Full steam ahead for central west heritage rail
While to coronavirus lockdown has stopped the Lachlan Valley Railway operating their trains, there has been plenty going on behind the scenes and 2020 will mark a new beginning for heritage rail in the central west.
“It has actually been a good time for the Society, I guess. It has given us time to pay attention to the things that usually stay on the backburner,” said Lachlan Valley Railways Director Ross Jackson.
Just last week the LVR announced that that two of their historic R passenger cars at the Cowra depot have been fully restored. The passenger cars date back to 1890 and 1903 and are now ready to be put into service on the soon-to-be-complete Cowra Tourist Railway.
The Cowra depot was cut off from the rail network when the branch line was closed in 2009, but LVR volunteers are working to reopen a 6-kilometre portion of the track, from Cowra to Holmwood, as a tourist attraction.
On Monday, volunteers began laying new sleepers on the track to their ‘top shed’ in order to get two more passenger cars out of storage and ready for service once more.
“Since the branch line was originally closed back in 2009 it was always the intention to get Cowra restarted,” said Ross.
“Once we get those four cars together, I think we'll have the branch line set and hopefully by then we will be close to getting ‘Rosie’ — which is our steam train — fixed and back into service.
“And then, I'd say we’d run every weekend — that's the plan, but we'll test the waters and see how we go… One day we would like to get to Woodstock, which is a further 12 kilometres, but let's start small and make sure it is viable and push on after that.”
Since the Cowra depot closed, LVR has been without a full-time home and their rolling stock is spread across the state.
“We’ve been floating around other depots in NSW since then and never really had a full -time home base. Some of our fleet at the moment is in Orange, some of it is in Sydney and we don't really have a home, but that will be changing when we get Orange online later this year,” said Ross.
Volunteers have also been hard at work laying new sleepers at East Fork. Once complete it will be the new centre of operations for LVR.
“The volunteers have been absolutely fantastic through all this and we have had people come out of the woodwork to help us in areas we have never seen people come out and help us before.
“And Orange is a great place to be. It is perfect for access to the central west and there is a brilliant corridor I see; you’ve got the new museum at Bathurst, you've got Zig Zag Railway at the other end and then Oberon-Tarana Railway as well. Hopefully, one day, we can find a solution to join them all together.”