Heritage route
Zig Zag Railway
Clarence → Bottom Points · Australia
Zig Zag Railway in pictures
Photographs by their authors, hosted on Wikimedia Commons · tap through for the licence
- Distance
- 8 km
- Fastest time
- 1 h 30 min
- Average speed
- 5 km/h
- Top speed
- 30 km/h
- Operator
- Zig Zag Railway Co-op
- Train
- 1950s heritage diesel & steam
- Countries
- Australia
- In service since
- 1869
Figures are published values, not live data · corrections log
A 19th-century engineering marvel in the Blue Mountains: trains reverse down a rock-cut Z of sandstone viaducts that once carried the main western line off the plateau.
How this line was checked
- Line drawn from OpenStreetMap relation 422204 — the same nodes OpenStreetMap holds for this railway, thinned to within under 25 m of them
- Checked against OpenStreetMap: the whole line lies on real track, a median 5 m from it
- The operator publishes this line's timetable: the railway’s own site — a place to look it up, not a check of our drawing
- Wikipedia has an article for this line
More heritage routes
- Durango & Silverton
1882 gold-rush narrow gauge: steam-hauled ever since, on the Highline ledge blasted 120 m above the Animas River gorge.
Wikipedia ↗ - La Trochita
Theroux’s Old Patagonian Express: 750 mm gauge, 1922 steam locomotives and wood-stove-heated wooden coaches across the steppe.
Wikipedia ↗ - Sagano Scenic Railway
A retired JR alignment above the Hozugawa rapids: twenty-five slow minutes of maples and gorge that the modern main line skips through tunnels.
Wikipedia ↗ - SL Gunma
Restored D51 498 “Degoichi” and C61 20 haul retro coaches up the Joetsu Line on weekends: steam echoing off the Tone gorge under Tanigawa’s wall.
Wikipedia (JA) ↗
More train routes in Australia.

