Bendigo Workshops.html



Exterior of the workshops

Main workshop building

Bendigo Workshops is a railway workshop located in the provincial city of Bendigo, Victoria, Australia. They are located in the north of the city and occupies 10.3 hectare of land beside the junction of the Swan Hill and Echuca railway lines.

History

The workshops were opened in November 1917 by the main rail operator in Victoria, the Victorian Railways. 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 in suburban Melbourne.¹ Furthermore, unemployment had risen in both Bendigo and Ballarat due to a decline in mining operations. ² The main work carried out was repairs and maintenance of existing wagons and locomotives, however, but from 1919-22 a small number of new steam locomotives were also built.³ By the 1960s goods wagons were also being built, and by the 1980s work was also being carried out on Melbourne suburban electric multiple units.

From the 1950s onwards, numerous steam locomotives were scapped at the workshops. During the years immediately following nominal dieselisation in 1968, they were, at times, cutting up locomotives at the rate of one every two to three weeks.²

The 1980s were also a time of restructuring, and on the breakup of the Victorian Railways the workshops passed to the State Transport Authority and then the Public Transport Corporation. With privatisation the workshops were closed, with the loss of 262 jobs.⁴ The site was used to store excess rolling stock, with 12 Hitachi suburban trains being stored there and becoming heavily vandalised, until they were returned to Melbourne in 2006.⁵

The workshops were redeveloped in 2002 at a cost of $6.5 million - $4 million from VicTrack, $2 million from the State Government Regional Infrastructure Development Fund and $500,000 by the City of Greater Bendigo. The redevelopment was officially opened in 2004, with Empire Rubber (a division of Nylex) the major tenant, producing rubber vehicle components.⁶ The site covers 10.3 hectares of land and has 31 separate buildings, including a 10,000sqm main workshop building and 6 kilometres of railway track.⁷

References

lifting a steam locomotive