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Lithgow Zig Zag
The Lithgow Zig Zag is a heritage-listed former zig zag railway line built near Lithgow on the Great Western Line of New South Wales in Australia. The zig zag line operated between 1869 and 1910, to overcome an otherwise insurmountable climb and descent on the western side of the Blue Mountains. It was designed by John Whitton and built from 1863 to 1869 by Patrick Higgins as contractor. It is also known as the Great Zig Zag Railway and Reserves and Zig Zag Railway. The property is owned by Department of Planning and Infrastructure (State Government). It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999. Part of the railway line is now used by the Zig Zag Railway, a narrow gauge tourist railway. History Construction The original plan by the Engineer-in-Charge of New South Wales Government Railways, John Whitton, had been to build a tunnel. However, this was beyond the resources of the Colonial Government at the time. The zig zag alternative ...
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Blue Mountains (New South Wales)
The Blue Mountains are a mountainous region and a mountain range located in New South Wales, Australia. The region borders on Sydney's metropolitan area, its foothills starting about west of centre of the state capital, close to Penrith on the outskirts of Greater Sydney region. The public's understanding of the extent of the Blue Mountains is varied, as it forms only part of an extensive mountainous area associated with the Great Dividing Range. As defined in 1970, the Blue Mountains region is bounded by the Nepean and Hawkesbury rivers in the east, the Coxs River and Lake Burragorang to the west and south, and the Wolgan and Colo rivers to the north. Geologically, it is situated in the central parts of the Sydney Basin. The ''Blue Mountains Range'' comprises a range of mountains, plateau escarpments extending off the Great Dividing Range about northwest of Wolgan Gap in a generally southeasterly direction for about , terminating at . For about two-thirds of its len ...
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Glenbrook, New South Wales
Glenbrook is a township of the Lower Blue Mountains of New South Wales, Australia. It is located 63 kilometres west of Sydney in the local government area of the City of Blue Mountains. At the 2016 Australian census Glenbrook had a population of 5,051 people. Glenbrook lies between Lapstone and Blaxland at an elevation of 163 m (535 ft) and is approximately a 50-minute drive from Sydney. It plays host to trendy cafes and boutiques, while offering various tourist attractions, including weekend markets, recreational opportunities and native flora and fauna. The town takes its name from Glenbrook Creek, which is on the southern side of the village and must be crossed to enter the Blue Mountains National Park. Glenbrook retains many historical homes and buildings throughout the village, although most homes are occupied and not open to the public. History Blaxland, Wentworth and Lawson reached Glenbrook area and Lagoon on their trek across the Blue Mountains on 12 May 1 ...
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Cooerwull Academy
The Cooerwull Academy was an independent, Presbyterian, day and boarding school for boys, located in Bowenfels, a small town on the western outskirts of Lithgow, New South Wales, Australia. Cooerwull was founded in 1882LaSalle Academy Lithgow: History of the Academy
(accessed:04-08-2007)
by the Scottish pastoralist and , Andrew Brown, who was also the Lithgow Valley's first European settler. The sc ...
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Hill End, New South Wales
Hill End is a former gold mining town in New South Wales, Australia. The town is located in the Bathurst Regional Council local Government area. History What is now Hill End was originally a part of the Tambaroora area: Tambaroora town was a few kilometres to the north of present-day Hill End. In the 1850s the Hill End area was known as Bald Hills. In 1860 a village was proclaimed, first as Forbes, then in 1862 it was altered to Hill End. Tambaroora had been the larger centre; in 1865, it had seven public houses to Hill End's two. Following the discovery of rich gold reefs at Hawkins Hill (Hill End), in the early 1870s. Hill End overtook Tambaroora as the main town in the area. Gold rush Hill End owes its existence to the New South Wales gold rush of the 1850s, and at its peak in the early 1870s it had a population estimated at 8,000 served by two newspapers, five banks, eight churches and twenty-eight pubs. The town's decline when the gold gave out was dramatic: by 1945 t ...
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Marrangaroo, New South Wales
Marrangaroo is a village in the Central West of New South Wales, Australia in the City of Lithgow. Overview Marrangaroo is located a few kilometres west of Lithgow. It is accessible from the Great Western Highway, and has no railway station and little bus services. Lithgow Buslines, run buses between Lithgow and Bathurst, which makes limited stops at Marrangaroo on the Great Western Highway. A main feature of Marrangaroo was the Trout Farm which was opposite the Lithgow Correctional Centre. At the 2016 census, Marrangaroo had a population of 909. Military Marrangaroo Army Camp situated at the end of Reserve Road used to be a major ammunition depot from 1941 to the late 1980s. It was served by a three kilometres siding that branched off from the Main Western railway line from March 1942 until May 1988. It is now used for demolitions and various training by all three Australian Defence Force services. During World War II it housed chemical warfare facilities; at the tim ...
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Lachlan Macquarie
Major-general (United Kingdom), Major General Lachlan Macquarie, Companion of the Order of the Bath, CB (; gd, Lachann MacGuaire; 31 January 1762 – 1 July 1824) was a British Army officer and colonial administrator from Scotland. Macquarie served as the fifth Governor of New South Wales from 1810 to 1821, and had a leading role in the social, economic, and architectural development of the colony. He is considered by historians to have had a crucial influence on the transition of New South Wales from a penal colony to a free settlement and therefore to have played a major role in the shaping of Australian society in the early nineteenth century. Early life Lachlan Macquarie was born on the island of Ulva off the coast of the Isle of Mull in the Inner Hebrides, a chain of islands off the West Coast of Scotland. His father, Lachlan senior, worked as a carpenter and miller, and was a cousin of a Clan MacQuarrie chieftain. His mother, Margaret, was the sister of the influential Cla ...
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Paddington, New South Wales
Paddington is an upscale inner-city area of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Located east of the Sydney central business district, Paddington lies across two local government areas. The portion south of Oxford Street lies within the City of Sydney, while the portion north of Oxford Street lies within the Municipality of Woollahra. It is often colloquially referred to as "Paddo". Paddington is bordered to the west by Darlinghurst, to the east by Centennial Park and Woollahra, to the north by Edgecliff and Rushcutters Bay and to the south by Moore Park. History Aboriginal people The suburb of Paddington is considered to be part of the region associated with the stories of the Cadigal people. These people belonged to the Dharug (or Eora) language group, which includes what is now known as the Sydney central business district. It is known that the ridge, being the most efficient route, on which Oxford Street was built was also a walking track used by Ab ...
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George Donald
George McGarvie Donald (12 May 1846 – 9 July 1930) was an Australian politician and stonemason. Donald was born at Paddington to stonemason George Donald and Jane Galbraith. In 1852 the family settled at Yass, and the younger Donald learned his father's trade, under an apprenticeship as a stonemason, guided by his father and uncle. From 1867 he was engaged by John Whitton on railway construction projects in the district. He worked on stone railway bridges at The Great Zig Zag, east of , and the Marrangaroo railway viaduct. In 1870 married Marion Wiles, daughter of one of the construction foremen. Donald and Wilkes had ten children. Following completion of the railway he moved to Hill End and worked on a range of construction projects. Among these was Hill End Methodist Church, built of basalt rubble from the gold mines. It is now used as an Anglican church. After the failure of the deep lead gold boom of the 1870s George returned to the Lithgow valley and established ...
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Wallerawang
Wallerawang is a small township in the Central Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia. It is located approximately northwest of Lithgow, New South Wales, Lithgow adjacent to the Great Western Highway. It is also located on the Main Western railway line, New South Wales, Main Western railway line at the junction of the Gwabegar railway line, New South Wales, Gwabegar line. History The original inhabitants of the area west of the Blue Mountains (New South Wales), Blue Mountains were the Wiradjuri Aboriginal Australians. It is believed they knew the area as ''Waller-owang''. It is understood to mean ''place near wood and water'', or ''plenty of water''. James Blackman was probably the first European to visit the area when he marked out the route of the new road from Bathurst, New South Wales, Bathurst to the area now known as Wallerawang. In 1824, 11 years after the first exploration led by Gregory Blaxland, Blaxland over the Blue Mountains, a James Walker was granted a large p ...
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Patrick Higgins (politician)
Patrick Higgins (1825 – 28 January 1882) was an Irish-born Australian politician. He was born at Sligo in Connaught to John Higgins and Margaret Lunuy. He emigrated to Victoria in 1852, where he built a goldfields road in 1853. In 1855 he married Rose Lynch, with whom he had a son. From 1857 he worked on railway construction, moving to New South Wales in 1866. He was director of the Sydney Tramway and Omnibus Company. In 1880 he was appointed to the New South Wales Legislative Council The New South Wales Legislative Council, often referred to as the upper house, is one of the two chambers of the parliament of the Australian state of New South Wales. The other is the Legislative Assembly. Both sit at Parliament House in th ..., where he remained until his death in 1882. References 1825 births 1882 deaths Members of the New South Wales Legislative Council 19th-century Australian politicians {{Australia-politician-stub ...
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Bhor Ghat
Bhor Ghat is a mountain pass located between and for railway and between Khopoli and Khandala on the road route in Maharashtra, India, on the crest of the Western Ghats. History In February 1781, Bhorghat was the site of a battle between the Maratha Empire centered in Pune and the foreign powers in Mumbai. They dispatched a large force to capture Pune, which had to pass through the Bhorghat pass, where they were intercepted by Maratha forces. In the battle that ensued, the Marathas inflicted a crushing defeat on the British in what would be known as the Battle of Bhorghat. The discovery of a route to make a motorable pass in Bhor Ghat came after information was provided by a local Dhangar tribesman called Shigroba. Later, the Great Indian Peninsula Railway laid a railway line from Mumbai to Pune. The section through Bhor Ghat with 28 tunnels, and old bridges was opened in 1863. The Ghat opened Mumbai to the Deccan plains of Peninsular India. Building a railway over the Bhor ...
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Ruling Grade
The term ruling grade is usually used as a synonym for "steepest climb" between two points on a railroad. More simply, the steepest grade to be climbed dictates how powerful the motive power (or how light the train) must be in order for the run to be made without assistance. Even if 99% of the line could be run with a low-powered (and inexpensive) locomotive, if at some point on the line there is a steeper gradient than such train would be able to climb, this gradient "rules" that a more powerful locomotive must be used, in spite of it being far too powerful for the rest of the line. This is why special "helper engines" (also dubbed "Bankers") are often stationed near steep grades on otherwise mild tracks. It is cheaper than running a too-powerful locomotive over the entire track mileage just in order to make the grade, especially when multiple trains run over the line each day (to help justify the fixed daily cost of the helper operation). In the 1953 edition of ''Railway Engineer ...
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