SYDNEY, May 28 (Xinhua) -- The heritage-listed Zig Zag Railway in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) welcomed back steam enthusiasts on Saturday after local volunteers spent more than a decade refurbishing the track to its previous glory.

The railway is located near the town of Lithgow, west of the Blue Mountains, and requires about a two-hour drive from Sydney's inner city.

First established in 1869, it once served as a part of the Western Railway to transport people and products between the western plains of NSW and Sydney. In the 1970s, a group of volunteers formed a not-for-profit organization to operate the track mainly as a tourist attraction. But the services came to a halt after the Zig Zag Railway lost its accreditation in 2012.

"So in 2012, we shut down due to various compliance reasons. And in the process of opening it back up again, we were hit with many different disasters, bushfires, floods, weather, vandalism, and COVID-19, in our journey back. So it made it quite difficult to get back to operations again, but here we are today," Lee Wiggins, a volunteer for the Zig Zag Railway since 1997, said on Saturday.

Wiggins told Xinhua that hundreds of volunteers dedicated themselves to the refurbishing work over the past few years, with 50 to 60 active volunteers at any one time coming from all over Australia.

"We've got different administrative roles that people do remotely. And we've also got on-site jobs as well," said Wiggins.

For a smooth reopening of their beloved railway, volunteers partook in "anything from operational work right up to being a steam driver."

"From the basic signal rail safety worker right up to the steam driver. We've got track working. We've got building works. We've got shop and retail. We've got marketing. We've got operations management. We've got the administration side of things. There are lots of roles," Wiggins said.

Born in the Blue Mountains and moving to Lithgow at the age of 18, Wiggins had a deep connection with the Zig Zag Railway, where he started volunteering when he was 15. It was actually at the railway that he met his wife.

When asked about his feeling to see trains steaming ahead on the railway again, Wiggins said that it is too difficult to put one word on it.

"It's a combination of humility. It's a combination of courage. It's a combination of admiration for the people that have been involved. And it just feels really, really wonderful to be here," he said.

For the very first weekend of the Zig Zag Railway reopening, about 1,800 tickets were sold out. Travelers of all ages flocked to the Clarence station heading to Bottom Points via Top Points.

To catch the first train on Saturday, Jordan Powell and his family drove a few hours from Berowra in Sydney's north to check out the railway where his mother and her partner had always passed by before.

"They saw it was opening so they told our whole family. We've all come up for going on the railway," Powell said.

Powell beamed with excitement while sitting in the carriage, before the steam locomotive 218A, which was painted green and red, hauled the first batch of passengers out of the station at 10:30 a.m. local time.

"I have never experienced it before. You can hear the train coming in, the horn, and then 'chuff-chuff.' It's just goosebumps. It's cool," said Powell. Enditem

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