Classic motorcycles on show at old Midland workshops

SOME of history’s most glorious old bikes invaded one of Australia’s most historic industrial sites recently, with the running of the Vintage Motorcycle Club of WA’s 2025 Old Iron Classic Motorcycle Show & Swap Meet.

In a break from tradition, but quite likely starting a new one, the event was staged at the old Midland Railway Workshops — once one of Western Australia’s biggest employers and certainly its biggest industrial workshop.

Running for 90 years until being closed down in 1994, the workshops trained and employed generations of tradesmen, mostly maintaining Western Australia’s railway fleet.

At its peak, the precinct employed near-on 4,000 people.

Today, it is a sleepy collection of glorious old buildings, housing various collections of historic machinery and home to multiple history-inspired community groups.

One of those groups is Western Australia’s Machinery Preservation Club, which restores, maintains and displays a wonderful collection of hand tools and old machinery.

We spent a most enjoyable morning checking out some of the bikes, which must have thought they’d stumbled into a time machine and landed in pre-war England.