THERE'S a disturbing lack of civic pride evident at times in Lithgow. That's nothing new but it doesn't have to be that way.
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Our Council is a guilty party, doing quite a bit of good with specific projects - well, some of them - but ignoring other obvious needs.
Some of our landlords, both local and absentee, are also notoriously missing in action when it comes to promoting an image.
But that's not all. Some weeks back a Central West activist organisation took over a facility in the Western Sydney University building 'hub' for a 'Palestine information' session and plastered much of the business area with the worst visual pollution in our memory.
Out of towners sneaking in to put up illegal posters is nothing new but this lot went to extremes, both in the number of targets and the adhesive employed.
As always with these things the poster pasters never return to clean up their mess and sadly this time our reputation as a tidy town is taking more and more of a battering as well meaning people try to scrape them off. That's never going to work with glue.
So far only RMS with their traffic signal control box and Aldi have cleaned up properly but surely council has the capacity to organise a team to soak these things off. And involve Endeavour Energy and Telstra. It's their footpath installations most affected - particularly one truly grotty example outside the Lansdowne pub - so there should be a little accountability there.
While ever we ignore this issue and hope it eventually goes away we'll continues to foster the view that we just don't care.
Surely that's not right.
Rolling Thunder
ROLLING thunder comes our way today when the biggest operating steam locomotive in the Southern Hemisphere shakes the place up somewhat. The giant Bayer Garrett, once familiar on country train lines, is the star attraction in a King's Birthday holiday weekend program of joy rides, based in Bathurst.
The Thirlmere Rail Museum is the proud custodian of this giant veteran and from Saturday to Monday will be doing runs of varying duration from Bathurst to Orange and Wimbledon. It's scheduled through Lithgow at 2.40pm today, Friday, and Tarana at 3.45pm. Return times back our way next week are not known at time of writing. So, if you're a fan of smoke, cinders and a lot of noise get those cameras ready.
And by the way, some of the rides during the weekend have been booked out days ago, including all of the Bathurst/Orange runs. Lithgow's Zig Zag railway has a Garrett but it's a slumbering rail warrior awaiting revival one day.
On schedule
TALK about perfect timing. There we were enjoying an unusually balmy (well, sort of) end to Autumn and bang on schedule came a bitter wake up call with rain, wind and icy temperatures to mark the first calendar day of Winter. If you slept in and missed it don't worry; that was just the prelude. There's plenty more to come. Trust me.
The Leura Factor
ANOTHER Origin, another Blues flogging. But we suspect we know where it all went wrong for NSW. The poor buggers were probably still in hypothermia after their training camp at Leura. Never could figure that one out at this time of year.
Gridlock
SO another holiday weekend a good time to stay at home rather than hit the highways. It might be a bone chilling time of year but that doesn't deter the unhappy hordes seeking the solace of country life, even for just a couple of days. The result? Don't expect to get anywhere fast, particularly if you're travelling the mountains roads over the break. Or just take a picnic lunch.
