TRC delivers the goods

$10m refurbishment of heritage-listed Goods Shed expected to finish by April

STANDING in the almostcomplete Railway Goods Shed, Cr Geoff McDonald can’t help but cast his mind back to the history of the place – of the trains rolling in, workers loading and unloading wares, the noise, the clatter.

“It’s just an awesome space to be in,” he said.

And by the end of April, it’s a space the public will be able to appreciate as well.

The $10 million project, half-funded by the State Government’s Building our Region program and the other half coming from Toowoomba Regional Council, represents an exciting opportunity for the region and an important step forward in the development of the future Railway Parklands and the city’s Priority Development Area.

“Catalytic” is how the council described the refurbishment of the Goods Shed, because it and the State Government believe the investment in the heritage-listed building will attract private sector investment and create employment, just as the 130-year-old building did in its former years.

The cavernous space inside the building has the capacity for 2000 people, and Cr McDonald said he was hopeful the community would attend the open day to get a sense for the space and imagine what it could be used for.

“The most exciting part to me is just the unknown – the opportunity for the creative people in our community, and they’re growing in number, to just to see what this space can be used for,” he said.

“We’ve had an enormous amount of enquiries from our community development branch about when people can come and see it, what we can do with it and all those sorts of things.”

The building is full of original, restored timber – save for the parts where the original structure was too degraded to save.

Even the rail tracks inside the building have been preserved, presenting the opportunity for trains to stop inside the shed.

As with any heritage restoration project – the building is on the state heritage register – there were plenty of days where the project team were pulling their hair out in frustration.

But Cr McDonald said the team was proud of their work so far and that when the keys were handed over in late April, “it’s going to be pretty impressive”.

Toowoomba-based civil construction company Newlands Group has been undertaking the refurbishment.

Photo: Matthew Newton NEARLY DONE: Taking a tour of the Railway Goods Shed as it takes shape are (from left) Toowoomba Regional Council Environment and Community committee chair Cr Geoff McDonald, TRC project manager Nick Delany, and Newlands Group general manager Dan Charlesworth.

BELOW: The building before the refurbishment began.

ABOVE: The Railway Goods Shed in its almost-finished state.