Katoomba Scenic World
Encyclopedia
Katoomba, New South Wales
Katoomba is the chief town of the City of Blue Mountains in New South Wales, Australia and the administrative headquarters of Blue Mountains City Council. It is on the Great Western Highway 110 kilometres west of Sydney and 39 kilometres south-east of Lithgow. Katoomba railway station is on the...
in the Blue Mountains, New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, about 100 kilometers west of Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
. Scenic World is home to a number of attractions, of which the most famous is the Katoomba Scenic Railway. The Katoomba Scenic Skyway and the Cableway are the other two rides on the site . Other attractions include a Theatre, a Souvenir Shop, Kiosk, Cafe and a revolving restaurant
Revolving restaurant
A revolving restaurant is a usually tower restaurant eating space designed to rest atop a broad circular revolving platform that operates as a large turntable. The building remains stationary and the diners are carried on the revolving floor. The revolving rate varies between one and three times...
.
The Scenic Railway is the steepest cable-driven funicular railway in the world, with a steepest incline of 52 degrees contained within a total incline distance of 415 metres. It was originally constructed for a coal and oil shale
Oil shale
Oil shale, an organic-rich fine-grained sedimentary rock, contains significant amounts of kerogen from which liquid hydrocarbons called shale oil can be produced...
mining operation in the Jamison Valley
Jamison Valley
The Jamison Valley forms part of the Coxs River canyon system in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, Australia. It is situated approximately 100 kilometres west of Sydney, capital of New South Wales, and a few kilometres south of Katoomba, the main town in the Blue Mountains.-History:The...
in the 1880s, in order to haul the coal and shale from the valley floor up to the escarpment above. From 1928 to 1945 it carried coal during the week and Passengers at weekends. The coal mine was closed in 1945 and it became a permanent Tourist Attraction.
History
Built in 1958, the Scenic Skyway is another cable-driven conveyance at Scenic World. It travels across the gorge above the Katoomba Falls, 200 metres above the valley floor. This original Scenic Skyway was dismantled early in 2004 and replaced by a new cable car in December of the same year. The new Skyway was built by DoppelmayrDoppelmayr
The Doppelmayr Garaventa Group is an Austrian-Swiss company that manufactures chairlifts, cable cars, gondolas, surface tows for ski and amusement parks as well as urban people movers and material handling systems. To date, Doppelmayr and Garaventa have produced over 13,700 installations in 78...
and CWA Constructions, and features an 72 person cabin with sections of liquid crystal
Liquid crystal
Liquid crystals are a state of matter that have properties between those of a conventional liquid and those of a solid crystal. For instance, an LC may flow like a liquid, but its molecules may be oriented in a crystal-like way. There are many different types of LC phases, which can be...
glass that turns a raised section of the floor from translucent to transparent as the ride progresses. In November 2006 a second station on the opposite cliff-face opened, allowing Skyway passengers to disembark and follow bushwalking trails to the nearby Echo Point.
In 1984, Scenic World began building a roller coaster known as the Orphan Rocker, named after the nearby Orphan Rock. This is the first roller coaster to be completely designed and manufactured in Australia. The highlight of this ride is meant to be a swooping banked turn that takes riders within metres of the edge of a 200m cliff. It has in the past been referred to as a "sitdown suspended" coaster, because although it is a conventional sitdown coaster, the trains can tilt from side to side, like a suspended coaster, giving it its name. It was originally planned as a scenic monorail ride, but it soon evolved into a roller-coaster ride. Numerous rumours and controversies exist over this ride, due to the inordinate build time, and the question of whether or not it is an appropriate attraction. As of 2010 this ride has been under construction for 26 years and has not yet been opened for the public. No target opening schedule has been provided by the ride's owners.
In 2000, Scenic World installed the Sceniscender, now called Scenic Cableway, an 84 passenger cable car from Doppelmayr that passess over a 25 meter high tower on the edge of the cliff, and then 510 metres to the Valley Station in the Jamison Valley 200m below.
Restaurants and shops
In addition to the Revolving Restaurant, there's a Cafe with outdoor seating, an outdoor barbecueBarbecue
Barbecue or barbeque , used chiefly in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia is a method and apparatus for cooking meat, poultry and occasionally fish with the heat and hot smoke of a fire, smoking wood, or hot coals of...
selling coffees and steak on nice weekend days and a Kiosk for takeway food items.
There is also the largest souvenir shop in Australia.
Further reading
- Shale Tramways of Katoomba Luxton, John R. Australian Railway Historical Society BulletinAustralian Railway HistoryAustralian Railway History , is the premier magazine covering railway history in Australia...
, January 1962
External links
- Blue Mountains virtual video tour. including aerial footage over scenic world
- Scenic World website