The Islington Railway Workshops are railway workshops in the northern suburbs of
Adelaide,
South Australia. They were the chief railway workshops of the
South Australian Railways, and are still in operation today.[1]
History
Islington workshops, where large numbers of locomotives and rolling stock were designed and built from 1883. Photo taken between 1915 and 1927, before the encroachment of Adelaide's suburbs.
The Islington workshops were established in 1883, 27 years after the South Australian Railways opened its first line. Before that, workshops were in the
Adelaide Railway Station yards adjacent to
North Terrace,
Adelaide. A major expansion occurred from 1899 to 1902. In the 1920s, the workshops were further expanded and modernised as part of
William Webb's revitalisation of the railways. From then on, the workshops constructed large numbers of bogie freight vehicles, passenger cars and designed and built modern "big power" steam locomotives and, later, diesel locomotives and railcars.
A larger erecting shop was built in 1902 at Islington workshops. This building was where the South Australian Railways assembled locomotives and rolling stock.
In 2012, some buildings on the site were given provisional listing as a heritage site.[2] In 2013-2014, parts of the workshops were demolished to make way for the Churchill Shopping Centre that opened in May 2014. The site includes Adelaide's first
Coles Superstore. In a further expansion to the shopping centre a further part of the workshops was demolished to make room for an
Aldi supermarket and a number of specialty stores.[3]
Adjacent to the workshops is the
Jack Watkins Reserve, which was opened on 30 August 2003.[4] It is named after Jack Watkins,
union organiser and former president of The Asbestos Diseases Society of South Australia who successfully lobbied to
remove asbestos and other toxic contaminants from the railway site and adjacent properties.[4][5]
Output
A fuel tank car of which many were built from 1929A 620 class locomotive, which went into service in 1936, was a light passenger locomotive. It was one of several classes of steam engines designed and built at Islington Workshops.
The Workshops built many of the locomotives and items of rolling stock that served the South Australian Railways, including:
^"Islington Railway Workshops Foundry". South Australian Heritage Register. Department of Environment, Water and Natural Resources.
Archived from the original on 10 October 2016. Retrieved 15 August 2016.