The Workshops Rail Museum

The Workshops Rail Museum

The WorkshopsRailMuseum

Fast facts

  • The WorkshopsRailMuseum is the only QueenslandMuseum campus located at an historic site – the Ipswich Railway Workshops. The site is the oldest continually operating railway Workshops in Australia with the Museum housed in the original Boilershop.
  • The WorkshopsRailMuseum hosts Australia’s BIGGEST Thomas & Friends event with the annual Day out with Thomas event held every year from Boxing Day (26 December) until the end of January.
  • The Museum opened in 2002 and today, approximately 100,000 visitors enjoy all the BIG LOUD FUN of The Workshops Rail Museum annually.
  • The Great Railway Journeys of Australia exhibition, produced by The Workshops Rail Museum, toured the country from 2007 to 2010 and is the old QueenslandMuseum produced exhibition to show at the NationalMuseum of Australia in Canberra.
  • The WorkshopsRailMuseum has won 6 Queensland Tourism Awards and 2 Australian Tourism Awards:
  • Queensland Tourism Award for Heritage & Cultural Tourism in 2005, 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2011
  • Queensland Tourism Award for Tourist Attractions in 2010
  • Australian Tourism Award for Heritage & Cultural Tourism in 2007 and 2010.
  • The Ipswich Railway Workshops site was the engine room of rail production for the State since 1865 when the first train to run in Qld steamed west from the site to Grandchester. In 2002, the renaissance of the site began when the $20 million WorkshopsRailMuseum opened, headlining a new tourism industry for the Ipswich region with a significant heritage & cultural tourism attraction
  • The significance of the Ipswich Railway Workshops cannot be underestimated. In a national & international context, it is a rare example of a large scale railway workshop. It demonstrates the evolution & pattern of Qld’s rail history being the epicentre of rail construction for over 100 years (1860s – 1960s).
  • Workshops of a similar scale to Ipswich were built in other States and overseas to serve large rail networks, but most have either been demolished or converted into other uses to the extent that the original function is hardly recognisable. The significance of the Ipswich Railway Workshops as one of the most important places of heritage and cultural significance in Qld is recognised through listing on the Qld Heritage Register, Place ID 601526.

Collection

  • Over 60,000 collection items & over 500m of paper archives maintained onsite.
  • Biggest collection Item - The biggest and heaviest item in the collection is the Diesel Electric Locomotive No. 1281. It weighs in at a hefty 90 Tonnes and is 16.1m long, 2.8m wide and 3.7m high. It was made at Rocklea in 1965 by the English Electric Company of Australia. The loco was painted in gold, blue and white livery to celebrate the Qld Railway Centenary in 1965, 100 years since the first rail journey in Queensland in 1865.
  • Heaviest collection item – The 1281 Diesel is followed in second place by the PB15 Steam Locomotive No 444. This loco weighs in at 57.6 Tonnes and is 14.5 m long, 2.4m wide and 3.6m high. No. 444 was built by Walkers Ltd in Maryborough in 1908. It was the last mainline steam locomotive in service in South East Queensland, withdrawn from standard operations in 1968.
  • Smallest collection item – Perhaps one of the smallest objects in the collection is a trimmers needle. Weighing only a few grams, with a diameter of around 1mm and approximately 45mm long, these needles were used by Trimmers at the Ipswich Railway Workshops, who manufactured upholstery for Queensland Rail carriages.
  • Oldest collection Item – The Silk Address, made in 1864 and printed by the Queensland Times is an invitation to the”Inauguration of the Works of the First Queensland Railway in Ipswich, on 25th February 1864", the commencement of construction of Queensland's first railway from Ipswich to Bigge's Camp (Grandchester).
  • Arguably most significant collection item – The silk address is arguably the most significant item we have in the collection. A close second would be the Builders Plate from the first locomotive built at the Ipswich Railway Workshops - Ipswich No.1, built in 1877. Although not held in our collection, the most significant object on display at The Workshops Rail Museum is steam locomotive A10 No. 6, the oldest operational steam locomotive in Queensland.

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