North Ipswich Railway Workshops is a heritage-listed current Australian railway workshop at North Street, North Ipswich, Queensland. It was built from 1878 to 1980s. It is also known as the Queensland Museum Rail Workshops. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 April 1997.
The original site was built in 1864, then expanding to its current location by 1885 with continued expansion until the 1980s. The front third of the current site is run by Queensland Museums. Behind this Queensland Rail still operate and have continuously operated this site since 1864/1865. It is the oldest continuously operating railway workshop in Australia. (Any information found saying it has closed at any stage is incorrect.) As well as steam locomotives and heritage coaches, other works are still completed here by various tradespersons for Queensland Rail from across the business as a whole.
History Unlike other colonies, the first railway in Queensland started from a provincial town, Ipswich, instead of from the capital city, Brisbane. The rationale was that transport between Brisbane and Ipswich was already adequately serviced by the Brisbane River, and the most urgent need was to improve transport between Ipswich and the productive Darling Downs region.
The construction contract was awarded to well-known British contractor Peto, Brassey and Betts. Work started in early 1864 and the first section of line was opened in 1865, gradually extending to the Darling Downs and eventually further west. The line between Ipswich and Brisbane was completed in 1875. The first workshops were also built in Ipswich on the southern end of the present site. Construction materials ordered from Britain arrived by ship in Brisbane, then were brought to Ipswich by paddle steamer.
The early workshop buildings included two pre-fabricated "erecting shops" which had been sent out from England; they had cast iron frames with wrought iron roof trusses and were clad with corrugated zinc. These buildings no longer exist.
A number of other buildings were then constructed by local contractors. In 1878–79, the Railway Store Building was erected by Ipswich contractors McGregor and Brown; this is the only building on the southern part of the site which is still standing and it is now used as the Railway Historical Centre (R1). The last of the other early buildings was demolished in 1910. Some components such as roof trusses appear to have been re-used, for example in the Westinghouse Brake and Spray Paint Shed (R48).
The North Ipswich Railway Workshops were initially required to carry out assembly and maintenance only, as the first locomotives used in Queensland were imported from Britain. In 1865, the North Ipswich Railway Workshops built its first item of rolling stock, an engine truck. Ten wagons were built in 1866. The Workshops advanced rapidly and in 1877, built its first locomotive, an A10 class constructed mainly from existing spare parts. The workshops would eventually build 218 steam locomotives, the last a DD17 class in 1952.
Although the Railway Workshops were at North Ipswich, Ipswich station was in the centre of the town, on the southern side of the river. The line from the station passed over a combined rail/road bridge across the Bremer River. It then passed through the Workshops site, continued beside the river, crossed Mihi Creek and Ironpot Creek and then passed through Wulkuraka en route to Grandchester and eventually the Darling Downs. The section of line within the Workshops still exists, although the original materials appear to have been replaced.
As activity at the Workshops increased, the site became cramped, providing no room for further expansion. Additional land was obtained adjacent and to the north of the original site.
Six substantial buildings [the Carriage (R.2), Wagon (R.4), Painting, Fitting and Machine Shops (R.3) and the Smithy (R.5)] plus some smaller timber sheds were completed in the 1880s but the construction program then stopped. Although only a few of the planned buildings were completed, they were arranged in a formal row and this set the basic future layout of the workshops. Financial restrictions and uneasiness about the site after the severe flooding of 1893 seem to have delayed further construction.
Work continued in the workshop buildings at both ends of the sites. This was inconvenient and the buildings were still not adequate for the volume of work. After two accidents in the late 1890s, a Court of Inquiry was held and recommended that the workshops should be "enlarged, extended and equipped with most modern tools and appliances."
William Nisbet, formerly General Manager of the Westinghouse Brake Company of Australia, was appointed to handle the expansion.
Up to this time, the buildings constructed had been relatively small; they were rather narrow and were to a great extent general purpose buildings. The existing workshops staff recognised the problems that existed and were planning for modern equipment (e.g. they had already considered use of a traverser) but they were still thinking on a small scale. Nisbet, with his wider experience, seems to have had the vision to plan for future growth with buildings that were larger, capable of being equipped with larger equipment such as huge overhead cranes and capable of a more efficient work-flow.
The major decision in modernisation was to use electricity, so a power house (R.10) was a key new building. To improve the layout of buildings, a traverser was installed to move equipment between sheds.
Other major construction during the 1900 expansion period include the huge Boiler Shop, (R.14), Carriage and Wagon Shop (R.12) and Machine and Erecting Shop (R.13)on the southern side of the traverser, and a new Smithy (R.7), Store (R.6), Foundry (R.8), Forge and Pattern Shop (R.9) on the northern side. Buildings such as the Blacksmiths Shop (R.7) and the Foundry (R.8) were about three times bigger than the earlier buildings. 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.
After the major building program of the 1900s, some building work continued, mostly timber buildings for ancillary purposes rather than major new shops. The most prominent visually was the Time-keepers Office (R.17) at the front gates in North Street. Drafting and administrative offices (R.24) were built and a dining room (R.16)was set up for employees. To make the workshops more self-sufficient, the output of the sawmill was expanded so sawn timber did not have to be purchased.
During World War I, about 300 of the 1,600 employees were engaged in production of munitions, particularly shell casings made using BHP steel.
Two other events in this period gave prominence to the workshops. In April 1918, an experimental smelting of iron ore from Biggenden was carried out using the moulders furnaces.
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. New connecting rods were forged and machined and the crankcase, damaged when the rods broke, was repaired. A new propeller was also made from Queensland maple.
When World War II began in 1939, the workshops were again involved in wartime production. A 30-ton casting, the largest ever made at the workshops, was produced in 1942.
In 1941, the Australian Government set up a munitions factory at Rocklea. Tools for accurate mass-production were required for the factory and the Australian Government entered into a joint arrangement with the Queensland Government to build a new Tool and Gauge Shop (R.19 & R.20) at North Ipswich Railway Workshops. The Acting Prime Minister stated that the Railway Workshops was chosen rather than a site near the Rocklea factory because the long-term benefits to Queensland would be greater. He said that Queensland had little industry involving mass-production because of the high initial cost of "tooling-up" and he hoped that the new shop would act as a catalyst for post-war industry. In 1944, an x-ray plant was commissioned for the Boiler Shop to detect flaws in casting and welding.
During World War II, very little new construction could be carried out at North Ipswich Railway Workshops and in the immediate post-war period, Queensland was faced with ageing stock and little immediate capacity for new production. An inquiry recommended that new workshops should be built in the Rockhampton and Townsville areas, and that a new workshop should be built in south-eastern Queensland for locomotive construction and repair, leaving North Ipswich Workshops to cater for carriages and wagons. It was also decided that future rolling stock would be steel where ever possible, a decision which reduced the need for large sawmills at the North Ipswich Railway Workshops.
At this time, land was available in the Ipswich suburb of Redbank where a huge army camp had recently been de-commissioned. The Redbank Railway Workshops eventually opened in 1958. Although it was originally intended for steam locomotive production and repair, its construction coincided with the change to diesel and it became the centre for diesel locomotives. In 1965, the Foundry and Pattern Shops were transferred from Ipswich to Redbank.
New buildings constructed at the North Ipswich Railway Workshops since 1950 include 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.
Description
The North Ipswich Railway Workshops is a place which contains an extensive complex of buildings and linking rail tracks constructed between 1878 and the present day.
A considerable number of these have architectural merit those constructed between 1884 and 1905 were a result of the first major expansion to the northern end of the site in the 1880s and further development resulting from criticisms levelled by an 1899 Inquiry into two boiler accidents.
These buildings include the gable ended brick structures to the north of the Traverser, which although simple and robust industrial buildings, are carefully articulated and detailed in the late Victorian style with bold use of brickwork in projecting plinths, pilasters, corbels, dentil courses and string courses. Some buildings such as the Bogie Repair Shop and Blacksmiths' Shop feature the restrained use of coloured brickwork.
The large main entrance doorways are generally round arch openings symmetrically placed in gable ends and often flanking a smaller central window. Long side window and door openings are generally of the segmental arch headed type with multi-pane windows in carefully detailed cast iron frames, astragals, and pivoting sections. Door and window dressings are a combination of Helidon freestone, brickwork, or cement render usually with restrained use of coloured brick or stone voussoirs and keystones, raking arches and label moulds.
In the early years of the twentieth century, well designed and finely detailed industrial brick structures such as the Power House, Erecting and Boiler Shops were constructed, completing the intended lateral expansion along the northern and southern sides of the Traverser. These buildings continued the style of the 1880s buildings, some with affinities to Romanesque detail. The final result, when viewed along the strong central axis of the Traverser, is a streetscape of robust brick industrial buildings. Each facade exhibits subtle variations on a simple architectural theme, and although the roof lines vary from simple pitched roofs to extensive saw tooth profiles, there is a great subtlety of scale and material texture which is aesthetically pleasing and impressive.