Friday Facts and Fotos – 13 21 October 2022
This week we look at the most southern building of Centre Block which was added in 1909. This is constructed of corrugated iron with the saw tooth skylights facing south. As the stores branch took over the rest of Centre block, this became the non-ferrous foundry for the next few decades. With the widespread use of roller bearings following WW2, hundreds of items of rolling stock which had bronze bearings were being scrapped. Eventually, brass/bronze casting was not required, so probably around 50 years ago this building changed its role to become the plant shop doing all the repairs on vehicles and machinery used around the workshops.
This building is 27 metres wide x 53 metres long. It has cast-iron columns down the centre that support the roof trusses and travelling cranes which served the western and eastern halves of the building. An early memo indicates that half of the building was used as a brass foundry, and the other half used for cleaning up the castings. However, no evidence of those functions exist in the building today.
For over the last 40 years, the Fire Services Museum has occupied this building and uses it for restoration and storage.
The next group of photos show what the buildings looks like at present. It is good to see these buildings being used for heritage/community activities, alongside Steamrail’s heritage rail operations.
Comments are closed