Toolroom Length

The toolroom that fills this frame was not part of the original ATL Building. It was built in 1975 on the south side of Nancarrow Avenue, on land that had previously served as the company car park. Automatic Totalisators Limited constructed it as a separate, purpose-built structure at a moment when the economics of precision manufacturing were shifting. Asian toolroom capacity had become competitive, and the existing factory floor could no longer absorb the pressure. The new building was built to extend the company's manufacturing reach and carry it forward. What the photograph records is a long interior, workbenches arranged in rows that draw the eye toward the far wall. Tools and implements lie across the surfaces and the floor, left where they were put down. Dust has settled over everything. Light comes through windows along one side of the room, the glass dirty enough to soften it before it reaches the benches. The ceiling is plain. The floor is concrete. Automatic Totalisators Limited had operated from Meadowbank since 1947, when the main factory relocated from Chalmers Street near Central Station to a purpose-built site at 37 Nancarrow Avenue. The company had been producing precision mechanical totalisator systems since its incorporation in 1917, and by 1970 its equipment was installed at racecourses in 29 countries. The Meadowbank factory was the company's third and final manufacturing site. By the time this photograph was made in 2015, manufacturing had long ceased. Automatic Totalisators Limited's operations had been acquired by the Smorgan group in 1980 and later by AWA. The factory building had been repurposed through the 1990s and 2000s as a multi-tenant facility. The toolroom across the road had been emptied. The ATL Building was demolished around 2016 as part of the Shepherds Bay Urban Renewal Project. The site is now residential apartments.