Addington Railway Workshops facts for kids

Addington Water Tower with some damage from the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake

Water tower plaque.

The Addington Railway Workshops was a very important place in Christchurch, New Zealand. It was a big factory built in the suburb of Addington in May 1880. The New Zealand Railways Department created it to build and fix trains. The workshops were open for many years but finally closed in 1990.

What Were the Workshops For?

The Addington Railway Workshops opened around 1877-1878. Their main job was to fix and build parts for trains. They also put together train engines, called locomotives, that came from England.

In 1889, something special happened. The workshops built the very first locomotive made by New Zealand Railways. It was called the W 192. The workshops kept building locomotives until the early 1920s.

Besides working on trains, Addington also did other important jobs. For example, they made parts for gold dredges. During the First World War, they even made equipment for the military, including parts for airplanes!

Building and Fixing Trains

In the 1920s, the workshops changed their focus. They started to make and fix more railway carriages and wagons. They still did some repairs on steam locomotives and early electric locomotives.

Building new locomotives started again in 1962. They built the D^SC class shunting locomotives. These are smaller engines used to move wagons around train yards.

The workshops also put together other diesel shunting locomotives. These included the Mitsubishi D^SA and D^SB classes in 1967-1968. They also assembled four of the five Toshiba DSJ class shunting locomotives in 1984.

Locomotives Built at Addington

The Addington Workshops built many different types of locomotives over the years. Here are some of the classes they built:

• A (8 of these were built)
• A^B (38 were built)
• B (6 were built)
• B^A (10 were built)
• D^SC
• DSJ
• E^D (2 were built)
• F^A
• U
• W (2 were built)
• W^A
• W^AB (2 were built)
• W^F (10 were built)
• X (18 were built)

The Workshops Close

In 1987, the New Zealand Railways Corporation made some big changes. Because of these changes, the Addington Workshops closed down on 14 December 1990.

After the closure, most of the site was cleared away. The old water tower, known as the Addington Water Tower, was one of the few things left. This water tower is now a protected heritage building.

A new Christchurch Railway Station was built on part of the old workshop land. It opened on 5 April 1993. The rest of the land was sold and turned into a shopping centre. It is called Tower Junction, named after the old water tower.