The Eveleigh Chief Mechanical Engineers office is a heritage-listed former engineer's office and now unused building located at Main Suburban railway line in the inner western Sydney suburb of Redfern in the City of Sydney local government area of New South Wales, Australia.
It is also known as Eveleigh Chief Mechanical Engineers office and movable relics and Sydney Technology Park.
When the workshops were established most of the rolling stock had a wooden chassis, so the separation of services was not a major impediment to production.
At the time of the development of the railway workshops, Darlington School was also built, as were other municipal buildings since demolished for the university.
Work also commenced on the replacement of the steam engines at the south end of the workshops by powerful electric motors.
In 1916 James Fraser, Acting Chief Commissioner, addressed workers at Eveleigh on the introduction of the Taylor card system.
Volunteers kept trains running including boys from Newington and Shore independent schools at Eveleigh.
Additional land was resumed to the south-west and 230 houses were demolished to allow for the construction of the Alexandria Goods Yard sometime around 1917.
[1] As a result of World War II, bays 5-6 were cleared of machinery in 1940 and plans drawn up for the installation of equipment supplied by the Department of Defence for the manufacture of 25lb field gun-shells.
In later years workshops at Chullora in 1937 and later Clyde took over aspects of work formerly performed at Eveleigh and functions were rearranged accordingly.
Buildings containing old equipment, machinery which had become progressively inappropriate to a modern transport era, and a changing work culture, has seen the yards decline gradually in the late 20th century until its closure in 1988.
Works will see the building be made secure, with external restoration of the balcony, paintwork, windows, latticework and connection to utilities.
[4][1] Once famous for its extensive and elaborate grounds, these have been neglected and comprise chiefly now of open space, unkept grass and a row of mature, formerly-pollarded London or hybrid plane trees (Platanus x hybrida) lining Wilson Street, Redfern.
An interpretive sign adjacent to the main pedestrian stairway entrance to Carriage Works, to the west, has a copy of a photograph of the elaborate Chief Mechanical Engineer's Office gardens at their peak.
However, a number of original features remain including the central timber staircase, marble mantelpieces, decorative plaster cornices and archways, tiled bathrooms, tessellated tiles to entry and bathrooms, timber panelled doors, "mini-orb" and "lath and plaster" ceilings.
[1] As at 4 September 2013, the building is a very fine late Victorian railways office on a scale above all other such structures in the State.
It is an important element in the town and streetscape of Wilson St, Redfern, particularly its close proximity to the railway workshops.
[1] Eveleigh Chief Mechanical Engineers office was listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999 having satisfied the following criteria.
[1] The place is important in demonstrating aesthetic characteristics and/or a high degree of creative or technical achievement in New South Wales.
[1] The place possesses uncommon, rare or endangered aspects of the cultural or natural history of New South Wales.
[1] This Wikipedia article was originally based on Eveleigh Chief Mechanical Engineers office and movable relics, entry number 1139 in the New South Wales State Heritage Register published by the State of New South Wales (Department of Planning and Environment) 2018 under CC-BY 4.0 licence, accessed on 13 October 2018.