The Newport Railway Workshops is a facility in the

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 ...

suburb of Newport, Australia, that builds, maintains and refurbishes railway rollingstock. It is located between the Williamstown and

Werribee railway line The Werribee railway line is a commuter rail passenger train service in Melbourne, Australia, operating between Werribee in the western suburbs to Flinders Street in the central business district. The line traverses the flat plains of Melbour ...

History

Plans for a workshop at Newport started in the 1860s, to replace the temporary

Williamstown Workshops The Williamstown Workshops was the first railway workshop operated by the Victorian Railways, located in the Melbourne inner western suburb of Williamstown. History The workshops opened in 1858 in four or five temporary buildings at Point Gelli ...

but nothing came of it. It was not until 1880 that work began, when 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 ...

purchased annexes used at the 1880 Melbourne Exhibition and erected one of them at Newport, naming it the Newport Carriage Workshops when it began operation in 1882. Construction of the permanent workshops commenced in 1884, and was completed in 1889. Although the earlier carriage workshop closed at this time, it reopened in 1895 to manufacture signal equipment. The first

carriages A carriage is a private four-wheeled vehicle for people and is most commonly horse-drawn. Second-hand private carriages were common public transport, the equivalent of modern cars used as taxis. Carriage suspensions are by leather strapping an ...

built by the workshops were completed in 1889, but locomotives were manufactured by the

Phoenix Foundry The Phoenix Foundry was a company that built steam locomotives and other industrial machinery in the city of Ballarat, Victoria, Ballarat, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia. Over 30 years they built 352 locomotives for the Victorian Rail ...

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 ...

, the first

locomotive A locomotive or engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the Power (physics), motive power for a train. If a locomotive is capable of carrying a payload, it is usually rather referred to as a multiple unit, Motor coach (rail), motor ...

being built in 1893. The main elements of the workshops are a central office block and clock tower, the 'East Block' for carriage and wagon works, and 'West Block' for heavy engineering and locomotive building.The Railway Heritage Centre of Victoria (Newport Workshops) Proposal December 1999
Australian Railway Historical Society Expansion followed in 1905–1915, and 1925–1930. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

the workshops were turned over to military production, with the rear fuselage, and

empennage The empennage ( or ), also known as the tail or tail assembly, is a structure at the rear of an aircraft that provides stability during flight, in a way similar to the feathers on an arrow.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third ed ...

Bristol Beaufort The Bristol Beaufort (manufacturer designation Type 152) is a British twin-engined torpedo bomber designed by the Bristol Aeroplane Company, and developed from experience gained designing and building the earlier Blenheim light bomber. At l ...

bombers being built there. At the peak of operation it was one of Victoria's largest and best-equipped engineering establishments, with up to 5,000 employees on site. The workshops had its own cricket ground, and in the 1920s the game of

Trugo Trugo, alternatively TruGo or True-Go, is an Australian sport where a rubber ring is struck with a mallet so that it passes between a set of posts. The game was developed in the western suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. The first trugo clubs were ...

is said to have been invented by workers on their lunch hour. In the late 1980s, the original segments of the workshops were removed from everyday use, and modern workshops built along the eastern side of the site, which remains in use today. On 15 January 2000, ownership of the workshops passed from 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 ...

Clyde Engineering Clyde Engineering was an Australian manufacturer of locomotives, rolling stock, and other industrial products. It was founded in September 1898 by a syndicate of Sydney businessmen buying the Granville factory of timber merchants Huds ...

Tenants

Current revenue operations are carried out in the eastern section of the workshops by

Downer Rail Downer Rail is a business unit within the Downer Group. As well as manufacturing and maintaining railway rolling stock it holds maintenance contracts to maintain rail infrastructure. The head office is located in North Ryde. History The EDI ...

, who carry out work including locomotive and carriage maintenance, and diesel engine,

bogie A bogie ( ) (in some senses called a truck in North American English) is a chassis or framework that carries a wheelset, attached to a vehicle—a modular subassembly of wheels and axles. Bogies take various forms in various modes of transp ...

and wheelset overhauls; for customers including

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

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 ...

. The workshop also has the only broad gauge underfloor wheel lathe in Victoria. From 2018, it will build the

High Capacity Metro Trains The High Capacity Metro Train (HCMT) is a type of electric multiple unit (EMU) train for use by Metro Trains Melbourne on the Melbourne rail network. The first train set entered service on 27 December 2020 and will become the primary rolling sto ...

. A section of the workshops is leased to

Siemens Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational conglomerate corporation and the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe headquartered in Munich with branch offices abroad. The principal divisions of the corporation are ''Industry'', '' ...

for maintenance of their

Siemens Nexas The Siemens Nexas is a class of electric multiple units manufactured by Siemens Transportation Systems for the suburban railway network of Melbourne, Australia between 2002 and 2005. The design of the trains was based on the Siemens Modular Me ...

trains. The original 1880s workshops have been maintained for heritage uses. The 'West Block' area are occupied by a number of railway preservation groups such as

Steamrail Victoria Steamrail Victoria is a not-for-profit volunteer group established in 1965 to restore and operate historic locomotives and rolling stock used on the Rail transport in Victoria, railways in Victoria, Australia. The main depot of the group is at ...

, Diesel Electric Rail Motor Preservation Association Victoria and

707 Operations 707 Operations is a railway preservation group based in Melbourne, Australia. The volunteer organisation was established in 1980 to restore R class locomotive R707. The company has its own section of the Newport Workshops that is used for stori ...

, while the 'East Block' has been retained by the Department of Infrastructure for the storage of disused trams and other rail rollingstock. The

Newport Railway Museum The Newport Railway Museum is located on Champion Road, Newport, Victoria, near the North Williamstown station. History The museum opened on 10 November 1962, after the Australian Railway Historical Society (ARHS) Victorian Division was allocat ...

is located south of the workshops, near

North Williamstown railway station North Williamstown railway station is located on the Williamstown line in Victoria, Australia. It serves the south-western Melbourne suburbs of Newport and Williamstown, and it opened on 1 February 1859.About Us
Australian Railway Historical Society

Gallery

File:R711 in VR Blue and Gold.jpg, R711 at Newport on

. File:R711 Steamrail Open Day 2007.jpg, R711 on Open day in 2007. File:L1162.jpg File:L1162 Newport Workshops.jpg File:L1160 Newport Workshops.jpg File:Harris greaser train Newport 2014.jpg File:D3658freight.jpg, D3 658 (D3 639) at Newport In 2007. File:DSCF0534.JPG File:DERMNewport Workshops.JPG File:D3658k190.jpg, D3 658 (D3 639) and K190. File:L1169 Ghost Rider.jpg File:Burnt out Comeng.jpg File:SwingDoorNewport.jpg File:SwingDoor Newport Workshop.jpg File:TaitNewportWorkshops.jpg File:Victorian Railways Z-Class Locomotive.jpg File:Vinelander Carriage Newport 2014.jpg File:Two DN vans at Newport Workshops.JPG File:VR-T413.jpg File:S Class locomotive S313.JPG

History

Tenants

Gallery

See also

References

Further reading