Eveleigh Railway Workshops, Eveleigh, NSW, Australia
S 33° 53.650 E 151° 11.800
56H E 333249 N 6248114
Eveleigh Railway Workshops serve as the greatest monument to the history of transport in New South Wales. The buildings are fine examples of late nineteenth and early twentieth century industrial building in NSW.
Waymark Code: WMVJ3Z
Location: New South Wales, Australia
Date Posted: 04/23/2017
Views: 3
Eveleigh represents the importance of the place of railways in the development of NSW. It was also one of the largest employers in the State. The workshops represent the oldest intact large operating railway complex in NSW.
Eveleigh Workshops Link: (
visit link) This link describes the workshops and surrounding buildings.
The machinery and technology housed in them is a chronology of industrial development from the 1880s to the present day. The workshops have produced 170 locomotives including the massive C38 and D58 class. The nineteenth century buildings display precisely detailed brickwork, strong period character and elegantly defined facades to some of the longest runs of load bearing brickwork in Australia. The steel trussed roofs resting on cast iron columns in the locomotive and carriage workshops form two of the largest continuously covered nineteenth century industrial spaces in Australia.
The workshops were originally conceived in 1872-75 by John Whitton who was the most influential figure in the history of the NSW railways. Eveleigh Workshops contain the last surviving nineteenth century technology relics such as the steam powered pumps which operate the hydraulic system in the locomotive shops, the massive guillotine, the steam powered air compressors in Bay 1 and the massive Davey press. The individual machines such as rollers, stampers, the electric cams and early woodworking machinery are unique in a single industrial complex. There is also a wealth of old photographs which help construct the chronology of the site, held in the archives of the State Rail Authority.
Eveleigh Railway Workshops were once the largest railway construction and maintenance railway workshops in the southern hemisphere employing in excess of 3,000 men. Today they represent the phenomenal growth of the railway system which took place in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
A more detailed description is available here: (
visit link)
Source: Australian Heritage Database.
*** We've spent many times wandering around this place, either geocaching or just poking around among the old buildings. It is a fascinating area with lots of information panels about interesting bits and pieces of history, lots of odd pieces of machinery, railway engines, and brick archways on beautifully constructed old buildings. There are even some old WWII air raid shelters still existing along the rail tracks at Eveleigh. Well worth a visit. ***
Register of the National Estate (Non-statutory archive)
Class Historic
Legal Status Registered (26/04/1988)
Place ID 15903
Place File No 1/12/033/0014
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