Ballarat North Workshops is a

railway systems engineering Railway engineering is a multi-faceted engineering discipline dealing with the design, construction and operation of all types of rail transport systems. It encompasses a wide range of engineering disciplines, including civil engineering, comput ...

facility located in the provincial city of

Ballarat Ballarat ( ) is a city in the Central Highlands (Victoria), Central Highlands of Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia. At the 2021 Census, Ballarat had a population of 116,201, making it the third largest city in Victoria. Estimated resid ...

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. They are located in the suburb of Soldiers Hill on Creswick Road, and occupy 5.5 hectares of land beside the junction of the

Mildura Mildura is a regional city in north-west Victoria, Australia. Located on the Victorian side of the Murray River, Mildura had a population of 34,565 in 2021. When nearby Wentworth, Irymple, Nichols Point and Merbein are included, the area had ...

and

Serviceton railway line The Serviceton railway line (also known in Victoria, Australia as the Western line) is part of the Melbourne–Adelaide rail corridor. It serves the west of Victoria, linking the state capital of Melbourne to the cities of Ballarat and Ararat. ...

History

The workshops were opened in April 1917 by the main rail operator in Victoria, the

Victorian Railways The Victorian Railways (VR), trading from 1974 as VicRail, was the state-owned operator of most rail transport in the Australian state of Victoria from 1859 to 1983. The first railways in Victoria were private companies, but when these companie ...

. They were opened in response to political pressures from provincial groups for decentralisation, with the Victorian Railways preferring the cheaper option of expanding the existing

Newport Workshops The Newport Railway Workshops is a facility in the Melbourne suburb of Newport, Victoria, Newport, Australia, that builds, maintains and refurbishes Rolling stock, railway rollingstock. It is located between the Williamstown railway line, Willia ...

in suburban

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

. The main work carried out was repairs and maintenance of existing wagons and locomotives, but from 1919-22 thirteen new

steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...

s were also built - eight D^D class (1038 - 1042, 1050 - 1052) and five A² class (1073 - 1077)

s were also built. By the 1960s goods wagons were also being built, and by the 1980s work was also being carried out on Melbourne suburban

electric multiple unit An electric multiple unit or EMU is a multiple-unit train consisting of self-propelled carriages using electricity as the motive power. An EMU requires no separate locomotive, as electric traction motors are incorporated within one or a numbe ...

s. The 1980s were also a time of restructuring, with run down facilities replaced and modernised, but a large number of the 540 employees were made redundant. With the breakup of the Victorian Railways the workshops passed to the State Transport Authority and then the

Public Transport Corporation The Public Transport Corporation (PTC) was a Victoria State Government owned statutory authority formed under the Transport Act 1983 which operated passenger and freight trains, trams and bus services. The PTC was also responsible for directly ...

. With privatisation the workshops were sold to Alstom Australia in 1999 for $7 million. In 2005 Alstom sold their Australian and New Zealand operations to

United Group United Group is an alternative telecom provider in Southeast Europe that operates both telecommunications platforms and mass media outlets. History United Group was formed in 2007, as a Luxembourg-registered multinational entity, in a merger o ...

, but leased the workshops at Ballarat to United Group.

Operations

Today workshops provide maintenance services to a number of Victorian Railway operators and employ 150 staff. Work includes manufacturing, reconditioning and component overhaul work for Melbourne's

train In rail transport, a train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and Passenger train, transport people or Rail freight transport, freight. Trains are typically pul ...

and

tram A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...

networks,

V/Line V/Line is a statutory authority that operates regional passenger train and coach services in Victoria, Australia. It provides passenger train services on five commuter lines and eight long-distance routes from its major hub at Southern Cross ...

Passenger,

Pacific National Pacific National is one of Australia's largest rail freight businesses. History In February 2002, National Rail Corporation, National Rail's freight operations and rollingstock (owned by the Government of Australia, Federal, Government of New ...

and

CFCL Australia Rail First Asset Management (RailFirst), formerly known as CFCL Australia (CFCLA), is an Australian rolling stock leasing company operating in the rail freight market. It leases assets to a number of private rail operators in the local rail indus ...

. Recent work include the work on suburban trains for

Connex Melbourne Connex Melbourne was a train operator in Melbourne, Australia. Formed in October 1997 as Hillside Trains, a business unit of the Public Transport Corporation, it was privatised in August 1999 becoming a subsidiary of Connex. In April 2004, it ...

, including the refurbishment of

Comeng Commonwealth Engineering (often shortened to Com-Eng, later Comeng was an Australian engineering company that designed and built railway locomotives, rolling stock and trams. History Smith and Waddington, the predecessor to Commonwealth Engi ...

and

Hitachi () is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It is the parent company of the Hitachi Group (''Hitachi Gurūpu'') and had formed part of the Ni ...

trains, as well as the fitout of new Alstom

X'Trapolis 100 The X'Trapolis 100 is a class of single deck electric multiple units part of Alstom's X'Trapolis family of trains, operated in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia and Valparaíso, Chile. Melbourne In service When originally introduced to the su ...

trains imported from France. It has also fitted

Train Protection & Warning System The Train Protection & Warning System (TPWS) is a train protection system used throughout the British passenger main-line railway network, and in Victoria, Australia. The British Rail Safety and Standards Board's definition is: The purpose of TPW ...

equipment to the

fleet, and constructed 61 new 100-tonne bulk grain hoppers for Chicago Freight Car Leasing Australia.

References

External links

Photos of the workshops today
{{coord, -37.5461, 143.8520, type:landmark_region:AU, display=title Buildings and structures in Ballarat Railway workshops in Victoria (Australia)