East Block extension – Paint Mixing room

Friday 6th January 2023

East Block extension – Paint Mixing room

One of the facts about Newport that really turned me on about the importance of saving Newport Workshops was this small area at the south end of the east block (EB) annex. The rush to get more construction areas south of EB under cover happened C1905-1913. However, in bays 1&2 (tracks 2-7) the rear wall of EB and the small trimming shop were demolished, and the brick wall dividing those bays from the rest of EB was extended right through. By 1910 the paint shop was one very long building with tracks 2-7 now 600 feet long extended right through. Sometime after WW1, possibly around c1923, a small section of this southern extension was partitioned off as a paint store, and existing paint mixing equipment was relocated into this store. The mezzanine floor with staff amenities was built above the store.

We have said it many times, but here is the ultimate example that Newport was a self-contained industry which made virtually EVERYTHING in house. Newport Railway Workshops actually manufactured its own paint! These days we automatically look up the internet if we are searching for a particular product. But at Newport we have a self contained industry that if they needed something, they got or manufactured the equipment to make it themselves. Nuts & bolts, boilers, pattern making, foundries, steam bending timber, chrome plating and even manufacturing their own paint.

And that paint manufacturing equipment is still there, complete with belt drive shafting, pigment grinding and paint mixing vats and equipment. We even have a copy of a memo from the rolling stock CME office that in 1970 they did a cost analysis and discovered that they could still produce a 44 gal drum of ‘railway red’ (the colour virtually every VR wagon at the time was painted) cheaper than it could be purchased outside!

In 2012 I was privileged to show dozens of photos of Newport workshops to the senior conservationist at York Railway museum in UK. He is on the committee that recommends railway sites to UNESCO for world heritage listing. He nearly fell off his chair when he saw this photo of the paint mixing room at Newport. He exclaimed ‘I have never seen anything like that in any other railway workshop in the world’.

So wake up Victoria! State Government and VicTrack take note! Eleven major studies in the past thirty years have ALL recommended that the site should be preserved and become the State rail heritage centre. At Newport we have a precious heritage site with UNESCO potential that must be preserved and made accessible to the public.

Sure it needs cleaning up and is full of other junk at present, but the 100-year-old equipment is still there. So share this FFF with your friends. Show this item to you local politician. Check out our website <www.nrwpg.com.au> Join the tidal wave of support to show the government you want this place preserved and open to the public. Book a ride on heritage specials that operate out of Newport. Support open days at Newport. Newport is a gold mine of Victoria’s history. We must not waste this site by easy answers to meet modern rail transport needs that the present government is pushing.