New Locomotive Shops

From the moment the Locomotive Workshops opened for business in 1887, it was capable and responsible for every task necessary to assemble, repair, maintain, and service the great steam locomotives of the NSW rail fleet that were imported from England and the USA.

However, in 1907 the NSW Government decided that the Eveleigh workforce had become sufficiently established and sizable that the site could be adapted to manufacture locomotives locally, and hence began the construction of the New Locomotive Shop specifically for this purpose. 

“[the New Loco] was an ultra-modern workshop compared to the bottom end of it. I worked there for about three months on planning machines, making parts for 38 Class locomotives, axle boxes and things like that…” Bill Leech, former Eveleigh worker

The ‘New Loco’, as it came to be referred, opened in 1908 at the northeastern end of the site, separated from the Locomotive Workshops by the newly constructed Spring Shop (in what is now Innovation Plaza). Eveleigh’s very own steam locomotives were constructed in the New Loco between 1908 and 1925, and again from 1945 to 1952. For a short time during WW2 the New Loco Workshop was also used to manufacture parts for the production of cruiser tanks.

As part of the 1990s ATP redevelopment, the New Loco underwent works for adaptive reuse as the International Business Centre.