Trains kept a-rollin' ... Alfred Ward and Allan Leaver scrape paint off an old Arnott's Biscuits carriage at Trainworks.

Trains kept a-rollin' ... Alfred Ward and Allan Leaver scrape paint off an old Arnott's Biscuits carriage at Trainworks. Photo: Brendan Esposito

''This is special,'' boasted Mr Celinskis, the chief executive of Trainworks Ltd. ''There is nothing like it anywhere else in the southern hemisphere.''

''We're already getting hits and inquiries out of the UK and Canada,'' Mr Celinskis said. ''There's a lot of rolling stock here that can't be seen anywhere else in the world, so it is very much an enthusiasts' market.''

Within five years, he predicts, Trainworks will be attracting about 100,000 visitors a year,

10 times the annual number who have visited the same site in

Thirlmere until now, when it was operated as the Rail Heritage Centre. The volunteers of the NSW Rail Transport Museum established the heritage centre in 1975. Since then, they have operated rail tours, repaired and conserved heritage trains and carriages, and run the museum.

But three years ago, the then Labor state government approved the design and construction of the new facility under Trainworks Ltd, a not-for-profit subsidiary of RailCorp. Most of the funding came from the sale of surplus railway land throughout the state.

Part of the money was spent on a new turntable and roundhouse, where the volunteers can work on train maintenance, and refurbishing the massive Great Train Hall, where most of the 120 trains and carriages are displayed.

But the centrepiece of Trainworks is a magnificent, industrial-style exhibition building, designed by architects Jackson Teece, with interactive exhibits, a movie theatre, a prison van show and various steam engines.

Eventually the exhibition building will also host Australia's equivalent of a royal train - the Governor-General's state carriage, which carried Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip during their 1954 visit. At a special preview last month the NSW Governor, Marie Bashir, took girlish delight sitting in another of the museum's prize exhibits: the State Governor's Car, built by craftsmen at Eveleigh workshops in 1911, complete with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a dining car and observation lounge.

At the March preview, the Governor told a gathering of schoolchildren, volunteers and dignitaries how the new museum ''evokes memories of my own childhood, travelling from the rural Riverina to visit grandparents in some of these old trains pulled along by steam engines''.

About 50 museum members will continue volunteering as Trainworks guides. Others will continue in the maintenance sheds or staff the heritage train trips the organisation operates around NSW and beyond (see heritageexpress.com.au). By the end of May, the volunteers will also be running a regular Thirlmere Express service from Central to Trainworks at least one Sunday a month.

One of the most fascinating interactive displays inside the exhibition hall is a light show which explains the rapid expansion of railways across the state from the 1860s as rural outposts were connected to the markets of the world. As for the future, who knows what line will be added to the interactive map next?

Trainworks, Barbour Road, Thirlmere. Phone 4681 8001 or trainworks.com.au.