Sports teams, a band and choir formed within the workshops, performing at lunch breaks, weekends, and even at national competitions. Social welfare groups, including ambulance and fire brigades, were created. Volunteer committees ran the dining hall lunch service and lunchtime entertainments at and near the traverser track, drawing a broad range of speakers and performers from politicians to religious leaders to singer Harold Blair. Political meetings, industrial action and strikes were held outside the Timekeepers’ Office. Friendly rivalries between the different workshops were demonstrated through sporting fixtures and garden competitions. During WWI, the workforce raised funds for the onsite War Memorial (QHR 600605), and raised almost £14,000 for war savings certificates during WWII.[126] A dinner was held in 1928 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the new workshops.[127]

Workshop employees expressed their sense of pride in their work and identity in the workshops.[128] In 1904, a visitor to the recently-completed workshops reported:

‘“They are the finest shops south of the Equator” we were informed by our guide, in quite the approved ‘Murcan fashion, and certainly after the shops had been inspected we did not feel inclined to dispute the assertion.’[129]

Employees had affiliations with their particular work department, and remnants in each building reflect those associations, such as old timber lockers with messages and chalked notices within the Bogie and Brake Shop. Workshop employees also took great pride in the Power House because of its technical achievements.[130] Other buildings had connections across the entire workforce. The Timekeepers’ Office, as the official entry and exit point for the workshops, was purpose-designed to control the large numbers of employees changing their shift at any one time. It became the site associated with industrial action and lockouts, particularly in the late 1910s and early 1920s. The Traverser Track and Dining Hall, as central social gathering places, engendered a shared sense of pride. Bicycle racks remain in-situ under the Dining Hall, labelled and positioned to reflect the hierarchy in place at the workshops. The work day was regulated by the time whistle, which was erected on the Power House, and was audible as far away as Haigslea, 18km west.[131]

Photographs of the workshops were published from the 1880s, and detailed explanations of each workshop department with illustrations was republished over the following decades.[132] Films of the workshops were recorded in the 1920s for entertainment and educational purposes. In the 21st century, the workshops served as a backdrop for film and television series including The Railway Man (2012) and We Were Tomorrow (2016).[133]

Workers’ reunions were held at the workshops in the 21st century, following the opening of the Workshops Railway Museum.[134]

Description

The North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex occupies a large site on the northeast bank of the Bremer River in North Ipswich, approximately 1.5km north of the Ipswich central business district (CBD). Its main entrance is from North Street at the east. At the western end of the complex, the heritage boundary runs to the northeast and the south to meet the Bremer River at either end, reflecting the 1863 alignment of the former Mihi railway line.

The complex comprises an extensive collection of workshop, warehouse, technical facility, administration and workers’ amenity buildings, as well as a water tower, railway sidings, and landscaped outdoor areas. Generally, the workshop buildings are located at the western side of the site and flank a central east-west axis, which is shaped by the strong linear alignment of a Traverser. The main entrance, water tower, administration, amenity and technical facility buildings are generally at the east side of the site; and a large railway yard is located at the south end of the complex.

The main entrance to the complex is marked by a Timekeepers’ Office (accessed from North Street), and opens into a large, open and partly-landscaped square, which features the Ipswich Railway Workshops War Memorial (QHR 600605), dedicated to the enlisted workers of the railway workshops. Various other open spaces within the site provide a setting for and views to and from significant buildings, and facilitate the understanding of the historical functional relationships between buildings.

Features of North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex of state-level cultural heritage significance include:[i]

• Mihi Line Alignment (1863)
• 1880s Buildings:
  • [IS3092] K Mill (1885)
  • [IS3090] Tarpaulin Shop (1886; extended c1901-3 [IS3091] to connect to K Mill)
  • [IS3093] Wheel Shop (1885, extended 1923)
  • [IS3086] Trimmers’ and Electroplating Shop (1885)
  • [IS3100] Spring Shop (1887, extended 1924)
• 1903-04 Buildings and Structures:
  • [R28] Water Tower (1904) 
  • [R52] Pump House (1903)
  • [R10] Power House (1903) 
  • [IS3109] Bogie and Brake Shop (1904) 
  • [IS3096] Blacksmith Shop (1903, extended 1922 and by 1946) 
  • [IS3095] Supply Warehouse (1904, extended 1914 and 1925) 
  • [IS3106] Maintenance Carpenter’s Shop (1903, extended 1927) 
  • [R14 and R14A] Boiler Shop (1903, extended 1918, 1936 and 1944) 
  • [IS3050] Erecting and Machine Shop (1903, extended 1928 and 1938) 
  • [IS3052] Carriage and Wagon Shop (1903) 
• 1906-12 Buildings:
  • [R17] Timekeepers’ Office (1911)
  • [R16] Dining Hall (1912, extended 1935)
  • [IS3060] Loco Store (1906, extended 1908)
  • [IS3079] Fibreglass Shed (1909)
  • [IS3053] Paint Shop (1912)
• 1930s-1940s Buildings:
  • [IS3025, R18, R19 and R20] Tool and Gauge Shop (1941)
  • [R21] Laboratory (1939, extended 1941)
  • [IS3063] Lighting Up Shed (c1940)
• Traverser (1982) and Traverser Track (1903 and 1982), including views along ‘Streetscape’
• Railway Sidings and Alignments
• Landscape Features
  • Open squares (landscaped and partly-landscaped)
  • Mature trees
  • Embankment west of the Power House
  • Boundary fences

Mihi Line Alignment (1863)

The heritage boundary running along the western side of the site reflects the 1863 alignment of the Mihi Line (the original line from Ipswich to Grandchester). Northwest of the complex, this alignment connects to the location of a former rail bridge (located within Mihi Creek Complex, QHR 645610) via a Sandstone Railway Culvert (QHR 602562), and to the south, it curves past the Riverlink Shopping Centre to meet the Bremer River Rail Bridge (QHR 602568). While the railway tracks have been removed, the alignment at the south connects with the current rail corridor.

Features of the Mihi Line Alignment also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:

• Early, curved alignment of the Mihi Line corridor, passing through the western edge of the railway workshops complex, connecting to the Mihi Creek Complex at the northwest and the Bremer River Rail Bridge at the south
• Remnant embankments and cuttings indicating alignment at north end of site

Features of the Mihi Line Alignment not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:

• Recent railway tracks

1880s Buildings:

The 1880s Buildings comprise five propose-built railway workshops. The buildings are arranged in a parallel alignment to the north of the Traverser axis and west of the Blacksmith Shop, and include:

• K Mill (1885): former Paint Shop / North Saw Mill / Wood Machine Shop
• Tarpaulin Shop (1886; extended c1901-3 to connect to K Mill): former Machine Shop
• Wheel Shop (1885, extended 1923): former Wagon Shop
• Trimmers’ and Electroplating Shop (1885): former Carriage Shop / Timber Store / Paint Shop
• Spring Shop (1887, extended 1924): former Smithy (Blacksmith) Shop / Foundry / Forge

The five 1880s Buildings share a similar scale, form, material treatment and ornamental detail. They are all single storey, long and narrow structures with short sides (gable ends) that face south/north and are separated by laneways. Constructed of simple and robust materials, the buildings are articulated and detailed in a style typical of the late Victorian era, with a bold use of brickwork in projecting plinths, pilasters, corbels, dentil courses and string courses.

The large main entrance doorways to the gable ends are generally round arch openings, symmetrically placed in the elevation and often flanking a smaller central window. These large openings enable the movement and transportation of rolling stock, materials and machinery into the buildings, via railway tracks leading from the Traverser axis and/or other buildings (some tracks have later been removed or concreted over). To the long elevations, window and door openings generally have arched headers. Door and window dressings are a combination of Helidon freestone, bricks or cement render, and feature a restrained use of coloured brick or stone voussoirs and keystones, raking arches and moulded projections.

A range of early machinery associated with the functioning of the workshops is retained within the buildings.

Features of the 1880s Buildings also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:

• Form and construction: long and narrow, single storey forms; brick with metal frames; gable roofs; metal roof trusses exposed to interior spaces (unlined ceilings); gable ends orientated to face north/south to enable access from the Traverser and/or adjacent buildings
• Simple and robust materials: corrugated metal roof sheets; face brick exterior walls (painted internally), laid in an English-bond; robust floor finishes (small section of early timber floor is retained in Wheel Shop; and there is an earthen floor to the basement and timber floor (supported on timber, brick and tapered concrete piers) to the ground floor of Tarpaulin Shop (excluding concrete topping))
• Plan form and layout: rectangular and open, undivided plan forms 
• Details/ornamentation: Contrasting, light-coloured dentil bricks and brick courses; cement render and light-coloured bricks to segmental-arch window headers (to long elevations) and circular motifs (to short, gable-end elevations); dressed stone window sills; cement render and sandstone block quoins and headers to door surrounds; sandstone keystones to window headers and to circular motifs; cement render courses (to gable-end elevations); timber louvres to circular motifs; cylindrical ridge-mounted roof ventilators to Trimmers’ and Electroplating Shop; semi-circular metal ridge ventilator to Tarpaulin Shop; and gable roof lantern along roof ridge line of K Mill
• Openings:  multi-light, centre-pivoting and fixed windows with detailed metal (cast iron) frames, astragals, pivoting mechanisms and handles; dual, braced-and-ledged, V-jointed-clad timber doors with VJ timber lunettes; round arch door and window openings to gable-end elevations (typically two or three to each elevation); door openings (no leaves) to long elevations of Spring Shop
• Details associated with operation of workshops: metal railway tracks, running north-south through buildings, and shorter sections of track running east-west through sections of some buildings; service / inspection pits; angled, ground-level floor chutes (concealed at ground level and visible in basement) to Tarpaulin Shop; evidence of former boiler house (housed steam engines to drive machinery) to north end of east elevation of Tarpaulin Shop, identified by white paint to brick wall and basement-level room
• Early machinery associated with operation of the workshops, including: early woodworking, ironworking / blacksmithing machinery; and gantry for overhead cranes (to Wheel Shop)
• Early extensions:
  • Between K Mill and Tarpaulin Shop (c1901-03), including its: corrugated metal-clad, gable roof; timber roof trusses; timber-framed, corrugated metal-clad and weatherboard-clad walls; turntables; and railway tracks
  • Wheel Shop: gable roof extension to the north end (1923), with metal posts and roof trusses, corrugated metal sheet cladding to walls and roof, timber doors, and metal railway tracks
  • Spring Shop: lean-to awning (1924) to east elevation, with corrugated metal roof and wall cladding, and timber frame

Features of the 1880s Buildings not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:

• Concrete floor toppings over early floor finishes
• Recent infill fabric enclosing some openings
• Replacement fabric within some door and window openings, including: metal grilles; louvre windows; roller doors; metal doors; concrete block walls; and brick walls
• Later interior partitions
• Temporary metal fences adjacent some buildings
• K Mill: Sawdust extraction system
• Wheel Shop: Timber louvre shades attached to west elevation; and extension to rear (north) (1987)
• Spring Shop: awning to north end with small gantry (c1950s); and shade structures to west elevation (c1950s)

1903-04 Buildings and Structures: 

The ten 1903-1904 buildings and structures accommodate railway workshops, storage, power generation, and water storage and supply. The workshop and storage buildings are generally dispersed along the Traverser, with the power generation and water storage and structures concentrated in the northwest corner of the complex. The Pump House stands on the bank of the Bremer River at the west of the complex. These buildings and structures include: 

• Water Tower (1904) 
• Pump House (1903)
• Power House (1903) 
• Bogie and Brake Shop (1904): former Foundry and Moulding Shop
• Blacksmith Shop (1903, extended 1922 and by 1946) 
• Supply Warehouse (1904, extended 1914 and 1925): former Stores
• Maintenance Carpenter’s Shop (1903, extended 1927): former Pattern Shop
• Boiler Shop (1903, extended 1918, 1936 and 1944) 
• Erecting and Machine Shop (1903, extended 1928 and 1938) 
• Carriage and Wagon Shop (1903) 

Water Tower (1904)[ii]

The water tower is a rendered masonry tower with a metal water tank at its top, located at the highest point at the north end of the site. The water tower is a prominent feature of the complex and is visible from North and WM Hughes streets as well as from the complex’s yards and Traverser.  

Features of the Water Tower also of state-level cultural heritage significance include: 

• Form and construction: rendered masonry tower with metal water tank 
• Simple and robust materials: cement-rendered brick external walls; face brick internal walls; concrete floors; and metal water tank and water goods 
• Plan form and layout: round in plan with a central core
• Openings: door opening to southwest side; and narrow window openings around top half of tower 
• Details/ornamentation: Classical-style architectural cement-render details including pilasters with ashlar courses, pediments, columns and cornices 
• Details associated with operation of workshops: internal metal pipes; pipe to east side; wide pipe to west side; pipes connecting water tower to Power House and complex; metal ladder to west side; and numbered marks to exterior of metal water tank

Features of the Water Tower not of state-level cultural heritage significance include: 

• Concrete footings to the southwest of the Water Tower (remnants of the former timber water tank stand)

Pump House (1903)

The Pump House is located on the east bank of the Bremer River, west of the fenced railway workshops complex site. It comprises a metal (cast iron)-framed structure that protects a pump (now decommissioned) used to reticulate water up to the Water Tower at the highest point of the site.

Features of the Pump House also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:

• Form and construction: single-storey form; and elongated dome roof
• Materials: externally exposed metal (cast iron) frame; metal (cast iron) roof and wall cladding; concrete slab base; and stone retaining walls adjacent west and north elevations
• Plan form and layout: oval-shaped floor plan, housing pump with motor
• Openings: door opening to long side

Power House (1903)[iii]

The Power House is a large, purpose-built, single storey building with two prominent towers located on the rise of a hill at the northern end of the complex. The building and its two towers are visible from around the workshop's yards and traverser as well as from North and WM Hughes streets. From its raised position, the Power House also has views over the workshops, and to, from and between the Traverser. 

Features of the Power House also of state-level cultural heritage significance include: 

• Form and construction: large, brick and metal-framed building with two towers; double gable roof; steeply pitched hip roof to the ash tower, curved at the base; and parapets to the top of the accumulator tower 
• Simple and robust materials: face brick exterior walls; concrete floors to boiler room; plastered interior walls to engine room and painted brickwork to boiler room; corrugated metal roof sheets; concrete and stone surrounds to doorways; concrete windowsills; and original metal water goods 
• Plan form and layout:  two large rectangular chambers side by side (engine room and boiler room), with the floor level of the boiler room lower; two towers to the southwest and southeast corners (accumulator tower and ash tower); awning over a rail siding to east elevation  
• Openings: large arched doorways with sliding timber doors; large doorways to ash tower; original timber doors; metal-framed multi-light windows; narrow vents in elevator tower and gable ends with louvres 
• Details/ornamentation: light brick details to cornices; stone door surrounds; brick and stone features to window tops; cast metal columns and brackets to awning 
• Details associated with operation of workshops: rail siding for unloading coal; flywheel pits; phone booth; whistles and alarms; semi-circular metal ridge ventilator; early and original services including pipes for compressed air and hydraulic pressure, and electric cabling 
• Early machinery associated with operation of the workshops, including: gantries for cranes, coal hoppers, hydraulic accumulator, hydraulic pump, alternators 
• Foundations of cooling tower and smoke stack 
• Views: views to the Power House and in particular its southern elevation and towers from the Traverser, workshop yards and North and WM Hughes Streets 
• Corrugated metal sheet-clad hip roofed, face brick toilet block to the north of the Power House
• Face brick toilet block to northwest

Features of the Power House not of state level cultural heritage significance include: 

• Tiled floor to engine room 
• Non-original door openings 
• Brick infill to boiler room doors 
• Non-original internal partitions for offices and storerooms 
• Brick extension to western side 
• Non-original services and water goods 

Bogie and Brake Shop (1904), Blacksmith Shop (1903, extended 1922 and by 1946), Supply Warehouse (1904, extended 1914 and 1925), and Maintenance Carpenter’s Shop (1903, extended 1927)

The Bogie and Brake Shop, Blacksmith Shop, Supply Warehouse and Maintenance Carpenter’s Shop are four purpose-built workshop and warehouse buildings of similar design, located along the north side of the Traverser. 

Features of the Bogie and Brake Shop, Blacksmith Shop, Supply Warehouse, and Maintenance Carpenter’s Shop also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:

• Form and construction: large, brick and metal-framed buildings with metal roof trusses, trussed girders and columns; sawtooth roofs; gable roof to Maintenance Carpenter’s shop 
• Simple and robust materials: face brick exterior walls with concrete floors; section of earthen floor to Blacksmith Shop; corrugated metal roof sheets; stone surrounds to doorways and windowsills; original metal rainwater goods; timber-framed and timber board-clad partitions to Bogie and Brake Shop; timber-framed loft level to Maintenance Carpenter’s Shop with timber board floors 
• Plan form and layout: rectangular and open plan forms; second loft level to Maintenance Carpenter’s Shop with timber staircase
• Openings: large arched doorways; original timber doors; arched and segmented arch window openings; large metal-framed multi-light windows; louvre vents to tops of side walls and original metal louvres to sawtooth roofs; arched vents with louvres in gable ends of Maintenance Carpenter’s Shop 
• Details/ornamentation: light brick details in cornice, red and black bricks to arches of windows and doorways; circular blind window in front and rear parapets 
• Details associated with operation of workshops: railway tracks in floor; original and early services including pipes for compressed air and hydraulic pressure and uninsulated electrical cabling; original and early operational and safety signage 
• Early machinery associated with operation of the workshops, including original and early gantry cranes 
• Early extensions: 
  • Blacksmith Shop: timber and metal-framed awning to south end of east elevation, with timber valance (1922); timber-framed and -clad lean-to extension to north elevation (by 1946)
  • Maintenance Carpenter’s Shop: timber and metal-framed extension to south elevation, clad in corrugated metal sheets (1927) 
  • Supply Warehouse: metal-framed extension to north (1914 and 1925)

Features of the Bogie and Brake Shop, Blacksmith Shop, Supply Warehouse and Maintenance Carpenter’s Shop not of state-level cultural heritage significance include: 

• Bogie and Brake Shop: timber-framed amenities and office extensions (c1985-88 north end, and c1946-55 south end), and brick substation (1946) to west elevation; timber-framed annexe (c1969-74) to north elevation; metal-framed awning to east elevation (c1976-80); metal ducting; non-original services and water goods 
• Blacksmith Shop: metal roller doors; louvre windows; wire mesh screens over windows; metal screens over windows; concrete block infill to windows and doors; timber framed partitions; metal-framed awning to east elevation; non-original services and water goods 
• Supply Warehouse: timber-framed partitions for offices; metal roller doors; concrete block infill to original doorways; non-original services and water goods 
• Maintenance Carpenter’s Shop: metal roller doors; non-original services and water goods 

Boiler Shop (1903, extended 1918, 1936 and 1944), Erecting and Machine Shop (1903, extended 1928 and 1938), and Carriage and Wagon Shop (1903)

The Boiler Shop[iv], Erecting and Machine Shop and Carriage and Wagon Shop are three purpose-built workshop buildings of similar design, located along the south side of the Traverser. The workshops front the Traverser to the north, with laneways between, and railway tracks access the buildings from the southern rail yards.

Features of the Boiler Shop, Erecting and Machine Shop, and Carriage and Wagon Shop also of state-level cultural heritage significance include: 

• Form and construction: large, brick and metal-framed buildings with metal roof trusses, trussed girders (east-west), solid girders (north-south) and columns, the Machine Shop features solid fish-belly girders; all buildings have sawtooth roofs, and the Boiler Shop features a hip roof section at its northern end 
• Simple and robust materials: face brick exterior walls; concrete floors; timber board floors; corrugated metal roof sheets; stone windowsills; original metal rainwater goods 
• Plan form and layout: rectangular and open plan forms 
  • Boiler Shop: 6 bays wide 
  • Erecting and Machine Shop: 12 bays wide in two sections – Machine Shop of 3 bays wide at the east end, and the taller Erecting Shop of 9 bays wide at the west end 
  • Carriage and Wagon Shop: 14 bays wide 
• Openings: large arched doorways to Traverser (north) of all buildings and south elevation of Carriage and Wagon Shop; original timber doors; large metal-framed multi-light windows; circular and semicircular windows to Boiler Shop 
• Details/ornamentation: light face brick features to cornice, segmented arches of windows and side doors; cement rendered quoins and arches around doorways 
• Details associated with operation of workshops: railway tracks in floor; tramway tracks (east-west); service/inspection pits in some bays; original and early services including pipes for water, compressed air and hydraulic pressure, and uninsulated electrical cabling; original and early operational and safety signage 
• Early machinery associated with operation of the workshops, including original and early gantries for overhead cranes in all workshops, and: 
  • Boiler Shop: compressors, furnaces 
  • Erecting and Machine Shop: lathes, milling machines, vertical and horizontal machines, planes, grinders, polishers and drills. 
  • Carriage and Wagon Shop: Grinnell fire sprinkler system
• Early extensions: 
  • Boiler Shop:
    • East: Metal-framed and corrugated metal sheet-clad, sawtooth-roofed extension (1918), running most of the length of the elevation
    • South: metal-framed and corrugated metal sheet-clad extension (1936, of two bays); and skillion-roofed, face brick former X-ray extension (1944)
    • West: skillion-roofed, timber chamferboard-clad stores annexe (by 1946); gable-roofed (with rounded roof lantern), timber-framed, corrugated metal sheet-clad toilet block (by 1946); corrugated metal-clad lean-to  for  two large furnace chambers and the base of a chimney stack (by 1946); and corrugated metal-clad lean-to for compressors (by 1946)
  • Erecting and Machine Shop: metal-framed and corrugated metal sheet-clad extensions to south (1928 and 1938) 
  • Carriage and Wagon Shop: timber-framed and corrugated metal sheet-clad awning over urinals to west 

Features of the Boiler Shop, Erecting and Machine Shop, and Carriage and Wagon Shop not of state-level cultural heritage significance include: 

• Boiler Shop: museum fit-out; brick substation to west side; non-original metal-framed windows and doors; metal roller doors; non-original door openings and doors; and corrugated metal sheet screens over windows and doors  
• Erecting and Machine Shop: timber-framed annexes to east side (by 1964); demountable, concrete block and timber framed office structures; and metal roller doors; non-original metal framed windows and doors; metal louvres to machine shop doorway; non original openings and doors; and louvre windows
• Carriage and Wagon Shop: metal roller doors; louvre windows; wire mesh screens over windows; and later timber-framed or concrete block office structures

1906-12 Buildings:

The 1906-12 Buildings comprise timber and metal-framed, lightweight structures of varying styles, functions and details. They include:

• Timekeepers’ Office (1911)
• Dining Hall (1912, extended 1935)
• Loco Store (1906, extended 1909): former Westinghouse Brake Shed / Spray Paint Shop / Spray Shed
• Fibreglass Shed (1911): former Sawmill / Breaking Down Mill
• Paint Shop (1912)

The Timekeepers’ Office is a distinctive, two-storey building that is located at the eastern end of the site (fronting North Street). Marking the front entrance to the workshops complex and formerly used as the official employee entry / exit point to clock in and out of work, the ground floor’s long (east and west) elevations feature wide doors connected to internal thoroughfares (interior partitions defining thoroughfares have been removed; locations identifiable by nibs in walls). The thoroughfares ran through the building and led to a large square to its western side. Its first floor features offices, with a verandah along its west side overlooking the workshops and square.

At the north end of the square is the highset, single-storey, timber-framed Dining Hall. The building comprises a large central dining room (partitioned off at its eastern side for offices and classrooms (1935)), with a projecting meeting room (former kitchen) to the west and offices (former dining room) to the east, and a kitchen, retail shop and toilets (former rear verandah, now enclosed) to the north. It has a verandah wrapping its front (south) elevation, which forms the main entrance into the dining room. To the understorey of the building are bicycle racks that were formerly used by the workshops employees, separated into bays for employees of different trade shops.

The Loco Store stands within the railway yards at the south end of the complex. It is a long and narrow, timber and metal-framed building, constructed in two stages – with its southern section featuring materials (including the roof trusses and roof lantern) recycled from earlier workshops buildings. It comprises a singular internal space.

The Paint Shop and Fibreglass Shed are located at the western edge of the complex. The Paint Shop is aligned along the south side of the Traverser, adjacent the Carriage and Wagon Shop, and the Fibreglass Shed is northwest of the 1880s Buildings. These two buildings are constructed of simple and robust materials, and comprise singular internal spaces for use as workshops.

Features of the 1906-1912 Buildings also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:

Timekeepers’ Office (1911)

• Form and construction: long and narrow, two-storey form; timber frame; Dutch-gable roof continuous over first floor western verandah; hip roofed awning to east and south elevations
• Materials: corrugated metal sheet roof cladding; timber chamferboard wall cladding; timber beaded board ceiling to first floor verandah (unlined ceiling with floor boards of level above exposed to ground floor verandah); VJ timber valance to verandah and verandah gable-end infill; timber verandah floors; timber posts with rounded brackets and timber balustrade to verandah; and timber beaded board-lined interior ceilings and walls
• Plan form and layout: Largely open ground floor room (formerly comprising a room for gatekeeper and three rooms for Time Offices with passageways between, which opened to the east and west sides to allow workers to walk through the building); three offices to first floor (formerly four); verandah along the western side to both the ground and first floors; timber stair at north end; awning to south and east sides
• Details/ornamentation: five large, conical, metal ridge roof ventilators, connected to vents in ceiling of first floor; and rectangular timber louvre vents to Dutch-gable ends
• Openings: timber-framed, double-hung windows; VJ timber-lined, ledged dual doors; timber French doors with two-light centre-pivoting fanlights; VJ timber-lined ledged-and-braced doors with two-light fanlights; and corrugated metal-clad window hoods with timber cheeks and decorative timber brackets to west, south and east elevations
• Other: nibs to interior walls and ceilings, indicating locations of former partitions; timber beaded board-lined man-hole to first floor ceiling

Dining Hall (1912, extended 1935)

• Form and construction: highset, single-storey form; timber frame; hip roof, with separate gable roof to toilet in northwest corner
• Materials: corrugated metal roof sheets; timber chamferboard-clad exterior walls; face brick piers to understorey; VJ timber to dining room ceiling and walls, and to verandah ceiling; spaced timber eaves; flat sheets with squared cover strips to ceiling and walls of meeting room; timber posts to verandah; timber floors to verandahs and interior (interior floors have been concealed)
• Plan form and layout: large central dining room (eastern end partitioned for offices, 1935), with offices (former kitchen) to the east; meeting room (former kitchen) to the west; toilets, kitchen and retail shop (built into former verandah) to the north; and open verandah to the south (front) side
• Details/ornamentation: decorative timber valance, bracing, beams and posts to dining hall
• Openings:  early timber panelled doors; VJ timber-lined braced and ledged doors; timber-framed double hung windows and centre-pivoting fanlights; corrugated metal-clad window hoods with timber cheeks and decorative timber brackets to west elevation
• Other details: timber bicycle racks to understorey, with a separation of bays for employees of different trade shops indicated by painted markings on the brick pillars
• Early extension: enclosure of southeast verandah for office space (1935)

Loco Store (1906, extended 1909)

• Form and construction: long and narrow, single storey form; timber and metal frame; gable roof; and metal roof trusses exposed to interior space (truss type varies between north and south ends)
• Materials: corrugated metal sheet roof cladding; single-skin, timber weatherboard-clad walls; timber posts; and robust floor finish
• Plan form and layout: rectangular and open, undivided plan form
• Details/ornamentation: rounded ridge ventilator to roof’s north end; and gabled roof lantern with timber louvres to ridgeline of roof’s south end
• Details associated with operation of workshops: two metal railway tracks, running north-south through building
• Early extension: timber-framed, lean-to extension to east elevation (1930s), including its corrugated metal roof cladding and timber weatherboard wall cladding, timber-framed double-hung windows, and timber-frames indicating the locations of former openings

Fibreglass Shed (1911)

• Form and construction: single-storey; timber frame; gable roof; open (unlined) sides (except for gable-end infills)
• Simple and robust materials: corrugated metal roof sheets; corrugated metal gable-end infills; timber posts with metal struts; timber roof trusses exposed to interior space (unlined ceiling); robust floor finish; and metal water-goods
• Plan form and layout: rectangular and open, undivided plan form
• Details/ornamentation: circular metal vents with finial to roof ridgeline

Paint Shop (1912)

• Form and construction: long and narrow, single storey form; timber and metal frame; sawtooth roof, with skylights facing south; and metal roof trusses exposed to interior spaces (unlined ceiling)
• Simple and robust materials: corrugated metal sheet wall and roof cladding (single-skin walls); wide timber posts with timber struts; robust floor finish; and metal water-goods
• Plan form and layout: rectangular and open plan form, divided into four bays by posts; with primary entrances to the north and south
• Openings:  Large VJ timber-lined, cross-braced doors to north and south elevations; south-facing skylight openings within sawtooth roof; multi-light casement windows with fanlights; and remnants of window frames (generally timber window headers over an identifiably separate sheet of corrugated metal), indicating early window locations
• Details associated with operation of workshops: railway tracks (run from the south doors, and one continues through to the Traverser at the north)

Features of the 1906-1912 Buildings not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:

• Dining Room/Canteen: aluminium-framed windows and doors; paint to early window lights; recent front and side (western) entrance stairs; recent linoleum, carpet and tile floor linings; recent plaster wall linings; electric lights and fans; recent fit-outs including toilets, retail, servery and kitchen; air conditioning and associated vents; recent roof exhaust vents; timber and glass verandah balustrade; skillion-roofed, face brick extension  to northeast; and skillion-roofed toilet extension to northwest
• Timekeepers’ Office: recent metal portal frame added for structural support; kitchenettes; office and ticketing fit-outs; recent floor linings including carpet and linoleum; air conditioners and associated vents; conduit trays to ceiling of ground floor verandah; louvre windows; skillion-roofed extension accommodating toilets and stair to the north elevation; corrugated metal fence adjacent south elevation; bollards and bench seat adjacent east elevation; and conduits
• Loco Store: timber office enclosure to northeast corner; spray paint booth enclosure to the northwest corner; metal posts to north and south elevations; metal louvre screens, corrugated metal wall cladding and tarpaulins to west and east elevations; timber-framed louvre windows; metal conical roof ventilator; metal conduits; and corrugated metal-clad lean-to extension adjacent 1930s extension to east elevation
• Fibreglass Shed: wall enclosures and cladding (originally open); all windows and doors, including roller doors; air conditioning and associated ducts; service racks; electric lights; skillion dormer ventilation openings to the southern end; concrete slab floor; moulding room extension (1992) attached to south elevation; and adjacent shipping container
• Paint Shop: concrete floor (formerly ash concrete); metal roller doors; louvre windows; window hoods; recent spray-painting booths and interior partitions; lean-to annexes to western elevation (c1985-2003); demountable building and temporary metal fences adjacent north elevation

1930s-40s Buildings

The 1930s-40s Buildings comprise two face brick structures, immediately fronting North Street at the eastern edge of the complex, and a timber-framed structure within the railway yards at the south end of the complex. These structures include:

• Tool and Gauge Shop (1941)
• Laboratory (1939, extended 1941)
• Lighting Up Shed (c1940)

Features of the 1930s-40s Buildings also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:

Tool and Gauge Shop (1941)[v]

• Form and construction: central rectilinear form (former Tool Room) that steps down over three split-levels from north to south following the slope of the site, with rectilinear wings to the north (former Gauge Room) and to the south (former Engineering Coordinators Office); loadbearing brick walls; metal frame; sawtooth roof with metal roof trusses exposed to the interior of former Tool Room; Dutch-gable roof to former Gauge Room; hip roof to former Engineering Coordinators Office
• Materials and finishes: face brick exterior walls (English bond to former Tool Room; stretcher bond to former Gauge Room and former Engineering Coordinators Office); corrugated fibre-cement roof sheets; metal columns; timber tongue-and-groove partitions
  • Former Tool Room: concrete floor; metal roof trusses exposed to the interior
  • Former Gauge Room: linoleum floor lining, silky oak timber joinery, flat sheet ceiling lining with square cover-strips; flat sheet-lined interior partitions
  • Former Engineering Coordinators Office: hard-set plaster internal walls; fibrocement linings; glass brick panels; cavity brick walls
• Plan form and layout: former Tool Room divided into three sections on three split-levels); with northern former Gauge Room wing (33m x 12m), accessed via a wide stair from the former Tool Room; and southern former Engineering Coordinators Office
  • Tool Room: divided into three split-levels, connected via stairs
  • Gauge Room: divided into a number of spaces, including a gauge room, master gauge room, metrological room, measuring room and dark room
  • Engineering Coordinators Office: office space
• Openings:  large and small banks of louvre windows to former Tool Room; south-facing skylight openings within sawtooth roof of Tool Room; louvre windows with fanlights, and silky oak timber doors and fanlights to former Engineering Coordinators Office; large banks of multi-light windows to former Gauge Room and east elevation of former Tool Room
• Details/ornamentation: parapets to west, east and north sides of Former Tool Room; low ceilings throughout former Gauge Room wing
• Details associated with operation of workshops: some early machinery associated with the manufacture of tools and gauges, and workshops machinery

Laboratory (1939 & 1941)

• Form and construction: two-storey (ground floor constructed 1939, first floor constructed 1941), rectilinear form; brick and timber frame; and hip roof
• Materials: red-brown coloured face brick exterior walls, laid in a stretcher bond, to ground and first floors; concrete base to exterior walls and concrete sub-floor posts; corrugated fibre-cement roof sheets; flat sheet-lined ceilings with squared cover strips; linoleum floor linings to central room of ground and first floors; timber floors to north and south end rooms of ground and first floors; timber internal stair with clear-finished timber balustrade; concrete external stair; and tiles to front (west) entry porch
• Plan form and layout: western entry porch to ground floor (the ends of the building protrude to enclose the porch on its north and south sides), accessed via stairs to north and south; central laboratory rooms with smaller northern and southern laboratories, balance rooms, stores, offices and workrooms ground and first floors; and central stair at south end of building
• Details/ornamentation: projecting square vents to roof ridgeline; timber-framed window hoods with timber cheeks and corrugated fibro-cement roof cladding to west elevation; rectangular vents to exterior walls; and curved corners to walls
• Openings: timber-framed, multi-light, double-hung windows to ground floor; timber-framed louvre windows to first floor (glazing panels have been removed); dual timber entry doors and half-glazed timber panelled door to front porch; timber panelled interior doors; and timber-framed eastern and western windows and southern VJ timber-lined door and to subfloor
• Early machinery and details associated with the building’s use as a laboratory, including: tensile testing machine to ground floor, including substantial concrete footing on which it stands; timber cabinets, shelves and benches, including adjacent tile wall lining; and floor hatches accessing ground floor’s subfloor
• Open space to west of building facilitating connection to footpath originally accessed from the main entrance; and views of the building’s front (west) entrance and elevation

Lighting Up Shed (c1940)

• Form and construction: long and narrow, single storey form; timber frame; gable roof; timber roof trusses with timber strut bracing; exposed to interior space; and partly open sides (except for west elevation)
• Materials: corrugated metal roof cladding; single-skin, timber weatherboard wall cladding (to west elevation and upper part of east elevation); timber roof and wall framing; timber posts; and concrete floor
• Plan form and layout: rectangular and open, undivided plan form
• Details / ornamentation: rounded metal ridge ventilator to roof
• Openings: doorway openings to west elevation
• Other details: metal railway tracks and service pit running north-south through the building

Features of the 1930s-40s Buildings not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:

• Tool and Gauge Shop: lean-to carport extension attached to the south side of the Engineering Coordinator’s Office; timber floor boards and non-original enclosed offices to first (lowest) level;
• Laboratory: north extension (1972) and its interior fit-out (identified by lighter coloured face brick exterior walls and skillion roof form); timber plywood sheets boarding window and door openings; carpet and recent linoleum floor linings; metal balustrades; electrical lights and fans; and graffiti
• Lighting-up Shed: concrete slab floor; posts and conduits adjacent north elevation

Traverser (1982) and Traverser Track (1903), including views along ‘Streetscape’

The Traverser forms a strong east-west axis through the centre of the complex: from the Boiler Shop at the east, to the boundary fence at the west. It comprises a platform (the Traverser, 1982) that runs horizontally along metal railway tracks (1903), and facilitates the efficient movement and distribution of rolling stock and materials to, from and between workshop buildings.

The Traverser axis provides a visual and physical connection between most of the 1880s and 1903-04 workshops, and forms a manufactured streetscape of robust industrial buildings. Buildings along this streetscape share a cohesive and consistent scale (tall single-storey buildings), material treatment (face brick walls, corrugated roofs, render and stone quoins, and timber doors) and ornamental detail (arched doors; polychromatic brick dentils and courses). The streetscape enables east-west views from one side of the workshops complex to the other, as well as views to, from and between the workshops, which contributes to an understanding of the historical functioning of the complex as a whole. The Traverser streetscape is a distinctive feature of the workshops, demonstrating functional and visual relationships within the site.

Features of the Traverser and Traverser Track also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:

• Metal railway tracks and their alignment running the length of the Traverser
• Traverser platform with cabin
• Cohesive streetscape of robust brick industrial buildings, with similar scales, material treatments, and ornamental details
• Open space corridor forming an east-west axis through the site
• Views along the Traverser Track, including: views to, from and between the workshop buildings, and views to and from the east and west sides of the site

Features of the Traverser and Traverser Track not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:

• Recent concrete slab floor, adjacent railway tracks

Railway Sidings and Alignments

Various railway tracks and sidings are retained throughout the site, running between, through and across workshop buildings; through the southern yard; and through the north end of the site. The yard at the southern end of the site features an extensive network of railway tracks that fan out toward the workshops at the north from the corridor of the Main Line at the south. Remnants of sidings remain at the northwest end of the site, indicating a network of railway tracks that fanned out from the northwest toward the workshop buildings to the south.

Features of the Railway Sidings also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:

• Early metal railway sidings and alignments

Landscape and Setting

Throughout the complex, there is a range of landscape features, such as mature trees, gardens, open spaces, footpath alignments and embankments that contribute to the setting of the place and planning geometry of the site, and / or were planted as a part of the social projects to beautify the workshops.

Features of the Landscape and Setting also of state-level cultural heritage significance include:

• Large partly-landscaped square at the east end of the site, directly inside the main North Street gates, forming an entrance and assembly space; including its open nature, providing views of the Timekeepers’ Office, Dining Hall and Boiler Shop; Ipswich Railway Workshops War Memorial (QHR 600605) at its north end; and two large camphor laurel (Cinnamomum camphora) trees (by 1944) to the east and west sides of the memorial
• Large landscaped space between the Power House and east end of the Traverser; including its open nature which provides for clear views to, from and between the Power House and Traverser; its gardens and lawns which contribute to the landscaped setting of the Powerhouse; and its sloped terrain, which falls down toward the Traverser at the south and provides the Power House with an elevated and commanding presence
• Landscaped, grassed space to north of Dining Hall and west of Tool and Gauge Shop; including its open nature, footpath alignment (running diagonally across the space from the southwest to an open space at the northeast), and two mature fig trees (Ficus sp.)  (by 1944)
• Area to west of Laboratory; including its: open nature, providing a setting, access and views to and from the front (west) elevation of the Laboratory (and formerly the Chief Engineers Office and Drawing Office) and the diagonal footpath
• Embankment (by 1902) to the west of the Power House
• Early corrugated metal boundary fences to east and west sides of the complex
• Area to the northeast of the Power House, facilitating an understanding of the functional connection and views to, from and between the Power House and Water Tower

Features of the Landscape and Setting not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:

• Recent plantings and garden beds
• Recent concrete floors
• Recent retaining wall surfaces to embankment west of the Power House
• Recent fences

Features not of state-level cultural heritage significance

Features of North Ipswich Railway Workshops Complex not of state-level cultural heritage significance include:

• [IS3047] Electrical Tool and Gang Store (1938, extended 1927 and 1936)
• [IS3043] Former Sheet Metal Shed (1946, extended 1950s)
• [IS3044] Sheet Metal Shed Toilet Block (1940s)
• [IS3046] White Metal and Sand Blasting Shop (1956)
• [IS3045] Testing Shed (1983) (south of White Metal and Sand Blasting Shop)
• [IS3062] Lighting Up Shed’s Toilet Block (1940s)
• [IS3061] Wagon Repair Shed / Old Fibreglass Shed (1945)
• [IS0251] Sub Station No. 3 (1946), attached to west side of Bogie and Brake Shop
• [IS3057] Carriage Shop Amenities (1979)
• [IS3042] Sheet Metal Amenities (1971)
• [IS3076] Moulding Room (1988), attached to south end of Fibreglass Shed
• [No reference] Office and amenities building southeast of Erecting and Machine Shop

 

 

___________________________________________________________________

[i] Reference numbers refer to a composite building labelling system derived from Buchannan Architect’s 1996 Conservation Management Plan ([R] labels), and Queensland Rail ([IS] labels). Most buildings are painted with their applicable reference number.
[ii] The interior of the Water Tower was not inspected in 2020.
[iii] The interior of the Power House was not inspected in 2020.
[iv] The interior of the Boiler Shop was not inspected in 2020.
[v] The interior of the Tool and Gauge Shop was not inspected in 2020.

References

[1] Entries on the Queensland Heritage Register, Charleville Railway Station (602368) and Roma Street Railway Station (601208); John Kerr, Brunswick Street, Bowen Hills and Beyond: The Railways of the Northern Suburbs of Brisbane, Brisbane: Australian Railway Historical Society – Queensland Division, 1988, p9.
[2] Buchanan Architects, in association with Ove Arup & Partners and Gordon Grimwade Archaeologist, North Ipswich Railyards: A Conservation Assessment, 1996, p5.
[3] Thom Blake, Ipswich Railway Workshops Conservation Management Plan: A report for Queensland Rail, 2014, p9.
[4] The Brisbane Courier in 1864 described the workshops as ‘the first neigh betraying the speedy advent of the iron horse’: 18 April 1864 p2.
[5] The pre-fabricated shops had cast iron frames with wrought iron roof trusses and were clad with corrugated zinc, but no longer stand: Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, p9.
[6] David Mewes, ‘Production at the Workshops’ in Veronica Macno, Geraldine Mate and David Mewes (eds), Memoirs of the Queensland Museum – Culture, Vol 5 No 1, 2011, pp77-106, at p80.
[7] Mewes, ‘Production at the Workshops’, 2011, p86.
[8] Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser 7 October 1879 p4.
[9] Queenslander 19 January 1933 p9; Kerr, Triumph of Narrow Gauge, 1990, p9.
[10] Plan of Proposed Deviation of Line at Mihi Creek, from 1 Mile 6.70 Chains to 1 Mile 47 Chains, 1867; Queenslander 11 May 1867 p8; Brisbane Courier 27 March 1867 p3, 17 September 1867 p3, 16 May 1868 p2. Part of this deviation is situated at the northern end of the workshops, but most of the alignment within the workshops follows the original 1863 survey.
[11] Entry on the Queensland Heritage Register, Sadliers Crossing Railway Bridge [602569]. The original bridge was replaced with the current structure in 1902.
[12] Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, p11.
[13] By 1884, Queensland had 1,100 miles of railway; by 1886, it had 1,550 miles. Western Star and Roma Advertiser 26 July 1884 p2; Theophilus P Pugh, Pugh’s Almanac and Queensland Directory for 1888, Brisbane: Gordon & Gotch, 1888, p53.
[14] Bradley Bowden, ‘A Time “the like of which was never before experienced”: Changing Communing Loyalties in Ipswich, 1900-12’, Labour History, No 78, May 2000, pp71-93, at p75.
[15] The delay in opening the Killarney and South Brisbane branches was largely attributed to the shortage of rolling stock: Toowoomba Chronicle and Darling Downs General Advertiser 19 January 1884 p2; Telegraph 20 May 1884 p2 and 23 May 1884 p2.
[16] Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, p13.
[17] Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, p11.
[18] Designed as a fitting shop, but used as a wagon shop until it was demolished in 1900: Telegraph 2 February 1888 p4 and Brisbane Courier 22 June 1900 p6.
[19] Described by a visitor to the site in 1888 as ‘…large buildings, splendid workrooms, lofty, light and airy’: Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser 22 May 1888 p5.
[20] Brisbane Courier 21 July 1885 p6.
[21] Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser 22 May 1888 p5.
[22] Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser 22 May 1888 p5 and 24 May 1888 p5; Brisbane Courier 5 July 1889 p5.
[23] Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser 25 June 1885 p3 and 21 July 1885 p3. Each of the 1880s buildings featured strikingly large main entrance doorways which provided access for large locomotives. Robyn Buchanan, ‘Evolution of the North Ipswich Railway Workshops’, in Veronica Macno, Geraldine Mate and David Mewes (eds), Memoirs of the Queensland Museum – Culture, Vol 5 No 1, 2011, pp31-52, at p38.
[24] Queensland Government Gazette, 30 July 1892 p899. This was reduced slightly in 1895 (Queensland Government Gazette, Vol 63 No 55, 9 March 1895 p650).
[25] Queenslander 13 July 1889 p55.
[26] An economic recession in the early 1890s not only hindered construction, but led to the dismissal of 100 railway employees in 1891. The site was inundated by floodwaters in 1893, which gave rise to questions about its suitability for development. Bowden, ‘A Time “the like of which was never before experienced”’, 2000, p76; Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, pp13-14.
[27] Brisbane Courier 25 February 1899 p9.
[28] Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser 23 November 1895 p5.
[29] The Week 20 January 1899 p21.
[30] This included a new southern line to Wallangarra in 1887; Brisbane’s suburban network from 1882; the South Coast line to Southport in 1889; and a North Coast line to Gladstone in 1896, all of which required additional rolling stock. Blake, Ipswich Railway Workshops Conservation Management Plan, 2014, p14. By 1901 the Ipswich workshops was maintaining 237 locomotives, 361 carriages and 4,672 wagons which were used in the Southern Division: Mewes, ‘Production at the Workshops’, 2011, p86.
[31] Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, pp13-14.
[32] Nisbet’s journey to Queensland was also delayed by his marriage in Sydney in July 1899. He began calling tenders for the workshops during his honeymoon in Melbourne: Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, p14; Morning Bulletin 2 December 1898 p2; Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser 21 March 1899 p2; Telegraph 21 March 1899 p4; Brisbane Courier 10 July 1899 p5; Telegraph 12 July 1899 p2.
[33] The buildings were counted separately in the Sydney Mail as: boiler, machine, erecting, wagon, carriage, paint, wheel, trimming, pattern, two sawmills, breaking-down mill, smithy, and small forge, besides the power-house, store and offices, for a total of fifteen (‘Ipswich, Queensland’, Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser 28 October 1903 p1118).
[34] Entries on the Queensland Heritage Register, Deep Creep Railway Bridge, Chowey (600031), Steep Rocky Creek Railway Bridge (Ideraway) (600520), Lockyer Creek Railway Bridge (Guinn Park) (600515), Rail Bridge (Humphery) (600518), Lockyer Creek Railway Bridge (Lockyer) (600513), Ideraway Creek Railway Bridge (Ideraway) (600519).
[35] Entries on the Queensland Heritage Register; Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, pp114-119.
[36] Thom Blake and David Mewes, ‘”A different country” – the organisation of the Ipswich Railway Workshops’, in Veronica Macno, Geraldine Mate and David Mewes (eds), Memoirs of the Queensland Museum – Culture, Vol 5 No 1, 2011, pp53-76, at p64. Mewes, ‘Production at the Workshops’, 2011, pp80 & 84-86; Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, p54.
[37] Queensland Times 23 December 1913 p3.
[38] Queensland Times 23 December 1913 p3.
[39] Blake, Ipswich Railway Workshops Conservation Management Plan, 2014, p24.
[40] This layout was also adopted at Eveleigh, Sydney; Launceston, Tasmania; and Crewe and Swindon in England: Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, p29.
[41] Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, p16.
[42] This included the Chief Engineers Office and Drawing Office, both of which were erected on the hill to the north and west; neither of these buildings are extant. The Power House and Water Tower were elevated for functional reasons, placing them above flood level. Thom Blake and David Mewes, ‘”A different country”’, 2011, pp56-7.
[43] The two western bays were later extended southwards, and three additional bays were built in 1936-1938: Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, p65.
[44] Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, pp16, 34, 56-7; Blake, Ipswich Railway Workshops Conservation Management Plan, 2014, pp24-5, 30, 90.
[45] A 1910 newspaper reported noted that ‘after thorough consideration electric power’ had been decided ‘not only as the most economical but also as the most suitable for the conditions to be encountered’, particularly the large area over which electric machine tools were to be used. Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, pp16, 30, 57-8; The Electrical World and Engineer: A Weekly Review of Current Progress in Electricity and its Practical Applications, Vol 43 No 8, New York: Electrical World and Engineer, 1904, at p370; The Electrician: The oldest weekly illustrated journal of Electrical Engineering, Industry, Science and Finance, No 1,304, 22 January 1904, pp517-519, Brisbane Courier 25 June 1910 p12. The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser also reported that the workshops were ‘the first to be completely equipped with electric power in this part of the Southern Hemisphere’ (28 October 1903 p1118).
[46] Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser 11 December 1902 p7; Buchanan, The Power House – Conservation Management Plan, 2005, p16.
[47] Brisbane Courier 28 February 1901 p5; Queenslander 9 March 1901 p466.
[48] Queensland Times 23 December 1913 p3.
[49] Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser 7 September 1901 p8.
[50] Queensland Times 23 December 1913 p3.
[51] Brisbane Courier 22 June 1900 p6. Some of the construction work was done by contract but some was also done by day labour with up to 360 men employed, the average being 100. Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, p16.
[52] Telegraph 25 April 1902 p7
[53] Queenslander 18 January 1902 pp132-3; 27 June 1903 pp26-27 and 11 July 1903 p23; Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser 17 June 1903 p1496 and 28 October 1903 pp1118-9; The World’s News (Sydney), 4 July 1903 p12; The Australasian (Melbourne) 6 October 1906 p28.
[54] Queenslander 11 July 1903 p5.
[55] Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser 4 June 1904 p4.
[56] Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser 19 July 1904 p9.
[57] George Harrison (ed), Jubilee History of Ipswich: A record of municipal, industrial and social progress, Brisbane: HJ Diddams & Co, 1910, p64; Warwick Examiner and Times 20 August 1904 p3.
[58] Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, p9.
[59] Warwick Examiner and Times 20 August 1904 p3.
[60] Evening Journal 29 June 1905 p1.
[61] Brisbane Courier 3 July 1903 p6.
[62] Brisbane Courier 14 December 1907 p4.
[63] Blake, Ipswich Railway Workshops Conservation Management Plan, 2014, p16.
[64] Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, p62. Queensland Railway Department Annual Report, 1911, p10. After the Paint Shop was constructed, completed carriages were sent to the Paint Shop, while wagons were spray painted in the Spray Paint Shop. Queensland Times 1 October 1927 p18.
[65] Queensland Times 19 October 1938 p8.
[66] Greg Hallam, The North Ipswich Round-House: A Social History, 1993, pp18-20.
[67] Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, p17; Blake, Ipswich Railway Workshops Conservation Management Plan, 2014, pp79-80; Telegraph 23 September 1911 p9; Queensland Railway Department Annual Report, 1911, p10.
[68] Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, p73; Blake, Ipswich Railway Workshops Conservation Management Plan, 2014, pp112-113; Brisbane Courier 24 August 1911 p7; Buchanan, ‘Evolution of the Ipswich Railway Workshops’, 2011, pp45-6.
[69] Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, pp71-2; Blake, Ipswich Railway Workshops Conservation Management Plan, 2014, pp110-111; Queensland Times 4 January 1912 p5 and 23 December 1913 p3; Brisbane Courier 15 January 1912 p10; Buchanan, ‘Evolution of the Ipswich Railway Workshops’, 2011, p46.
[70] Blake, Ipswich Railway Workshops Conservation Management Plan, 2014, pp15&17.
[71] Mewes, ‘Production at the Workshops’, 2011, p92.
[72] Darling Downs Gazette 15 September 1900 p2 and 16 September 1910 p4; Kerr, Triumph of Narrow Gauge, 1990, p123.
[73] Bowden, ‘A Time “the like of which was never before experienced”’, 2000, p72. By 1909 over 800 men were employed at the workshops: Queensland Times 15 March 1909 p7. Staff numbers fluctuated depending on the amount of work required, but employment at the workshops overall climbed until the 1950s.
[74] Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, p17.
[75] Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, p17.
[76] Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, p17.
[77] Mewes, ‘Production at the Workshops’, 2011, p93.
[78] Queensland Times 2 February 1925 p4, 6 May 1926 p6, 1 September 1926 p6, 4 February 1928 p8; Telegraph 27 March 1929 p5.
[79] Queensland Railway Department Annual Report 1919-20, pp21-22; Queensland Railway Department Annual Report 1922 p27; Queensland Railway Department Annual Report 1923 p22; Blake, Ipswich Railway Workshops Conservation Management Plan, 2014, pp61-2.
[80] Daily Mail 20 August 1925 p9.
[81] Brisbane Courier 6 November 1929 p22; Morning Bulletin 8 November 1929 p5; Capricornian 7 November 1929 p40. The Commission recommended the closure of workshops at Cairns, Mackay and Maryborough and the reduction of work at the Toowoomba workshop. Major overhaul work was recommended to be carried on only at Ipswich, Townsville and Rockhampton; and construction work was to be restricted to Ipswich.
[82] Blake, Ipswich Railway Workshops Conservation Management Plan, 2014, p18.
[83] Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, pp65 & 68; Blake, Ipswich Railway Workshops Conservation Management Plan, 2014, pp61-2, 108.
[84] Courier Mail 2 August 1937 p8. Women were only employed in the Dining Hall at that time. A ‘women’s retiring room’ was provided in the floor plan of the scientific buildings, and In 1943 the Railway Department declared its intention to employ women in certain grades of work, including at the workshops, until the end of the war, but  female apprentices were not reported until the 1880s: Macno, Buchanan and Blake, ‘More Than Work’, 2011, p112; Dr Geraldine Mate, Metrology and Metallurgy at the Ipswich Railway Workshops, Tools of Science Seminar Series, 2013, https://vimeo.com/channels/toolsofscience/79742392, accessed 27 November 2020; Central Queensland Herald 2 December 1943 p22; Blake and Mewes, ‘”A different country”’, 2011, p70.
[85] Queensland Times 12 April 1938 p6.
[86] Queensland Times 18 June 1938 p8 and 23 May 1939 p6; Plans and elevations in Blake, Ipswich Railway Workshops Conservation Management Plan, 2014, p119.
[87] Aerial images QAP8235307 (12 June 1946) and QAP15937120 (16 August 1964).
[88] Queensland Times 19 October 1938 p8. Work at the laboratory consolidated testing activities that had taken place across the workshops, as well as providing new scientific machinery and facilities. The floor plan provided for a microscope room, optical projection room, physical laboratory, dark room, gauge testing room; and a Buckton Universal Tensile Tester, made in 1901, was installed on the ground floor, likely moved from the Machine Shop: Dr Geraldine Mate, Metrology and Metallurgy at the Ipswich Railway Workshops, Tools of Science Seminar Series, 2013, https://vimeo.com/channels/toolsofscience/79742392, accessed 27 November 2020.
[89] This included tooling for war machinery (munitions, gauges, aircraft and naval parts, armament parts). Other wartime work included the manufacture of specialised rolling stock, such as ambulance and recruitment trains: Dr Geraldine Mate, Metrology and Metallurgy at the Ipswich Railway Workshops, Tools of Science Seminar Series, 2013, https://vimeo.com/channels/toolsofscience/79742392, accessed 27 November 2020.
[90] Activities at the Tool and Gauge included: tool and gauge manufacture, metrology, chemical testing, lubricant analysis, metallography, physical testing, microscopy, non-destructive testing, environmental testing, and standards accreditation: Dr Geraldine Mate, Metrology and Metallurgy at the Ipswich Railway Workshops, Tools of Science Seminar Series, 2013, https://vimeo.com/channels/toolsofscience/79742392, accessed 27 November 2020.
[91] Blake, Ipswich Railway Workshops Conservation Management Plan, 2014, p87.
[92] Queensland Times 21 January 1941 p4 and 22 March 1941 p6. The floor plan for the upper floor included a chemical laboratory, balance room, wet lab, oil laboratory and, sand testing laboratory. Dr Geraldine Mate, Metrology and Metallurgy at the Ipswich Railway Workshops, Tools of Science Seminar Series, 2013, https://vimeo.com/channels/toolsofscience/79742392, accessed 27 November 2020.
[93] Buchanan, The Power House – Conservation Management Plan, 2005, p16.
[94] Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, p18; Mewes, ‘Production at the Workshops’, 2011, p99. The casting, a 78ft lathe, was made in the foundry and tested in the Erecting and Machine Shop. The lathe - the largest in the southern hemisphere at the time – was so large that part of the Foundry wall had to be removed and replaced: Dr Geraldine Mate, Metrology and Metallurgy at the Ipswich Railway Workshops, Tools of Science Seminar Series, 2013, https://vimeo.com/channels/toolsofscience/79742392, accessed 27 November 2020.
[95] Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, pp18-19.
[96] Queensland Times 2 February 1946 p2.
[97] Courier Mail 14 January 1947 p1.
[98] Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, p19.
[99] Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, p2.
[100] Mewes, ‘Production at the Workshops’, 2011, p102. The number was reported as 218 in Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, p10.
[101] Mewes, ‘Production at the Workshops’, 2011, p102.
[102] David Mewes, ‘Rebirth of an Icon’, in Veronica Macno, Geraldine Mate and David Mewes (eds), Memoirs of the Queensland Museum – Culture, Vol 5 No 1, 2011, pp163-178, at p164.
[103] Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, p19.
[104] Demolished 1978: Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, p20.
[105] Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, p19.
[106] Blake, Ipswich Railway Workshops Conservation Management Plan, 2014, p90. The first traverser had been made in England and installed in 1903 when the traverser track was laid.
[107] Buildings removed included an Apprentice Training Centre built in 1955; a new sawmill commissioned in 1968; a Plan Printing building completed in 1979; a new training centre built in 1990: Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, p19. Two buildings in the administrative section, the Chief Mechanical Engineer’s Office (built circa 1910) and the Engineering Services Drawing Office (moved to site from Oakey in 1946) burned down in 2011 and 2012. Other buildings identified as not significant in conservation management studies undertaken in 1995 and 2014, were also removed in the 2010s.
[108] Thom Blake, Ipswich Railway Workshops Conservation Management Plan, 2014, p1
[109] Geraldine Mate and Andrew Moritz, ‘The Workshop Rail Museum’, Memoirs of the Queensland Museum – Culture Vol 5 No 1, 2011, pp179-192, at p181.
[110] Blake, Ipswich Railway Workshops Conservation Management Plan, 2014, p1.
[111] Approved under permit CHCH04484113; Video, ‘Queensland Railways Ipswich Signal Cabin relocation’, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YW_qHm_6IM, accessed January 2021.
[112] Information provided during site visit, November 2020; Firevac Services, 167682-01 Queensland Rail – Ipswich Facilities – BCA Review and Design Summary, August 2014, pp1-2.
[113] Buchanan Architects, The Power House – Conservation Management Plan, 2005, pp18, 23, 30, 50-53, 59; Dr Geraldine Mate, Metrology and Metallurgy at the Ipswich Railway Workshops, Tools of Science Seminar Series, 2013, https://vimeo.com/channels/toolsofscience/79742392, accessed 27 November 2020.
[114] Blake, Ipswich Railway Workshops Conservation Management Plan, 2014, pp60, 64, 125-133; Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, pp110-111.
[115] Queensland Times 21 August 1941 p4.
[116] Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, pp97 and 103. The fig trees are visible in aerial imagery from 1944 (RAAF0003061) and 1946 (RAAF000435623).
[117] Telegraph 24 May 1939 p13.
[118] Leonn Satterthwait (ed), Ipswich Heritage Study: Prepared for the Ipswich City Council by the Ipswich Heritage Study Consultancy Team, University of Queensland, Volume 4. Inventory of Heritage Items: Public, Commercial and Residential (Leichhardt to Woodend), 1992.
[119] Queensland Times 22 January 1941 p6.
[120] Macno, Buchanan and Blake, ‘More than work’, 2011, pp115-7; Buchanan et al, North Ipswich Railyards, 1996, p37.
[121] Over 145 years, the workshops employed around 10,000 people. Most started as apprentices at age 14 and retired 51 years later: Dr Geraldine Mate, Metrology and Metallurgy at the Ipswich Railway Workshops, Tools of Science Seminar Series, 2013, https://vimeo.com/channels/toolsofscience/79742392, accessed 27 November 2020.
[122] Robyn Buchanan, ‘The Workshops and the Community’, Memoirs of the Queensland Museum – Culture, Vol 5 No 1, 2011, pp123-135, at p129; Leonn Satterthwait (ed), Ipswich Heritage Study: Prepared for the Ipswich City Council by the Ipswich Heritage Study Consultancy Team, University of Queensland, Volume 1: Final Report, 1992, p3-15.
[123] Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser 12 July 1902 p9; Buchanan Architects, The Power House – Conservation Management Plan, 2005, p15.
[124] Queensland Times 17 October 1946 p2 and 18 October 1946 p2.
[125] The ‘new workshops’ staff had provided a cricket team for local fixtures from 1888: Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser 6 November 1888 p3.
[126] The lunchtime entertainments were known first as the ‘Traverser lectures’, then the ‘Rostrum lectures’, but expanded beyond educational into musical performances and quizzes. They ran until the 1970s. Veronica Macno, Robyn Buchanan and Thom Blake, ‘More than Work’, Memoirs of the Queensland Museum – Culture, Vol 5 No 1, 2011, pp107-120; Telegraph 15 February 1946 p5.
[127] Queensland Times 7 July 1928 p13.
[128] Macno, Buchanan and Blake, ’More than Work’, pp107-120.
[129] Warwick Examiner and Times, 20 August 1904 p3.
[130] Buchanan Architects, The Power House – Conservation Management Plan, 2005, p70.
[131] Robyn Buchanan, ‘The Workshops and the Community’, Memoirs of the Queensland Museum – Culture, Vol 5 No 1, 2011, pp123-135, at p133.
[132] Eg, ‘Ipswich Railway Workshops – An Important State Industry’ series, published Brisbane Courier June  – August 1910; Daily Mail 15 July 1924 p11 and 22 July 1924 p11; Brisbane Courier 23 March 1926 p10; Queensland Times 1 October 1927 pp15-20.
[133] Queensland Times 7 September 1923 p4 and 19 December 2013; Queensland State Archives, ‘Building a Locomotive (1920) – Ipswich Railway Workshops’, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjpoAz9JEoY, accessed 13 January 2021; Northern Star 23 December 2015; Discover Ipswich, ‘7 Films Shot in Ipswich’,14 July 2017, www.discoveripswich.com.au/7-films-shot-ipswich/, accessed 14 January 2021
[134] Eg, ‘Rolling back the memories’, Queensland Times 23 February 2015; Geraldine Mate and Andrew Moritz, ‘The Workshop Rail Museum’, Memoirs of the Queensland Museum – Culture, Volume 5 No 1, 2011, pp179-192, at pp188-9; The Workshops Rail Museum, ‘Workers’ Club’, https://theworkshops.qm.qld.gov.au/About+Us/Workers+Club, accessed January 2021.

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