Railroad in the Northern Territory

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Central Australian Railways (red), disused narrow gauge (yellow)
NSU-class narrow-gauge locomotive in the Old Ghan Heritage Railway museum in Alice Springs

The railroad in the Northern Territory of Australia currently consists of only one railway line.

history

The attempt to open up the Northern Territory with a railroad was made both from the north, from Darwin (then: Palmerston ), and from the south, from where the railroad in South Australia advanced north. Both routes were built in the Cape Gauge and should be connected with each other, but this never succeeded.

The southern route , the Great Northern Railway (named after the direction of view from South Australia), operated from 1878 and throughout the time of its existence under different names and with different carriers. The line was driven in various stages via Farina, Marree and Oodnadatta to Alice Springs , which was reached in 1929 after 1300 km and half a century of construction. Their operations ceased when the Central Australian Railroad opened in 1981 .

The northern route , the North Australian Railway , which has also operated under different names one after the other throughout its existence, began operations in 1887 and was shut down in 1976. They managed their drive to Birdum , about 500 km south of Darwin.

The more than 1000 km gap between the two ends of the line could no longer be closed , even in view of the considerable transport requirements during the Second World War . A connection to the eastern railway in Queensland never succeeded either.

Standard gauge

Central Australian Railway

The Central Australian Railway was built 200 km west of the existing narrow-gauge railway, in more favorable terrain, and built in standard gauge . The line branches off from the Trans-Australian Railway in Tarcoola . It opened to Alice Springs in 1981 and extended to Darwin in early 2004.

The railway is economically significant because it is the first to open up the only major port on the north coast of Australia , opposite Asia, in a way that also allows the transport of bulk goods and replaces part of the previous traffic with road trains . Passenger transport on the route is only offered by the largely tourist train The Ghan .

The Ghan in Darwin train station

literature

The Ghan's double unit - a freight train crossing in the background
  • William A. Bayley: The Closure of the North Australia Railway . In: Australian Railway Historical Society Bulletin, June 1977, pp. 121-127.
  • Basil Fuller: The Ghan - The Story of the Alice Springs Railway . Sydney 1975. ND 2003. ISBN 9781741108064 .
  • JL Harvey: The North Australia Railway, 1911-1939 . In: Australian Railway Historical Society Bulletin, August u. November 1970, pp. 169-192, 241-259, February, March, April, 1971, pp. 39-47, 58-65, 73-88.
  • Graham Reid: The Demise of the Central Australia Railway . In: Australian Railway Historical Society Bulletin. January 1996, pp. 10-23.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Graham Reid.