As you stand at the intersection of Keppel and Havannah streets, you see a bustle of activity in front of the railway station. Commuters park their cars in the hundreds of recently created spaces adjacent to the ticket office. Local buses and taxis are frequently coming and going, picking up and depositing passengers.

Coaches turn up regularly ferrying passengers to and from Blayney, Oberon, Orange, Cowra, Parkes and even Dubbo. Finally, classes of school kids arrive to either journey by train to Sydney on excursion, or attend the newly-opened Bathurst Railway Museum.

Every two hours or so a train either departs to, or arrives from, Sydney.

But the most impressive development is that the diesel trains of the past have gone. During the recent decade the train line from Lithgow has been straightened, upgraded … and electrified!

Bathurst has become the most western terminus station for the Sydney metropolitan electric train system. Because of this, there are new sheds for a dozen or so shiny, new electric carriages, where they are stored, cleaned, repaired and maintained.

In the process, the railways have created more than 100 new jobs in Bathurst.

Railways have undergone a renaissance over recent decades. People have flocked back to a better, cheaper and safer form of transport.

Bathurst has benefited more than most from this resurgence in the popularity of the railways. It has become the major transport interchange and hub for the entire Central West, linking the region’s quarter of a million people with the five million citizens of Greater Sydney.

Look around a little further and see newly refurbished buildings up and down the nearby streets. The former industrial sites at Tremain’s Mill, Dairy Farmers, Crago Mill, the railway yards, and the old gasworks have been fully restored and adapted to modern uses such as eateries, a function centre, galleries, a museum, breweries, restaurants and medium density accommodation for residents and travellers alike.

At night, local artists play live music and the cafés are full of patrons taking a bite to eat, listening to the music and chatting about how good life has become.

One hundred and fifty years ago, the then new railway station was positioned at the end of Keppel Street to entice passengers off the trains and into the town. The juxtaposition of the station to Keppel Street, with its heritage street lights, still serves the same purpose today, only the welcome is bigger, brighter and more attractive than ever.

The street lights are festooned with planters brimming over with brightly coloured flowers. The buildings on either side of the street are vibrantly painted in gorgeous heritage colours.

When you take in the entire surrounding view from your position at the corner of Keppel and Havannah streets, what you see is this area of Bathurst, centred on the railway station, has blossomed into a revitalised, dynamic eastern precinct of the city.

​When the railway arrived in Bathurst in 1876, it brought significant jobs and prosperity to the growing town for the next 75 years. But when motor vehicles replaced trains as the dominant form of transport, passengers and freight usage of railways declined dramatically.

By the 1980s, the eastern edge of Bathurst had become neglected and rundown.

Then, in a remarkable turnaround, railways underwent a resurgence in the early 2000s, and now transport more freight and passengers than ever before.

Railways brought enormous prosperity to Bathurst in the past. Look ahead to the future. It’ll do the same thing all over again.