steam in the Blue Mountains before the electric overhead wires

Pacific-type steamer 3806 at Eveleigh workshops, December 1947

The same locomotive with the Central West Express between Blackheath and Mt Victoria, the part of the Blue Mountains line which offers arguably the best view, in December 1954.

Locomotive 5712. a 4-8-2 type, eastbound with a goods train in the same area on 7 October 1954.

Locomotive 5719 with a coal train(?) in 1957.

 

An AD 60 class Garratt locomotive, 6007, with a goods train between Lapstone and Glenbrook on 21 November 1952.

A passenger train in a cutting near Glenbrook, not dated.

Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh at the Mt Victoria station on their Royal Train as far as Lithgow, 12 February 1954.

The book Black Smoke, Blue Mountains (out of print) on the Zig Zag railway has info on the Blue Mountains line generally; for information on the electrification of the Blue Mountains line a few years after these photos, see the book Railway Electrification in Australia and New Zealand (still available). (all above photos: Public Records Office of NSW)