Sydney Public Transport / Trains

Am going to have 5 days pre cruise in Sydney, and knocking around the idea of a day trip, or possibly an overnighter, to Katoomba to see the Blue Mts.

My question is this, how dependable are the trains?? I don't know if I should aim for doing this the first day or 2, or wait till just before the embarcation day.

If I wait, and plan on grabbing the train from Katoomba down to Sydney CBD and Circular Quay.... which I know is appx 2-230 hr trip, on the day we board the ship, is it doable? If I catch the train before 1030a... I'll be at the dock by 1p. would you do it?

TIA for your expertise.

Do you know for sure your ship is docking at the OPT? Otherwise you are a ways from the other possible docking location.

Not an insurmountable problem. Just making you aware.

While the trains aren't the best, they've padded out the timetable that they have a good chance of meeting their destination. As a result, all trips are slower than they need to be, but their reliability of meeting their destination within 5 minutes is fairly high.

With the Blue mountains, the only major risk is of fire closing down the train lines. You'd be aware of that at the time and shouldn't be going up there in that case. But aside from that, I wouldn't have any concerns about taking the train to the ship, if that's what I wanted to do for the day.

Even if your ship was at White Bay (which I haven't checked but doubt it would be), it wouldn't be an issue. The Blue mtns trains terminate at Central. It's about a 20 minute taxi ride from there to White Bay, or a similar connecting train and walk from there to Circular Quay so total travel time is similar to either wharf.

Am going to have 5 days pre cruise in Sydney, and knocking around the idea of a day trip, or possibly an overnighter, to Katoomba to see the Blue Mts.

My question is this, how dependable are the trains?? I don't know if I should aim for doing this the first day or 2, or wait till just before the embarcation day.

If I wait, and plan on grabbing the train from Katoomba down to Sydney CBD and Circular Quay.... which I know is appx 2-230 hr trip, on the day we board the ship, is it doable? If I catch the train before 1030a... I'll be at the dock by 1p. would you do it?

 

TIA for your expertise.

Yes, doable.

Suggest you do the overnight option and stay at one of lovely lodges overlooking the canyons near the 3 Sisters lookout. Not cheap but memorable. Suggest Echoes Boutique Hotel or Lillienfels.

Also check out the rail website for any possible track closures at the time of travel. Should be able to do this from at least 6 months out. Rail Bus travel can either add time or be slightly quicker if you get an express.

City Rail operates frequent trains from Sydney Central station to the Blue Mountains. If you are going to do an overnight then travel to a station called Medlow Bath (beyond Katoomba) and stay at Hotel Hydro Majestic just across the road from the station .

Book direct via Hotel website .

City link timetable for Lithgow Line (Blue Mountains) is here :

http://www.sydneytrains.info/timetables/_by_line.htm#landingPoint

Trains are very reliable , except may be suspended in case of bush fires.

From Central Station taxi to White Bay if your cruise departs from there, or take Suburban train from Central to Circular Quay and alight there if your cruise departs from Overseas Passenger Terminal (OPT).

We just basically did this, except we were going to the airport to catch our flight home. The trains run every hour or so depending on what time of day. We did take a train which got us to the airport four hours before our flight.

One thing did happen with the trains though, the day before we left Katoomba we had planned on taking the train to Wentworth Falls, but when we got to the train station we found that the train was not running (something broken on the track). They did have buses set up to take people to the train stations towards Sydney but if we had been going back to Sydney on that day we could possibly have been late for our flight. So plan on leaving yourself plenty of time just in case something like that happens.

We stayed two nights in Katoomba and the Lurline house. I is a very nice B&B. The owner will even arrange for someone to pick you up and take you back to the train station.