Lithgow, NSW 2790

I moved to Lithgow over two years ago and rented for the first nine months before buying my gorgeous little home. The town is small and friendly it has an Aldi and your regular Coles and Woolworths as well. The beauty of Lithgow in my eyes is its location, I travel to Sydney for the week for work then come home to my family for the weekend (this practice is common place in other parts of the world and actually improves relationships and the work/lifestyle balance in my case). On Fridays when I get home to Lithgow after a hard core week in Sydney it’s a breath of fresh air.
The place is located near to all sorts of attractions and your almost living in the National Parks located nearby. Every weekend is an adventure with heaps to do provided you put in the effort. Curling up in front of the fire in winter, swimming in the dam in summer, backing a picnic breakfast, lunch or dinner heading off into the bush or to a lookout and enjoying a meal with a view, watching the sun go down from one of the many lookouts with a glass of wine and nibbles with family and friends. Pop up to the Carrington Hotel in Katoomba for a drink in the lounge, have a Pub meal in Rydal, Capertee or Jenolan caves like I said it’s all there if you want to make the effort.
As for the negatives, most negatives in this town are easily applicable anywhere else. Don’t move to Lithgow if you want wild night life or beaches or you hate the cold. It’s not a nice thing to say but if I meet someone whinging about the place I feel like saying, “if your not happy, move! Some of the moans I hear from people say more about the moaner than the town and I doubt they would be happy anywhere.
If you’re fed up with being in town the train is right there to take you to Sydney for the day and remind you of how peaceful and beautiful the place is when you get home. (The electrification is supposed to be extended to Bathurst which will increase services). Affordability is a major thing in this town and I don’t think you will find such nice tasteful homes elsewhere for the money. My preference is for old homes they really do it for me, in this town there is an abundance of old homes ripe for the picking to turn into you own lovely dream home I drove through the town in 2000 and looked in the real estate window and saw two semi’s for 100k, if only I had grabbed something then. I’ve met people who cashed out in Sydney top up their super, brought a four wheel drive, purchased a beautiful affordable home and have never looked back. Living within your means without a crippling mortgage does have wonderful advantages and freedom attached to it.
As for the future of this lovely place, I don’t know, the Great Western Highway is always being upgraded, more jobs will be created with extension planned for the power plants near by, it may or may not ever change and some people I know hope it never does.

Lithgow pros & cons:
Cons: The area is limited in shopping in regards to bigger stores (we have target merged with Kmart- would be ideal to have a Kmart here) Lithgow is huge, would be beneficial to have a decent shopping district like Stocklands/westfield alternative
- Fair few meth heads- (weirdos in every suburb, but seems you see the weird ones here at the plaza & main st everyday) just low lives
Council rates are high to compensate for lower density area
Could be SO MUCH NICER with healthy families moving here because of affordable housing
Needs a speed rail really

Pros:
Plenty of space for development
Close to lovely bush areas,
mid between nice boutiqu shopping & bushwalks in mid blue mts & shopping etc in Bathurst
Nice cafes
Nice lookouts
Glow worm tunnels
Some really lovely people around here (balance for the weirdos)
Seems more families are moving here now when the blue mts housing has become unaffordable for many
A few great parks for kids! thankfully
Lovely Farmers Markets on here now weekly
Often Events planned every month or so which is also nice

Lithgow COULD become a really lovely place with some effort from council & govt

Should be booming so close to Sydney and blue mountains seems like being kept down on purpose
Only friendly people in the town the newsagents the thai place the town drunk from landa Street and the jehaviors witness.so many unfriendly I thought it was bizarre

Hello this is old Australia, Say hello to your neigubours
Say goodbye to Modern Sydney, a Sydney we no longer belong to
Sydney is...(for the rich/professionals/tourist/ everyone else)
So come to our region we wil be happy to see you. We are friendlt, and enjoy a slow pace. It's a slow walk to you're local grocery. Less traffic, less stress, less expense. Really, it is really worth it, leave Sydney behind, you won"t regret it.

I have been in the Lithgow area for the last 40 years .getting away from Sydney on my weekends off and my holidays to Gods country is like recharging a battery

I moved to Lithgow in 2014...and I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. I was almost immediately accepted here (unlike some country towns where you're a stranger for 30 years) and I have made THE best friends here. There is something for everyone. Choirs, Folk group, Ukulele group. Lots of sports for both young and old such as hockey, football, tennis, basketball, cricket, go kart club, lawn bowls, croquet and gateball club to name a few. A garden club, community native garden centre (council) and a community vege garden at the PCYC. Plenty of things to get involved in. So much I would like to do...too much - but I am involved in a few! Arts and crafts (really rushing ahead in the past couple of years), museums, lots of history, great natural environment to be explored. Really all you NEED is in town, Coles, Aldi and Woolworths, Bunnings, Harvey Norman and a couple of furniture stores...and if you can't get what you want here...Bathurst is only about 45 minutes away, as is Katoomba - in the opposite direction. Winters ARE cold, with the added magical bonus of snow most years (not lots...you would be very rarely snowed in). Summers are an average of 5 degrees cooler than the mid to lower Blue Mountains even when there is a heat wave (and mostly not as humid). Plenty of schools, public and private. Train links to Sydney and the highway has been improved over the past few years (with more about to happen). People who whinge about nothing to do...just aren't looking or trying...and yes there is a drug element here...but where isn't there? I've never been affected by any negatives here. Oh, and great cafes (plenty of them) - I still haven't tried them all (after 7 years).

I've been going to Lithgow going back from 2006 until present. I vaguely remember passing through on family road trips.
This place is definately a good get away from the hustle and bustle of crammed Sydney! I live in inner Sydney around Five Dock - so i know best of it all.
If people are looking for great eating out - go to Lithgow workies aka Workmens club - they have fantastic food and way better prices and most quality of inner Sydney! You can light a fire and enjoy with mates with scotch beers - the whole lot! The place makes you feel so free and normal - as a place should allow! Please feel free to ask me any questions you have and i'm sure i can advise a solution for what you're looking for in this awesome town! I see Lithgow as going up in value/jobs etc etc in the years to come - so now is the BEST time to move (and it's affordable!!!) I also find most people ultra friendly in Lithgow which is more than I can say on material based types from Sydney! I do imagine jobs would be hard to find at the moment - but at the same time i'm sure it will be a lot better in the future!

All the best.

I have lived in Lithgow some 17 years and back in 2000 it was a reasonable place but time has not been kind to the place. The problem is Lithgow is situated between the nice towns of Katoomba and Bathurst which has always left Lithgow as a nothing place. For instance it is definitely not friendly, the Housing Department are more and more dumping their problem tenants all around Lithgow including the housing commission complex on the other side of the highway. I have often heard it described as the biggest open prison in NSW. You will never EVER see the police unless they are picking up their dry-cleaning or buying a coffee. Just read the local paper for news on break-ins and drug problems. Anti-social behaviour is everywhere and you can certainly learn a few more swearwords just by hanging around Main Street. Real Estate prices are way up in the stratosphere. One person has been trying to sell a house on the outskirts of Lithgow for an obscene price - even cockroaches and rats would not live in it. There is nothing in the way of entertainment save the pubs and the "Workies" which is nothing more than an overpriced nonentity. People stare at you all the time which is the norm. Admittedly you have a train every two hours which is OK but they are filthy, the toilets are a disgrace and the City Rail staff very rarely come out of their office. A couple of years ago we had about 100 mm of snow fall and for hours Lithgow was cut off from the rest of the world = no gas, electricity, mobile phone, landline, trains, road transport and the local radio stations went off the air. The Council are hopeless. The roads and pavements are a disgrace yet they can afford $90,000 for halloween. There youhave it have the next time you take the train to Sydney don t come back

I moved to Lithgow to take a job about 3 years ago. I had lived in the surrounding area for 10 years and loved it but decided to move into town for convenience. I had always loved the community spirit I saw coming out of Lithgow. Unfortunately, in the time I have lived in or around Lithgow, I have seen a decreasing sense of hope and optimism in the town. Businesses are not expanding and new businesses rarely open or last very long.
I had to start looking for a new job at the beginning of this year and it has been impossible. There is little opportunity and, if you do get a job it will be poorly paid with little hope of career growth.
The real estate is affordable but that doesn't happen in truly desirable towns.
Yes, there are a lot of whingers. There's a reason for that too and it is patronising and unfair to be dismissive of it. This is a town of battlers. They are mostly good people who want to help but they are fighting a losing battle as the town dwindles rather than building on its potential. The inevitable is happening. Drugs are creeping in. Violence is becoming an issue. Crime is on the increase. Long straight streets make a great setting for drag racers and hoons.
It's not too late to save Lithgow but so far no-one seems as interested in doing the hard work as they are in bashing the "whingers". Sing optimism about beautiful physical settings and cheap housing isn't going to cut it.

From 1990 to 2014, I resided in Lithgow, after having been moved there as a child after the untimely death of my father in Newcastle. For reference, I was actually born in Lithgow in 1983, but have no memories of those times.

For what its worth, there are still very good people in Lithgow, and those who have moved on, but not far, to the Blue Mountains. I commanded a certain level of respect in Lithgow, and participated in community organisations, the State Mine Railway, the SES, and a major political party. This is where I had won most respect, for my can do attitude. This is so you can get an idea of what I actually was in terms of the town, I'm not a blow in, or blow through, I spent most of my life in Lithgow.

Its just too bad that the majority of Lithgows residents don't have a similar can do attitude. In 1990, Lithgow puts me in mind of the way Casino is now - you could look an older person in the eye, and they would greet you heartily in a friendly way. Over 24 years, that become less and less, until finally, entropy on the scale of the entire town had taken place. One review here mentions "bad vibes" and "creepiness." I can safely say, I too had felt that throughout the years, as my former open and gregarious nature was ground into the dirt by successive years of years of bullying by students, and example making by teachers in the schools of Lithgow, mostly due to my above average academic performance (one teacher even accusing me of my high grades forcing class averages up and making other students look dumb!).

In the last part of my time in Lithgow, I attended the new university, and while I noted, I was indeed going to pay a HECS debt at some point, the level of quality education simply wasn't there. UWS did absolutely everything they could to go out of their way to force me to conform to outrageous demands on type of computer system used, test requirements, and deliberately giving classes false information (that I had learned was quite the opposite when I had taken my trade ten years beforehand, and I didn't pay for that!). Its almost as if the university has been deliberately given second rate staff in order to eventually fail when their graduates spout crap at real universities that doesn't make any form of sense.

I can also mention that certain elected members of Council have a naked disdain for those forced by circumstances out of their control due to family breakdown to live in public housing (which oddly enough, is a large proportion of the constituents). The choice between being homeless and living as a second tenant in public housing was clear. For that, I earned the unjustified ire, and repulsion by this certain elected member of the Council in a public situation. If she was not a woman, I would've actually called her on it there and then. However, I'm sure she would've played a familiar sexist card on me, and I'd be the ogre. Sure. Some of us weren't actually born with the silver spoon in our mouths, and others of us don't serve on the Council of a town that is, by all reports seen by me on the internet, perusing the Lithgow Mercury online, is dying so slowly, you can hear its rasping breath from here in the North East of NSW, a true tinpot empire, empire in name only, and laughing stock to those of us in the know.

Is there anything that can redeem this place? I was very fond of bushwalking and mountain biking during my time there, simply myself, my dog, and a bottle of water, to brave the elements and explore new and exciting places. It so happens that I know all of the nooks and crannies of Lithgow, there is little that could be hidden from me there. The surrounds are amazing, try the walk up the back of the old Zig Zag. And take a camera, you won't want to forget it.

I have some fond memories of Lithgow, I'll give you that. But the memories of years of my childhood and teenage years lost and wasted suffering under the yoke of a town with residents who have indeed seen the writing on the wall and would rather ignore it to hold onto their little piece of Empire, ostracising those who thought progress and advancement could've actually saved Lithgow - and there WAS a time I was organising an effort to examine the plans for the silicon smelter to ensure computer chip fabs could set up in the town (yes, I had the stars in my eyes a long time ago) with little to no effort - and you have someone who on that last train out was finally glad to be free of a sentence that he would've gotten less for murder on.

Right now, you can bet your bottom dollar, if there was no rail line through Lithgow, it would've gone the way of Newnes - a ghost town. The Small Arms Factory is a bunch of concrete slabs, and three main buildings left - one the museum, one the Nutella factory's, and the last, the Brethrens, Wallerawang power station has the final approval for demolition, Piper Unit #3 and #4 will never go ahead as NSW is officially still broke, concerted actions in the Courts are trying to shut down Springvale Mine and Angus Place is in mothballs, Airly was in the dumper for years due to the washery issue, Baal Bone had the dam burst after ceasing operations... makes you wonder if the NSW Government is going to expand the SDRO or something? But then again, most employees for the SDRO relocated from Sydney, not many local residents got jobs there. I know of two local residents that got jobs, they're low level staffers.

The housing market is hotly contested, and nowhere near as affordable as people like to make out it is - sure, compared to Sydney, its great. And two hours between trains is bearable. Although stupid, every six months, the Government tries to squeeze the taking down of overheads past Mount Victoria back onto the debate, as the lines are barely maintained (deliberately? Perish the thought!) which would force the inevitable change to buses at Mount Vic, which happens every six to eight weeks anyway, due to "essential maintenance" (where they run more coal trains anyway - odd how no one mentions that!). I'd hate to try to get a house there now, even with my connections, I don't think it would be possible, or if I did, it'd be a cockroach infested shack, or better yet, had Farmers Creek run through the kitchen and deposit silt all over the floor.

I hear that people have not given the place a go, and I appreciate that, and you'll either love it or hate it. But I more than hate it, I'm disappointed in my former Home. I did give it more than a fair go, and lots more besides. And it has let me down, so many times. Now I hear suicides are on the rise again, and Winter is never a good time for that, looking up at a Valley sized cabin fever syndrome with the grey clouds that are everywhere for weeks at a time...

Lithgow. Officially going back to the Stone Age, and has been for the last twenty five years. My Dad was right to leave, and take us with him. You have to wonder why none of the Aboriginals never went in the Valley before colonisation, don't you? Theres your fun fact no one else will tell you. There is quite a bit more to that story too, that no one really wants to know about. I paid attention, and noted over many years, including what wasn't said. Bad vibes? Please! Thats a walk in the park. The other thing is, ice is on the rise, and its making me nervous for the people left there that I love, I keep expecting to see one of their names on the national news, along with the words "bloody murder" or "appalling attack."

If you can get past the people, you'll be ok. But if you can't, Lithgow can be a Hell on Earth. And Hell is cold, after all...

I'm sure I'll get flak over this, but I believe, given the amount of time I've spent in Lithgow, I should be the guy warning people "Stay away from that Amtrak..." Don't worry, I do that offline anyway. Lithgow was once my Home. But I don't think I was from there, if you know what I mean. And despite many people moving away, only to return a couple of years later, that is sadly not an option for me. My health would stop me right in my tracks if I spent a Winter in Lithgow now. I do have to return and look up old editions of the Mercury on microfiche at the Library, I'll need probably a week to do all that.

After that, I'll simply wipe out that part of my life. But you got the goss first!

Enjoy!