of the construction of the railway from Strathfield to Hornsby, a 1.2 km branch was constructed in 1884 by the contractors to a quarry in a gully west of Thornleigh. The tracks included a zig zag section. Thornleigh railway station opened on 17 September 1886 where the local produce (mainly citrus fruits) was exported to the city markets. Fruit grown at Thornleigh was also being exported as far as Vancouver and San Francisco. Thornleigh Post Office opened on 12 March 1888. The Thornleigh School of Arts opened in 1890 and was demolished in 1980 along with many other locations of historical significance in the suburb throughout the commercial development of the area in the 1970s and 1980s. These include the Astra Theatre (Originally named the Prince of Wales Theatre in 1923), the Royal Hotel, Thornleigh Public School with its World War I memorial and the original Edwardian structures at Thornleigh Railway Station. The Thornleigh Community Centre was constructed by the local and state government in order to compensate the community for the demolition of the Thornleigh School of Arts. In 1901, the National Brickworks started operations at Thornleigh. In 1913, the largest malt works in the southern hemisphere was established by WG Chilvers. Chilvers Road was named after William George Chilvers. Other streets with notable names include Norman Avenue, named after the Australian engineer Norman Selfe. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, unemployment was a problem in the area, so a local woman named Lorna Brandt raised money for the construction of a walking track near the Lane Cove River as a way of providing relief work. The track begins at Thornleigh Oval, at the bottom of Handley Avenue, and goes through the bush towards the Lane Cove River. It then goes parallel to the river for a short distance before looping back to arrive at Comenarra Parkway. An extension goes down to the river, through a spot called Conscript Pass. At this spot, there are rock carvings done by the men who worked on the track. One of the carvings is a caricature of Bertram Stevens, Premier of New South Wales from 1932 to 1939. The track is known as Lorna Pass in memory of Lorna Brandt, and is now part of the Great North Walk, a long-distance walking trail between Sydney and Newcastle. Plans to establish a university at Thornleigh in response to the large number of