President of the Millthorpe Village Committee Sam Yeates said it would allow tourists from Sydney to come to the village and would benefit people in Millthorpe to get to Orange.

“It’s going to be a terrific boom for the town for tourism and and being able to provide people with the facility to go into Orange for the day to have a medical appointment, a dental appointment or to have lunch,” he said.

“There is a bus now but it travels at inconvenient times.

“At the moment if we want to go to Sydney it is best to get to Bathurst somehow or other and get the early train [the Bathurst Bullet] and come back at night time.”

Mr Yeates said the committee would be working with Orange 360 and Transport NSW to prepare mid-week and weekend packages with accommodation for people in Sydney to come to Millthorpe.

Work started on extending the station platform this week and it is due to open in February-March to allow passenger services to stop at Millthorpe for the first time since about 1990.

Lisa Gittany runs a cafe and chocolate shop and her sister Jane Tyack runs the Collectics shop at the station.

Mrs Gittany said they would continue to operate once the trains returned.

“I think it will be good for the village as a whole,” she said.

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She said she expected people from Sydney would stay overnight  although they could visit the town for lunch and return to the city.

Mrs Gittany said she hoped the Lachlan Valley Railway would add Millthorpe to its stopping places for tourist trains.