Great Western Highway
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Great Western Highway | |
| Bathurst-Lapstone: | |
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| Emu Plains-North Strathfield: | |
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| North Strathfield-Ashfield | |
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| Haberfield-Sydney | |
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| Length | 117 kilometres |
| General direction: | West-East |
| From: | Bathurst, NSW |
| To: | Parramatta, Sydney |
| Towns along highway: | Lithgow, Katoomba, Penrith |
The Great Western Highway is a highway in New South Wales, Australia. It runs 210 km from Sydney to Bathurst.
Starting as Broadway at the intersection of City Road (part of the Princes Highway)near the fringe of the Sydney CBD, and becoming Parramatta Road to Parramatta itself, the Great Western Highway heads due west from Parramatta across western metropolitan Sydney to Penrith, where it crosses the Nepean River. It then crosses the Blue Mountains and after crossing Cox's River climbs the Great Dividing Range before dropping into the Macquarie Valley to Bathurst.
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[edit] History
In 1813, acting on the instructions of NSW Governor Lachlan Macquarie, Gregory Blaxland, William Lawson and William Wentworth, travelled west from Emu Plains and by staying to the ridges were able to confirm the existence of a passable route directly west from Sydney across the Blue Mountains. The existence of other, less direct routes had been known as far back as 1797, but due to the need to prevent convict escapes in the belief that escape from the hemmed-in Sydney region was possible, knowledge of the expeditions confirming the existence of routes across the Blue Mountains was suppressed.
By 1813, under Macquarie’s astute governorship the colony began to evolve from a penal settlement to an economic colony, and there was a desperate need to increase the food supply and confirm the existence of lands suitable for the expansion of agriculture and thus economic development.
Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth travelled as far west as the point they named Mount Blaxland, 25 km southwest of where Lithgow now stands. From this point they were able to see that the worst of the almost impenetrable terrain of the Blue Mountains was behind them, and that there were easy routes available to reach the rolling countryside they could see off to the west.
Macquarie then despatched Surveyor William Evans to follow Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth's route and to push further west until he reached arable land. Evans travelled west until he reached what is today called the Fish River and followed it downstream until he reached the site of Bathurst.
Within a year, Governor Macquarie had engaged William Cox of Richmond to construct a road west from Emu Plains on the Nepean River, following Evans’ route, and this road was finished in 1815. Macquarie himself travelled across it soon after completion, established and named Bathurst, and named the road the Great Western Road.
The section of the Great Western Road as far west as South Bowenfels (in Lithgow) is with very few deviations still in use today as part of the Great Western Highway (it was redesignated when the current NSW main road system was gazetted in 1928). From South Bowenfels, the highway now turns northward and follows a route parallel to but north of Evans’ route via Meadow Flat, to converge with it again at Bathurst. Most sections of the original route from South Bowenfels to Bathurst, which runs via O’Connell, are still trafficable.
[edit] Early Improvements
Early in the life of the Great Western Road two major deviations from Cox's route were undertaken, and in respect of the Blue Mountains section of the Highway, they remain the major deviations to date. These were on the eastern ascent and western descent of the Blue Mountains.
When Governor Ralph Darling appointed Thomas Mitchell as the Surveyor-General in 1828, one of the first matters to which Mitchell turned his attention was the improvement of the Great Western Road. Mitchell’s attention was focussed on the worst sections of the road, which were the climb from the Cumberland Plain, on which Sydney sits, and the descent of Mount York, down the western side of the Blue Mountains.
In improving the eastern ascent Mitchell adhered largely to Cox’s route, which follows the southern side of an east-falling gully to reach the plateau at where Blaxland is now located. However he engaged the Scots engineer David Lennox to build a stone arch bridge across the mouth of a particularly deep side gully, and this bridge is still in use, although it has been restored several times.
This route was later superseded by what is now called Old Bathurst Road (although it is not the first route). This is located to the north of the original route.
After the ascent of the eastern escarpment by the Main Western Railway was deviated for the second time in 1913 to its current route via Glenbrook Gorge, the Great Western Road was deviated for a second time by the then Main Roads Board, which rerouted it via the fine 1867 stone arch viaduct across Knapsack Gully and around the southern side of Lapstone Hill to gain the first plateau in the ascent of the Mountains.
As this viaduct had held only a single railway track, its deck was widened in 1938 to its present two lane configuration. The viaduct was closed when the M4 freeway was extended west from Russell Street to connect directly to the Highway in 1994.
West of Knapsack Gully, although now widened to four lanes, this 1926 route is still in use. It uses a long stretch of the abandoned railway formation – the section from Zig Zag Street to Blaxland station is all located on the original 1867 railway alignment. An indication of the need to divert the railway can be gained from the gradient of the highway as it climbs west from Hare St to Lovett Street.
After protracted arguments first with Governor Darling and then his successor Richard Bourke, and ignoring orders, Mitchell surveyed, designed and had built what is now known as Victoria Pass, where the Highway drops from the Blue Mountains into the Hartley Valley. Midway down the road had to be supported on a causeway formed by massive stone buttressed walls, where a narrow ridge connects two massive bluffs. This ridge had to be widened and raised to give the highway a route from the upper to the lower bluff. Mitchell cut terraces into the sides of these to form a passage for the road. It is a testament to Mitchell’s vision and engineering skill that this route, almost unchanged, and using his 1832 stonework, is still in use.
Originally the Great Western Road crossed the Nepean by means of a ferry, located adjacent to the Log Cabin Hotel at Penrith. This was superseded in 1856 by a bridge which was washed away in 1857. A second bridge was opened in 1860, and was washed away by the record flood of 1867. In 1867 a new bridge, Victoria Bridge, was built as part of the Penrith-Weatherboard (Springwood) section of the Main Western Railway and it also accommodated highway traffic. This bridge continued in dual use until 1907 when the current steel truss railway bridge was built alongside, and the 1867 bridge was given over solely to road traffic. this bridge remains in use for the Great Western Highway. The design of this bridge is almost identical to that of another railway crossing of the Nepean River, the 1863 bridge at Menangle.
[edit] Recent Upgrading
In 1968 a dual carriageway 3 km deviation was opened at Prospect. This replaced the only winding section of the Highway between Parramatta and Penrith.
In the late 1960s, the highway was deviated to bypass Springwood shopping centre, eliminating two narrow underpasses of the railway. These remain in use for local traffic.
In 1957 a short deviation immediately west of Linden eliminated two narrow overpasses of the railway, both of which had right angle bend approaches from both directions.
During the 1990s a massive cutting was made to improve and widen the alignment of the highway immediately east of Woodford. At the top of the southern side of this cutting can be seen the rudimentary excavation of the rock for Cox’s road. This was severed in 1868 by the construction of the Springwood-Mount Victoria section of the Main Western Railway. The railway itself was deviated at this point in the 1920s when it was duplicated, and a cutting on the original alignment of the railway now forms the top section of the southern face of the highway cutting, the terrace in the face of the cutting being the level of the railway bed in the original cutting.
East of Wentworth Falls, near Kings Tableland Road, a 600 m long section of the highway was deviated in the mid 1960s to remove a series of closely-spaced sharp curves.
At Katoomba station the Highway now travels along the eastern side of the railway station, whereas the original alignment crossed the railway via a level crossing at the north end of Katoomba St and ran along the western side of the railway. Immediately west of where the Highway now crosses the railway due to this deviation, the highway was realigned over a distance of 1 km in 2004 to remove the sharp bend at ‘Shell Corner' and to improve the gradient.
A short length of abandoned railway formation (again from the 1920s railway duplication) was used in the 1980s to ease a curve on the Highway 3 km west of Katoomba, near the Explorers Tree.
A major realignment west from Mount Boyce (the highest point on the highway) to eliminate the Soldiers Pinch and other nearby sharp curves was completed in 2003.
In the 1950s the ‘Forty Bends’, where the Highway runs along the foot of Hassans Walls approaching Lithgow, were eased. The fact that this section of the Highway is on the southern side of a very high escarpment poses severe ice problems during winter, due to the lack of sunlight.
During the 1990s minor deviations of the Highway were undertaken in conjunction with widening through the Lithgow suburbs of South Littleton and Bowenfels. The original route, which crossed the railway by way of a level crossing at Bowenfels was replaced by an underpass in the 1910s when the railway was duplicated, and this in turn was replaced by the present overpass further west in the 1970s.
Between Marrangaroo Creek and the state forest west of Wallerawang, the highway was reconstructed in reinforced concrete as an unemployment relief project in the 1930s. Most of this was removed when the highway was deviated and duplicated in the 1990s. Further west, the highway has been almost entirely rerouted, although in some places only marginally, as far as Meadow Flat. From here to the foot of the Yetholme climb the Highway was almost entirely reconstructed and widened to three lanes for most of its length, in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
In Bathurst, the Denison Bridge (1870) has been bypassed by a realignment of the Highway as it crosses the Macquarie River into Bathurst city centre.
In 1994 the highway was truncated at Emu Plains with the closure of the Knapsack Gully Viaduct. This occurred in conjunction with the westward extension of the M4 motorway from its terminus since 1971 at Russell Street Emu Plains. This extension connects directly to the highway at Lapstone, bypassing the viaduct. The portion of the Great Western Highway westward from its intersection with Russell Street is now only used by traffic travelling east from Blaxland via Mitchells Pass, which is one way eastbound, due to its narrowness.
[edit] Duplication & Widening
Within the Sydney urban area, the Highway was widened, generally progressively westward, from Church St Parramatta from the mid 1960s to the late 1970s. This section is a combination of six lanes with strip median, six lanes with wide landscaped median, and four lane undivided. At The Northern Road Kingswood, it reverts to a four lane undivided configuaraiton through Penrith shopping centre, widens to six lanes at the Castlereagh Road intersection, and reverts to two lanes west from Castlereagh Road to Russell Street, and four lane undivided with shoulders from Russell St to the base of Mitchells Pass, where it has been truncated.
From Lapstone westward, the Roads and Traffic Authority has been slowly widening the Highway. Most of the work has focussed on extending the four lane carriageway westward. Parts of this work are dual carriageway. At present it reaches as far as Woodford. Beyond this point, a dual carriagway section stretches from Station St Wentworth Falls to East View Ave Leura, and another from Bowling Green Avenue to Rowan Lane through Katoomba.
The 2.5 km of Victoria Pass is undivided four lanes except for Mitchell's 1832 causeway, which is two lanes, and the lower 400 m, adjacent to the bottom end of the abandoned Berghofers Pass, which is three lanes.
The highway is dual carriageway from South Bowenfels through Lithgow, and this extends west almost to Mt Lambie, where the Highway crosses the Great Dividing Range.
[edit] Route Numbers
When the national route numbering system was introduced in 1954, the full length of the Great Western Highway was designated as part of national route 32 (Sydney-Aelaide via Dubbo and Broken Hill), with the section from City Road to the Hume Highway (Liverpool Road) Summer Hill also being part of national route 31.
Current numbering is extremely confused, as follows: City Road to Hume Highway (Liverpool Road) intersection - State Route 31, following the introduction of the 'Metroads' in the late 1990s. Before M5 East was opened in late 2000 it was Metroad 5.
Liverpool Road intersection to Wattle St Haberfield - no route number since the introduction of the Metroads.
Wattle St to M4 Western Motorway intersection at Strathfield - part of Metroad 4.
M4 Western Motorway intersection at Strathfield to Russell St Emu Plains - state route 44.
Russell Street-M4 at Lapstone (Knapsack Viaduct closed) - no number.
M4 at Lapstone-intersection of Mitchell and Mid Western Highways in Bathurst (end of Great Western Highway) - national route 32.
National route 32 continues along the Mitchell Highway as far as Nyngan, then follows the Barrier Highway to Gawler, 25 km north of Adelaide, where it connects with the Princes Highway (part of national route 1). The Mid Western Highway is national route 24 over its full length of Bathurst to Hay, where it meets the Sturt Highway (national route 20) and Cobb Hwy (part of national route 75).
[edit] Route Changes
When the then named Western Freeway was broken into 2 parts, the parts of the highway between Reservior Road/Bridge Road and Russell St to the existing part were all signposted as National 32. Also, when Metroads were introduced, the Freeway and the part of the highway between North Strathfield and Haberfield (more specifically Wattle St) was given the Metroad 4 status. It also took the National 32 route off it. The part between Wattle St and Liverpool Rd lost all route numbers. Before the M5 East was introduced, the part of the highway between Liverpool Rd and George St was given Metroad 5 status over the former National 31. When the M5 East was completed, the Metroad 5 status was given to the freeway and those parts of the highways (both Great Western/Hume Highway) that formerly carried the Metroad 5 were given State Route 31 status.
[edit] Names
From Sydney to Blue Mountains -Broadway -Parramatta Road -Church St -Great Western Highway -Henry St -High St -Great Western Highway -Russell St -Great Western Highway
There is a proposal to create an external Sydney Bypass, which would use a short section of the Great Western Highway in Kelso
