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Power and Movement

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Powerful line shafting

Long rows of rotating line shafts mounted aloft the Workshops’ great iron beams powered much of Eveleigh’s machinery.
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The Roaring Giant

Eveleigh was likened to a roaring giant by Stan Jones, Secretary of the Eveleigh Sub-Branch of the Australian Railways Union. Stan had followed his grandfather, father, uncles and cousins to Eveleigh.
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Hydraulic Power

Hydraulic Power was essential to Workshop operations, and fundamental to early industrial technological advancement.
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  • 1825

    World's first railway, operating with steam locomotives, opens in England.

  • 1886

    The surviving hydraulic system at Eveleigh is installed, a year before the workshops open, making it the oldest system of its kind in Australia.

  • 1899

    Eveleigh expands to meet increasing demand with new foundry and boiler shop extensions and Large Erecting Shop completed.

  • 1908

    Four M class boilers are installed in Boiler House Annexe Bay 3.

  • 1920

    Four identical C36 class locomotive boilers are installed and adapted as stationary boilers in the Boiler House Annexe Bay 3. These remain in-situ today.

  • 1924

    From 1924 to 1927 ten boilers of the C36 class are built at Eveleigh.

  • 1965

    Steam locomotion is abandoned.

  • 1966

    The two Davy Press boilers are removed and four stationary boilers in the Boiler House are converted to run on oil (and later on natural gas).

  • 2009

    On the night of the 2 July 2009, the Powerhouse Museum's restored Steam Locomotive 3265 embarks on a trial run.

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An Indigenous Place

Eveleigh is Gadigal country. We acknowledge their ownership of this land and pay our respects to past, present and emerging elders.
The paddocks

The second half of the nineteenth century saw a rapid expansion in New South Wales railways. In Sydney, this meant both the early stations and workshop facilities quickly became too small, and had to be expanded or relocated.
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An Indigenous Place
The paddocks
Like a living thing
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Eveleigh stories in time...
40,000 BC

Pre contact – Members of Cadigal, or Gadigal, people inhabit Redfern, Erskineville and surrounds. The Gadigal Traditional Owners who today speak for the Sydney clan area stretched “from the south side of Port Jackson from South Head to Petersham”. The Gadigal people spoke the coastal Eora dialect of the Darug language and are often referred to as the Eora people. Redfern as a site was important to its people because it had a source of water – Shea's Creek, which today is Alexandra Canal, as well as a source of food from the wetlands that drained into the creek. Redfern’s high point on the terrain offered views of the trade route from Circular Quay to Parramatta, on which the colony’s first railway would be built. These trade routes connected with larger routes which linked the north and south, and east and west of Australia. Not only goods, but ideas, songs, ceremonies and news travelled along these routes.
1788

The British arrive in January with catastrophic effect on the Aboriginal way of life. The Eora people do not flee, as Captain James Cook predicted, but stand their ground. Governor Phillip attempts to create good relations, but these soon disintegrate due to the persecution of the Aboriginals by the convicts. The Aboriginals are pushed out of Sydney town with fear of being shot, and with the quick pollution of the Tank Stream by tanneries, they are forced to use water sources near Redfern.
1789

The smallpox plague devastates the Aboriginal people. Without immunity to the disease brought by the British, a large percentage of the Cadigal clan is wiped out. Following the plague, survivors from surrounding clans join together to survive, and to participate in the guerrilla movement led by Pemulwuy.
1791

James Chisholm arrives in the colony of New South Wales aged 19 as a non-commissioned officer.
1793

Settler David Collins observes Cadigal people performing a ceremony “between the town and the brickfield”.
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