Officially the New South Wales Government Engineering & Shipbuilding Undertaking, it was universally referred to as the State Dockyard.

In November 1986 a team of apprentices from the Hunter Valley Training Company completed a three-year overhaul of steam locomotive 3801 at the dockyard.

[1] A 15,000 ton floating dock was located at Carrington in 1943 to repair damaged ships during World War II.

The floating dock was scrapped in 1977 and replaced with a new one built in Japan called Muloobinba, which was eventually sold overseas in 2012.

[13][14] Surviving non-operating or stored ships built by State Dockyard, are Cape Don, a lighthouse tender built in 1962 for the Commonwealth Lighthouse Service which is now a museum ship at Balls Head Bay, Waverton and the ex-Sydney Inner-harbour ferry Lady Herron, which is currently laid up in Newcastle.