Foundry Experience

Relive the Golden Age of Steam.

Foundries were a pillar of the extractive industries that developed the West Coast, providing and repairing equipment from goldmines, sawmills, coal mines, shipping, railways and other entities.

Capturing the golden era of ironwork and steam, Shantytown’s new Foundry Experience features audio visuals and interactive displayes of the crafts of riveting, boiler and pattern making. Rare relics such as an 1899 steam log winch, boiler, generator and engine all carefully preserved, help tell stories of the characters and industries on which the West Coast and New Zealand was founded.

Based on the regions’s longest serving Dispatch Foundry established in Greymouth in 1873, this unique visitor experience captures the by-gone era of steam immediately before it is lost.