small village of Bowenfels forms an outer suburb of the bustling
Lithgow. The few remaining buildings, now bypassed by a busy
highway, give little indication that this was in fact the
settlement in the valley, long before extensive beds of coal were discovered there.
official opening of Bowenfels Railway Station in October 1869
provided the impetus for the growth of Lithgow and all industrial
development that followed.
The small village of Bowenfels forms an outer suburb of the bustling
industrial centre of Lithgow. The few remaining old buildings,
now bypassed by a busy Great Western Highway, give little indication
that this was in fact the birthplace of settlement in the valley,
long before extensive beds of coal were discovered there.
Lieutenant George Bowen, Assistant
Government Surveyor, crossed the mountains soon after his arrival
in the colony in 1827. During
his early explorations, Bowen blazed a track from Meadow Flat,
through Wallerawang and the Lithgow Valley, up Brown’s
Mountain and on to join the Bell’s Line of Road. This was
to become the original stock route used by all drovers who moved
sheep and cattle from the inland stations to Markets in Richmond,
Windsor and Sydney.
In later years, the village established
as a coaching rest point on the Bathurst road was named in
his honour. Pioneering settlers
of the area were hot on Bowen’s heels. In 1927 James Walker,
a Scot, received substantial land grants at Wallerawang. Others
came after and a predominantly Scottish community grew up as
Walker was followed, first by Andrew Brown, whose estate surrounded
the site of Bowenfels, and then by the Reverent Colin Stewart,
the first Presbyterian minister of the area, Thomas Sheedy and
Thomas Brown, the driving force in the district’s coal-mining
Despite this early settlement, the area languished until the
completion of the ZIG ZAG Railway with its western terminus at
Bowenfels. The quiet official opening of Bowenfels Railway Station
in October 1869 provided the impetus for the growth of Lithgow
and all the industrial development that followed.
Lithgow named after William
Lithgow, an early Auditor-General and ex-officio member of
the first Legislative Council, grew as a natural consequence
of its mineral wealth. The railway provided first a ready market
for coal mined in the area and, secondly, available form of
transport for manufactured products.
For all its future significance, this
original railway siding received little recognition. A report
of its opening stated simply: ‘the Railway was opened from
Mount Victoria to Bowenfels on 18th October 1869 without public
ceremony, Bowenfels being the first station in the valley’.
The report went on to state that, as the sidings were not finished
on that date, no goods trains could be accommodated until a month
or so later.
Despite such a low-key approach
to the official opening, little effort or expense was spared
on the construction of the railway buildings which survive
today in the station and station master’s residence.
Both were finely crafted in sandstone by the contractor, G.
Watsford. His work remains a tribute to his craft.
Quaint and rustic, in the midst of a built-up modern area, the railway buildings
have a distinctly English air. With their steeply sloping slate roofs, attractive
verandahs and intricate work in both stone and wooden joinery, they conspicuously
lacked any stamp of a uniform government building.
Built on simple rectangular plan
with verandah front and rear, the station included a ladies’ waiting room, main waiting
room, ticket office and station master’s office. Housed
in small rooms on either side were the luggage room and ladies’ washroom.
Considered of lesser significance, the gentlemen’s toilet
was a smaller room adjoining the ladies’ washroom.
The small waiting rooms appear strangely misproportioned with
their five and a half metre (eighteen-foot) ceilings and exterior
walls 35 centermetres (fourteen inches) thick. A fireplace positioned
in each room catered for the comfort of passengers.
New South Wales Government Railways engineer, John Clifton,
was responsible for the design of the building, which is described
today as one of the finest examples of railway architecture of
its period on the western line.
Both the station and the residence
served their original purpose until Bowenfels was closed in 1974.
despite the dramatic growth of Lithgow in the latter part of
last century, Bowenfels, for many years continued to be recognised
as the major centre.
The trains still roar past, a far
cry from the clatter and hiss of steam signalling the more
stately arrival of their early counterparts,
but nevertheless another chapter in the evolution of transport
to the west. (Exerpts taken from ‘Survivers
Blue Mountains Railway Pages - Lithgow - Bowenfels