ATP - CMP Consultation Feedback from Wrought Artworks

ATP – CMP CONSULTATION FEEDBACK

Heritage importance of ATP and why:

 An increasingly rare tangible record and example of Australia’s proud railway establishment history and consequent development into a developed nation. 

Largest railway workshop in the Southern hemisphere at one time. 

World’s most important surviving collection of steam-powered blacksmithing equipment in the western world. 

Locomotive workshop building houses representative example of Victorian state of the art machinery and an operating historical blacksmithing workshop retaining rare trade skills that relate to the site. 

The large erecting shop has been in continuous operation restoring steam loco and rolling stock. 

 The industrial Victorian architecture of the buildings is world class and of international significance. 

Aspects of the site that make the greatest contribution to its heritage importance  

Active heritage blacksmithing workshop. Dynamic operation of machinery, by experience operators, continuing its useful life. 

Restoration facility in Large erecting shop. 

Heritage Trade skill retention. 

Retention of rare examples of Victorian Engineering equipment and complete hydraulic system. 

An existing archaeological record of a state of the art purpose built industrial buildings with assemblages and services. 

Extensive social and cultural past. 

Within close proximity to a large tourist/population base and on a railway station.

An exemplary hydraulic system, completely intact at closure, now rare.

Issues about the future conservation and management of the ATP. 

Some important guidelines within the existing CMP in which the DA approval for the site incorporated were able to be ignored. No monitoring procedure of the implementation of the CMP by past, current and future users of the site exists. A mechanism should be incorporated in the future revised CMP. 

The revised CMP to hopefully set out clear Heritage asset management strategies that abide by the Governments own HAMS policy guidelines. 

A steering committee of heritage specialists with knowledge and expertise in Victorian industrial workshops, machinery, and its meaningful interpretation should be included in the CMP. ATP commercial management cannot be expected to have this expertise and knowledge base. 

The new CMP should have precise guidelines on how to properly maintain, exhibit, and interpret the static machinery collection scattered through out the Loco building, in an interesting, educational, meaningful and respectful way, to international standards. 

The static blacksmithing bays 1 & 2 Sthn requires proper museum standard interpretation. 

Bay 16 machinery requires a proper museum approach to their display. It should be accessible to visitors. 

The CMP should incorporate the requirement of meaningful, museum standard memorabilia exhibits with interpretation. Also audio-visual display of former workers speaking of their place of work, many for their entire life-times. A workers wall or something to respectfully commemorate the workers of Eveleigh.  

 The active operating blacksmithing workshop requires being glassed in on the central aisle. The sole funding of the maintenance of the equipment should not be entirely at the operators cost. The operators require a qualified point of contact for heritage maintenance issues. The license for future and present tenants of the operating blacksmithing bays should not be purely on a commercial basis in view of the importance, responsibilities and restraints of the heritage nature of the workshop. The success of the workshop should not be the commercial return for the Government but the ongoing preservation and safety within the workshop. The CMP should support by policy the workshop operating in perpetuity by qualified operators for the intended purpose of traditional black-smithing in a historical context. 

The CMP should specify that the site should be promoted as a State heritage tourism destination. With tours of the site, open days, Former workers get-togethers. 

CMP should stipulate the machinery, tools and memorabilia stored in containers and outdoor compounds that requires conservation management plans and display locations. (Not outdoors as proposed). 

No more service pipes should be removed from the exterior of the building as it hinders interpretation.No further distruction of heritage buildings and associated equipment. 

The boilers outside bay 2 require conservation and proper interpretation. 

Operating Blacksmithing workshop and Large Erecting should be accessible for pre-booked group tours. Chargeable and by appointment. 

The Chief Mechanical Engineers office should be conserved as museum, showcasing memorabilia that Lucy Taksa (historian on Eveleigh) has accumulated as well relics currently store in the Paint shop. It should not be converted into units. 

The present CMP reflected an expectation that the state owned site should be a heritage destination.  The new CMP should also reflect this. The government has a responsibility to interpret the site properly and promote it as the cultural icon that it is. 

Guido Gouverneur & Wendie McCaffley

Directors of Wrought Artworks – present operators of historical blacksmithing bays 1& 2 Nth-ATP. P.O Box 357 Alexandria 2015