The NSW government has selected a former coalmine site at Teralba in Lake Macquarie as its preferred location for a new state-owned train manufacturing facility, according to a ministerial statement. The facility is part of the government's Future Fleet Program, which has a total value of $12 billion.
Teralba was selected ahead of Broadmeadow Locomotive Depot in Newcastle after a preliminary assessment compared the two locations. Glencore part-owns Macquarie Coal, which holds the Teralba site.
The government said it will carry out detailed site investigations and due diligence with them before planning, design and procurement work can proceed. Broadmeadow has not been ruled out and stays as a fallback while investigation, due diligence and acquisition work at Teralba moves forward.
Planned train-building work at the facility spans three decades in NSW, opening with a Tangara replacement fleet before moving to the Millennium and OSCAR programs in the 2040s, then the Waratah program in the 2050s. Rail manufacturing has deep roots in the Hunter.
Goninan, a Newcastle company established in 1899, produced the Tangara trains at Broadmeadow during the late 1980s and 1990s. The Millennium fleet was subsequently built at Cardiff.
Premier Chris Minns said in a statement that for more than a century Hunter workers built trains used across Sydney, that those jobs were subsequently sent overseas, and that the government's intent is to bring them back because it believes NSW should manufacture more of what it needs domestically. Business Hunter chief executive Bob Hawes told ABC News the announcement was positive for the region and said it drew on deep experience and existing industries in the Hunter that could service the new facility. No completion date for the facility has been set.
Construction of the facility is projected to generate up to 780 jobs, with around 550 positions sustained on an ongoing basis across the site and its supply chains.
Official statements: Nsw, Ministerial statement
Reporting: ABC News
Written by Pick & Scroll News from the reporting and documents linked above.
