Zig Zag railway station

Zig Zag railway station is a station located on the Blue Mountains Line. The station consists of 2 platforms, in a double side formation. Zig Zag railway station can only be accessed by road via Lithgow as there is no access from the Clarence side of the station. It is the only Blue Mountains Line intercity station to consist of side platforms instead of one island platform.

The station only exists to serve visitors to the narrow (1067mm) gauge Zig Zag Railway, which was formerly part of the Main West line before it was deviated. It is now a tourist railway, however it has been closed for several years due to bushfire damage and volunteers are still working to restore the line.

Even with the deviations, the grade is still 1:42, so heavy freight trains may struggle to climb and need a bank locomotive to attach. Two crossovers are provided to the east to allow bank locomotives to detach. The line also has its sharpest curve to the west of Zig Zag, with a radius of 160m.

History
The station first opened on 15 April 1878 as part of the Main West line. It was so named because the railway to the east went through two zig-zags to descend the extremely steep Great Dividing Range. However it was still very steep and the single track was proving to be a bottleneck as the railway expanded. The Ten Tunnels Deviation was built to solve this problem, opening in 16 October 1910, with the station closing on the same day.

In 1959, a new station was built on the same site. In 1972, the Zig Zag Cooperative was formed and took possession of a section of the original railway, turning it into a tourist railway.

Platforms and Services
Both platforms are very short, around 6m long. Only the last door of the train will open, as shown by the SP1r code in the timetable. Zig Zag is also a request stop (marked by the a next to the arrival time in the timetable) during the daytime. Trains do not stop at night.As there is no road access to this station, trackwork buses stop on Chifley Road, 2km away at the other end of the Zig Zag Railway.