Hillside Workshops
Hillside Workshops in South Dunedin
KiwiRail’s Hillside Workshops in South Dunedin is our main heavy rail maintenance facility in the South Island, supporting the maintenance, repair and overhaul of locomotives, wagons and other rail vehicles.
The historic site has been extensively redeveloped with $105 million Government investment, combining modern rail engineering facilities with more than 150 years of railway heritage.
The revitalised workshops officially opened in May 2025 and are helping KiwiRail support safe, reliable freight services and rail operations across New Zealand.
A modern rail maintenance facility
At the heart of Hillside is a 5,500-square-metre multi-purpose workshop with 21 workstations, allowing multiple locomotives, wagons and other rail vehicles to be worked on at the same time.
The facility includes specialist equipment such as workshop cranes and heavy lifting jacks capable of lifting 120 tonnes.
A 130-tonne traverser allows locomotives and wagons to be moved in and out of the workshop, while fully electric shunt engines are used to move rolling stock around the site.
1350 rail wagons are being built at Hillside.
Hillside also provides facilities for KiwiRail’s Dunedin track teams and shared office space for mechanical and infrastructure teams.
Heritage buildings
The oldest building at Hillside, known as the machine shop, has been earthquake strengthened and is being used for inventory storage.
As a timber building, it was more straightforward to reinforce to meet seismic safety standards compared to some of the other old buildings.
The machine shop was built around the 1870s.
