By: Ray Dillon23rd Jun 2025 1:36PMWith reference to the question above the caption "Was this a boiler house? Information welcome. [Werris Creek, NSW]"

I worked at the Werris Creek locomotive depot as a running shed fitter maintaining diesel locomotives from 1973 to 1991. Before that I did my four-year apprenticeship there commencing 1968 prior to spending 16 months at the Eveleigh Carriage works before returning to Werris Creek in 1973.

The building in question was known to me in my time at the depot as the boilermaker's shop, where a boilermaker and his assistant performed various tasks, although, I do recount some older workers when I first started at the depot, referring to the building as the blacksmiths shop. The chimney at the far end extended from a cowling above a blacksmith's hearth which remained operational right up till the building was vacated early in 1986. When I first began employment in 1968 there was also a second nonoperational hearth at the near end of the building, this hearth being later removed and racking for steel being installed. The building was fitted out with work benches and vices, all types of blacksmiths hand tools and tongs, anvil and a metal shaping block as well as large circular metal impact slabs for heavy work. There was also a light manual swing arm attached to a wall post. There were also electric and petrol welders.

On the outside, at the stack end of the building was a small wooden humpy where the boilermaker kept his paperwork and various small equipment such as electrode dehumidifiers.

The upright tank in the foreground was storage for diesel locomotive lubricating oil. The partly demolished brickwork in front supported an elevated covered deck with various pump controls, under which was a pit that housed pumps and pipework for the movement of new and used oil. At the rear of the covered deck was a second horizontal tank for storage of used oil. The just visible rails submerged in concrete is wear the oil tankers were parked.

Incidentally, the anvil, metal shaping block, circular heavy metal slabs and swing arm were all moved to the new maintenance shed when it was commissioned in early (Janruary?) 1986.

The demolition of the old roundhouse facility didn't commence until much later in 1986/87? because the wheel change drop pit facilities in the new maintenance shed were not yet operational, meaning the drop pits in the old roundhouse were still being used.