02-02-2025: Zig Zag Railway

Our excursion today was to ride on the heritage, small-gauge, steam engine train call the Zig Zag Railway. Just as building the tunnels through the Wolgan Valley was quite a feat, building the Lithgow Zig Zag was a great engineering accomplishment to overcome an otherwise insurmountable climb and descent on the western side of the Blue Mountains. The Lithgow Zig Zag railway operated between 1869 and 1910 and was built by hand up and down ragged cliffs and steep valleys. The engineering included four large rock cuttings, three fine stone viaducts with 30-foot semi-circular arches and a short tunnel.

Margaret chauffeured us to just past Lithgow to the Zig Zag Railroad car park. The Zig Zag Railroad corporation started as a steam engine preservation society. The corporation is staffed by all volunteers, steam engine enthusiasts, and they have amassed several thousand engines, rail cars, and wagons, lovingly renovated and preserved. This steam engine, coal powered to make the steam from the firebox to the boiler, was at one end of our train today. Steam engines are not so wonderful because they produce smoke and grit, which you can feel, especially when going through the tunnel.

The rail cars are comfortable and have windows that can be lowered so you can lean out during the trip to take in the views.

We started our 90-minute journey and fairly quickly went into a tunnel, very dark for a few seconds until the lights in the car came on. After the tunnel, the train travels along sheer rock cliffs until we got close to the valley.

When I heard about the Zig Zag, I thought of the shape like a Z and during the early stages of the trip I wondered when we would start zig zagging. I soon learned that the zig zag is a process of going in one direction, and then going in the opposite direction switched on to a different track. Going forward, then backward, then forward again onto different tracks is where the zig zag gets its name and is how the train climbs or descends the western side of the Blue Mountains as each track is a different elevation. Historically, there was another zig zag train line on the eastern side of the Blue Mountains as well.

One of the problems with this zig zag approach to climbing or descending was that it created bottlenecks of trains reversing while others were waiting to use the track. That’s why after 1910, ten tunnels were dug out so that it eliminated the need for trains to reverse onto the three different levels of track and could go straight through. Diesel engines replaced steam engines, which were much more powerful and could push trains up the ascent and over the Blue Mountains. There was a diesel engine at one end of our train pushing or pulling along with the steam engine at the other end.

We relished the ride and saw great vistas across the valley. We crossed one of three viaducts, which gave us a view of the valley.

We arrived at a stop at Top Points railway station. It is situated at the reversal point of the Middle and Top Roads of the Zig Zag Railway. The signal box is where the action is taken to switch the rails for either the ascent or decent. We had a 10 minute stop to get out and take a look.

Back on the train, we switched onto another track and reversed direction to descend to Bottom Points station. It is situated at the reversal point of the Lower and Middle Roads of the Zig Zag Railway. We had another 10 minute stop at Bottom Points to take a look around.

We then reversed and started our ascent back up to Top Points and then on to Clarence, our original starting point. On the ascent, the steam engine was at the front of the train and we could tell how hard the engine was working to take us back up the mountain. The elevation at Clarence is 3,658 above sea level, so it was a long, slow ascent.

The train crossed another viaduct and we could hang out the window and look down. Of course, hanging on to one’s cellphone is all important. It could easily take a fast trip into the valley. As we crossed the viaduct and looked down, we could see a worker down on the lowest track.

This photo shows the three levels of track.

It was a fun ride and I think we all enjoyed it. I especially like learning about historical things, and the history of trains in such a mountainous area was very interesting.

On the ride home, I asked if we could stop at a lookout point over the Capertee Valley. The road to Lithgow passes the Capertee Valley and you can get an incredible view. The road, on past visits, was under repair as one side of the road, which hangs off the side of the mountain, had collapsed. We never got much of a view and the lookout was closed so this is the first time we’ve been able to see the full valley.

The Capertee Valley is reported to be the widest valley on earth, so their signage says. Wikipedia disagrees, stating that the Great Rift Valley in Africa is the largest. But no matter, the Capertee is a very unique and beautiful geological area. From the Pearson Lookout, one gets a tremendous view of the valley and the Blue Ridge Mountains in the distance. The sandstone escarpments in the distance were visible, although the view showed how humid it was so as to make things in the distance a bit fuzzy. It was marvelous to take in this fabulous vista.

Margaret invited us to dinner when we got back to Rylstone. She had roasted a leg of lamb that morning. Within an hour of getting home, she had whipped up the rest of a delicious dinner. We haven’t seen much of Daniel this trip. He’s working full time at Woolie’s so he has limited time to be with us, but he joined us for dinner tonight and we got a chance to catch up with him.

It was a very fun day and we enjoyed ourselves a great deal.