Demise
The Railways Department was replaced by the New Zealand Railways Corporation in 1982. In an effort to alleviate its financial problems and at the direction of its political masters, the Corporation underwent a major restructuring program, which included a review of all its workshops in the 1990s. It was decided to focus the rail engineering resources at two sites: in the North Island at Hutt Workshops, and in the South Island at Hillside Engineering in Dunedin. This resulted in the closure of both the Addington and Otahuhu Workshops.
Employees at Otahuhu were informed that the workshops were to close on 30 June 1992. A team of up to 22 employees was kept on for a further six months to decommission the facility. Machines that could be sold were stored in the Structural Shop pending sale by auction. At the time the workshops site was believed to be destined to become an industrial park.
Read more about this topic: Otahuhu Workshops