2LT Local News
Blue Mountains and Lithgow to lose trains for 10 weekends over next two years
Aug 22, 2017
Train services to and from the Blue Mountains and Lithgow will be shut down for up to ten weekends over the next two years.
Services will terminate for 48 hours at a time to enable the replacement or repositioning of tracks along parts of the 75-kilometre rail corridor between Springwood and Lithgow. Overheads wires will also have to be altered and the platforms at Katoomba and Lithgow will need to be lengthened.
According to a report commissioned by New South Wales Transport, commuters will also face extended periods of track closures on a section between Newnes Junction and Lithgow. Five of these shut-downs are expected to last for 12 days each.
The disruptions are necessary, the transport department says, because the tracks between Springwood and Lithgow are not wide enough to take the 3.1 metres wide South Korean-built trains the government ordered last year.
The works will commence early next year and will be staged over the next two years.
