Islington Railway Workshops

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.

During World War II, the workshops were involved in the construction of a number of armoured vehicles for the Australian Imperial Force, most notably the LP1, LP2, LP3 and LP4 series of armoured cars, based on Ford chassis; and the LP1 and LP2 Universal (Bren Gun) carriers.[1]

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]

A fuel tank car of which many were built from 1929

A 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:

• 14 R class steam locomotives
• 1 Y class steam locomotives
• 78 T class steam locomotives
• 2 Z class steam locomotives
• 12 520 class steam locomotives
• 10 620 class steam locomotives
• 10 710 class steam locomotives
• 17 720 class steam locomotives
• 2 350 class diesel locomotives
• 34 500 class diesel locomotives
• 10 900 class diesel locomotives
• 12 Brill 55 railcars
• 38 Brill 75 railcars
• 18 Bluebird railcars
• 111 Redhen railcars
• 9 RL class diesel locomotives

Islington workshops also built 13 Australian Standard Garratt articulated locomotives for the Queensland Railways and Western Australian Government Railways.

Nine surviving historic portions of the former workshops are listed on the South Australian Heritage Register. They are:

• the Chief Mechanical Engineer's Office [6]
• the Fabrication Shop [7]
• the Workshops Foundry [8]
• the Apprentice School [9]
• the Electrical Shop [10]
• the Fabrication Shop Annex [11]
• a section of the Front Fence [12]
• the Time Office and Correspondence Room [13]
• the Old Bulk Store [14]