Division 3 Councillor Marnie Doyle’s grandfather, Richard Doyle, worked at the Workshops his entire life. He is pictured third from the right at the front. This photo was taken around 1950. Credit: Whitehead Studios.
DIVISION 3 Councillor Marnie Doyle is backing calls to save the North Ipswich Railway Workshops from potential housing plans.
From January 2022 to December 2024, Cr Doyle served on the Queensland Heritage Council – the independent statutory body established by the Queensland Parliament principally to decide which places are entered in the Queensland Heritage Register.
Cr Doyle said she was “shocked and disappointed” to hear reports of plans to sell parts of the North Ipswich Rail Workshops for residential development.
“These iconic Workshops are intrinsically and indelibly intertwined in Ipswich history,” Cr Doyle said.
“Since the mid-1800s, generations of Ipswich people including my grandfather Richard Doyle, have worked at this site, assembling and maintaining the locomotives and carriages that connected Queensland’s cities, towns, and regions and empowered our State’s economic development.
“The significance of the Workshops to our city’s development and growth cannot be overstated.
“Today, the site remains Australia’s oldest continually operating railway Workshops and has become one of our city’s most popular museums, delighting new generations of train enthusiasts.
“Importantly, since 1997, the Workshops have been listed on the Queensland Heritage Register and protected by the Queensland Heritage Act’s highest heritage controls.
“The Queensland Heritage Register entry for the North Ipswich Railway Workshops lists many buildings and features of the site dating from 1863 which have state-level cultural heritage significance.
"The entry notes the Workshops retain ‘a high degree of intactness and integrity, the place is distinctive as it featured the most extensive facilities and manufacturing departments in Queensland and was the only railway workshop in the state to build new locomotives’.
“Simply put, the Workshops are an indispensable part of Queensland and Ipswich history.
“One of my key passions is the protection and preservation, wherever possible, of Ipswich’s heritage and history for future generations.
“My experience on that council, and of the decisions we had to make about important places around Queensland, broadened and deepened my commitment to heritage protection.
“In my mind, the sale and or potential destruction of any of the culturally, historically, and architecturally significant buildings at the North Ipswich Railway Workshops would be an appalling outcome for our city.
“However, it is important to note that the Workshops are not owned by Ipswich City Council and council cannot prevent either the sale of the site or the destruction of any of its Queensland Heritage Register protected buildings or features on it.
“Instead, these decisions lie with the Queensland State Government.
“I call upon those who will decide the future of the Railway Workshops to fully and carefully consider the central importance of this site to Ipswich, its people, and its history.
“Once these are lost, we will never have them back.”
