- This article was first published on April 27 2021
Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, arrived at the freshly blue-painted Katoomba Station at 4.30pm on Friday, February 12, 1954.
By open car they travelled to Echo Point for the civic welcome. The Blue Mountains City Alderman and their wives relinquished the pleasure of meeting the Queen so that the royal couple, invited by the mayor, Alderman Murphy, had time to enjoy the view which so enthralled her mother in 1927.
Leaving Echo Point, the Queen and Duke stopped briefly at Leuralla before re-joining their train at Leura. The "rare beauty" of the Mountains delighted them both.
Their 1970 visit, acknowledging 200 years since Captain Cook's arrival, saw the Royal couple passing through the Mountains on the night of April 29. Both the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were interested in visiting a decentralised manufacturing facility in a regional location, and the Email (later Electrolux) factory in Orange, based in the former small arms factory, had been chosen.
Leaving Central Station on Friday at 10.10pm, the Royal party travelled overnight to Orange, across the Mountains, their sweeper train running ahead, checking the line.
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The first of the royal train's diesel locomotives exploded three detonators clipped to the line between Medlow Bath and Blackheath at 12.18am Saturday morning, aimed at making the train stop over the level crossing. Two young men were hiding in the bushes, watching. They were later charged by the police.
The train did not appear to be inconvenienced, the Royal party sleeping through this first disruption.
The second delay occurred at Bowenfels, near Lithgow, two hours from Sydney. A large log, about six to seven feet long and about eight to nine inches in diameter, was rolled onto the tracks, with the aim of derailing and toppling the train, ultimately killing or severely injuring its royal passengers.
However, with the Royals asleep, the train was travelling at an unusually slow pace. The log merely became stuck underneath its front wheels, harming no-one.
To this day, the crime remains unsolved and its perpetrators unknown. In fact, the events themselves were not revealed in 1970; nothing was publicly known until retired Detective Sergeant Cliff McHardy, then living in Glenbrook, exposed all to the Lithgow Mercury in 2009.
Buckingham Palace has never officially confirmed the claims of the assassination attempt, reporting that nothing is in the diary of the journey on that night.
Katoomba historian Paul Innes wrote to the Queen asking if she recalled the incident. Her response was that the Royal family "has always made a policy of not discussing private matters."
McHardy, passed away in 2017, aged 90, still recalling it as one of his biggest disappointments. The Bowenfels mystery remains, largely unacknowledged and unsolved.
Robyne Ridge is publicity officer for Blue Mountains Historical Society.
