Minister for Transport John Graham said he hopes to have chosen the location for the NSW government's $12 billion plan to bring back train manufacturing to the Hunter in the next three months.
Last Saturday the government announced it would develop a new state-owned train manufacturing facility at either the Broadmeadow Locomotive Depot or the former Glencore coal mine at Teralba.
The facility would be equipped to build the next generation of trains going into the 2050s and create 780 jobs during the construction phase and 550 permanent roles.
Mr Graham visited the Cardiff Maintenance Centre on Thursday with Premier Chris Minns and Minister for the Hunter Yasmin Catley to spruik the government's $447 million Tangara Life Extension Program, which will employ 100 skilled workers and 20 apprentices.
"We've looked at more than 70 sites, so it's been an extensive look, but we've been looking in the Hunter," Mr Graham told the Newcastle Herald.
"The attraction here is the workforce, so that's the magnetic pull to doing it here. The skills are here, the teams are here, so we know that'll work."
Both the Broadmeadow and Teralba sites have their positives and negatives which are being explored.
The Broadmeadow site, located behind the Hunter School of Performing Arts, is already owned by the government, but the central Newcastle suburb is earmarked for transformative residential and commercial development.
The Broadmeadow Place Strategy predicts the suburb will deliver 20,000 homes and 15,000 jobs over the next 30 years.
"We could get moving quickly," Mr Graham said of the Broadmeadow site.
"We're conscious of wanting to consult with the [City of Newcastle] council and the community about the future plans for the Broadmeadow area more generally, although this is on the rail line.
"It's a constrained site. You couldn't build houses there because of contamination."
Mr Graham said Teralba was an attractive proposition because it would provide an economic reuse of a mine rehabilitation site.
"This is really one that's a great story for the Hunter, if we can build a new industry on an old industry as that land's being rehabilitated," he said.
"That would be great. [There's a] little bit more space. The concern is it could be a little bit slower, so that's what we're weighing up."
