Westport Rail Workshops

In one of the few New Zealand towns where rail still plays a part in the economy, there remains a relic nearly a century and a half old which demonstrates in stone the importance of rail, and coal, for industry and progress.

Down the dead end of Lyndhurst Street, es entry into a lane alongside Kiwi Rail's steel shed. Further up that lane the wall gives way to a different construct, a sawtooth roofed, clearly Victorian, engine shed, with an unusual wall built entirely from granite.

This is the old Westport Rail workshops, placed here in 1874, but subject to fire a few years later. 1879, 1897 are given for the years of the fire, but there is photographic evidence of a destructive blaze here in 1910. Regardless of the date, such was the resolve to prevent any future damage to the precious railway workshop, that the new eastern wall was built out of granite, a material handy within the district.

Conditions of employment of Rail Workers, as well as Coal Miners, were central to the beginnings of the Labour Party, here on the West Coast, this is explored in depth at the Blackball Museum of Working Class History.

Rail has always been essential for the transport of coal out of the Buller District, and remains so despite the dwindling number of active mines. Passenger services have long since ceased.