Terminal at
Blayney station The arrival of the railway in 1874 boosted development and Blayney replaced
Carcoar as the major service centre to local farmlands. Blayney then became a municipality in 1882 and by 1900 a butter factory and freezing works employed many within the town. An
abattoir opened in 1957 and this industry was later supplemented with tanneries and a pet food plant. The abattoirs closed in 1999. In the late 1970s or early '80s a meat canning factory was built on farmland land east of Blayney. This produced
Spam and other canned meats. This was later turned into an export meat boning facility run by Ron Jones Exports and then a pet food factory. Prior to this, the dam on the land was famous for
yabbies, with
Sunday school excursions frequenting there. In 1989,
Nestlé built a new pet food plant,
Nestlé Purina, and purchased adjoining land including Blayney Foods. The Nestlé factory exports pet food to Asia and the Pacific. The
Cadia-Ridgeway Mine is a major employer in the area. In 1994, Blayney became home to Australia's largest inland
container terminal, which is situated beside the
railway station. The
Blayney Wind Farm, launched in 2000, was the largest of its type in Australia at the time of construction. It consists of 15 wind turbine generators on elevated ridges between Carcoar Dam and Mount Macquarie. The generation capacity is 10 megawatts, which is sufficient energy to supply 3,500 Australian homes. ==Climate==