Clarence is a place in New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. It was originally a railway outpost on the original railway line

Main Western railway line, New South Wales

The Main Western Railway is a major railway in New South Wales, Australia. It runs through the Blue Mountains, Central West, North West Slopes and the Far West regions.- Description of route :...

 across the Blue Mountains, but by 1908 when Clarence was used as headquarters for the Ten Tunnel deviation works

Ten Tunnels Deviation 1910, New South Wales

The Ten Tunnels Deviation is the section of track between Newnes Junction and Zig Zag Box in the Blue Mountains, New South Wales. It was constructed between 1 June, 1908 and 16 October, 1910 to replace the Lithgow Zig Zag, which limited the length of goods trains over the Mountains.- Construction...

, the town population had flourished to over 5,000 residents, the majority being the navvies employed on the deviation works. When the deviation was opened in 1910, the town population quickly fell, despite a new platform built on the new deviation.

Zig Zag Railway

In 1975, the Lithgow Zig Zag

Lithgow Zig Zag

The Lithgow Zig Zag was a zig zag railway built near Lithgow on the Great Western Railway of New South Wales in Australia which operated between 1870 and 1910, to overcome an otherwise insurmountable climb up the western side of the Blue Mountains...

, which had been abandoned for 65 years was taken over by the Zig Zag Railway

Zig Zag Railway

The Zig Zag Railway is a heritage railway at Lithgow in New South Wales, Australia on the site of the famous Great or Lithgow Zig Zag which operated between 1869 and 1910. As built, the line formed part of the Main West line from Sydney across the Blue Mountains and served to lower the line from...

 enthusiast enterprise. Narrow gauge track was laid on the alignment and several withdrawn ex-Q.R steam locomotives were imported for use on the Zig Zag tourist line. Today, it one of Australia's well-known tourist lines and the original station at Clarence has since been restored for use as the terminus.

There is the nearby Clarence Colliery, opened in the 1970s, that was closed and then re-opened again. It is served by a loop line that branches off Newnes Junction

Newnes Junction railway station, New South Wales

Newnes Junction is a closed railway station on the Blue Mountains Line, New South Wales, Australia. It opened in 1910 and served the former private branch line to Newnes. The station closed to passenger services in 1975, although still physically exists and is occasionally used for coal trains...

.