The Ghan

Ghan is a redirect to this article. For the Uruguayan football player, see Emiliano Ghan .

The Ghan
The Ghan in Alice Springs
Yellow: Former narrow-gauge line. Red: Today's standard-gauge line
Route length:	2979 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
course
Legend Darwin Katherine Tennant Creek Alice Springs Kulgera Northern Territory / South Australia Chandler Marla Coober Pedy (Manguri) Indian Pacific from Perth Tarcoola Kingoonya Pimba Port Augusta Coonamia ( Port Pirie ) Indian Pacific from Sydney Adelaide Parklands Terminal

The Ghan is a transcontinental long-distance train in Australia , the Central Australia Railway (central Australian railway is traveling) and Adelaide via Alice Springs to Darwin connects. The path is one with a length of 2,979 kilometers, currently the longest in the world.

From Adelaide to Darwin, the train crosses four climate zones and 22.5 degrees of latitude . In times of the old Cape Gauge route, in which there was a gap of several hundred kilometers, he only drove from Adelaide to Alice Springs. Since the new standard gauge line was completed in 2004, it has crossed the continent from coast to coast.

Surname

Locomotive with lettering

The name The Ghan comes from The Afghanistan Express , a reminiscence of the “ Afghan ” leaders of the camel caravans who ensured the transport of goods in the interior of Australia before the advent of motorization .

These came not only from Afghanistan, but also from parts of what was then British India .

There are many stories about how the train got its name, but none is really guaranteed.

history

CAR advertising poster

Opening up the Australian interior was a goal of the colonies of South Australia and Victoria at the end of the 19th century . The first attempts to do this were made in connection with the construction of the Trans-Australian Telegraph Line at the beginning of the 1870s.

From 1878 a railway line of the South Australian Railways was driven from Port Augusta in Kapspur , at that time already with the final destination Darwin (until 1911: Palmerston ).

This route, known as the Great Northern Railway , first ran to Marree (then: Hergott Springs ), was then extended to Oodnadatta (originally: Angle Pole ) and finally reached Alice Springs (then: Stuart ) in 1929 .

Narrow gauge operation

The train

NSU-class narrow-gauge locomotive in the Old Ghan Heritage Railway museum in Alice Springs

Freight trains with passenger transport were the normal case of passenger transport on the railway line , so-called mixed , which stopped at each station. These were also mocked as Oodna Bumber . Allegedly, the train stopped on the open track even after it rained, so that passengers could pick the flowers that would then bloom in the desert . For trips from Adelaide to Oodnadatta, the trip included hotel stays in Quorn or Port Augusta and Marree. So it lasted three days and the connection was offered every 14 days.

From 1923 onwards, there were no overnight breaks for the "Mixed". He now drove through Marree from Port Augusta to Oodnadatta without a break. At the same time, a sleeping car was offered for the first time . This innovation reduced the travel time between Adelaide and Oodnadatta by one day. With her the name came up: The Ghan . The Ghan first reached Alice Springs on August 6, 1929. The train has operated since the Commonwealth Railways took over the route between Port Augusta and Alice Springs in Central Australia. Passengers to and from Adelaide were offered a connecting train on the South Australian Railroad in Quorn . At that time, the first class trip from Alice Springs to Adelaide cost 12 Australian pounds . The train left Alice Springs at 1:30 p.m. at noon and reached Quorn two days later at 4:00 a.m., where a connecting train was waiting to take passengers to Adelaide, which was reached shortly before 8:00 p.m.

Before the Second World War , the train usually ran every 14 days, and once a week in the final phase of the route in the 1970s. He left Alice Springs on Wednesdays at 8:00 p.m. and reached Marree on Fridays at 5:15 p.m. (Since 1957 the track was between Maree and Port Augusta to standard gauge where the standard gauge connecting train was waiting umgespurt been), the Port Pirie reached at 16:50. Here the travelers had to change to the broad gauge. Adelaide was then reached at 9:20 pm.

Significant delays were not uncommon. This was due to the onset of flash floods that washed away entire sections of track, or termites ate on the wooden sleepers.

In 1980 the Central Australian Railway was completed to Alice Springs, this branches off from the Trans- Australian Railway in Tarcoola . From this point on, the Great Northern Railway north of Marree was abandoned and The Ghan was run as a standard gauge train over the new route.

The German train set

Dining car of the narrow-gauge The Ghan

When the Trans-Australian Railroad was continuously passable between Perth and Sydney in 1970, the vehicles previously used in the Trans-Australian were exchanged for more modern ones made of stainless steel, relocated to Cape Gauge and were now used as The Ghan between Marree and Alice Springs.

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

These cars were in 1951/52 by a consortium led by the company Wegmann & Co. built. It was the first contract to build passenger coaches from Australia to Germany . The trains were manufactured in Kassel . They originally consisted of nine cars each, which were equipped as units with transitions similar to the German VT 08 and VT 12 diesel multiple units . A set consisted of:

• a service car, which is also a pack , generator and staff sleeping car ,
• three second class sleeping cars , one third of which has a social compartment,
• a dining car with 48 seats and the kitchen,
• a first class saloon car with a ladies', music and smoking salon. In addition to a piano , the music salon had a radio receiver , music chest , record player and tape recorder . There were wooden inlays on the walls , which also showed the Hercules and the water games in Kassel-Wilhelmshöhe ,
• three first-class sleeping cars (two-bed compartments), the final one as a pulpit car with a viewing area at the end of the car.

The train was fully air-conditioned and offered a total of 52 first and 88 second class beds. During the service as The Ghan , the sets were also driven in a slightly different composition. In 1979 the pulpit car was no longer in use.

museum

After the narrow-gauge version of The Ghan was set in 1980, reached a part of the train in the custody of the railway museum Old Ghan Heritage Railway .

Standard gauge

The Ghan in Alice Springs train station

After the Central Australian Railway to Alice Springs was completed in 1980, The Ghan was operated as a standard gauge train over the new route and received its present appearance. 2001 began the extension of the route from Alice Springs to Darwin, which was reached in 2003.

The Ghan has been running from Adelaide to Darwin since February 2, 2004 , with the first train arriving in Darwin on February 4, after having been striving for over a hundred years. The ability to travel to Darwin by train from South Australia is an important contribution to the development of tourism in the Northern Territory.

business

The operator of the train was initially the Commonwealth Railways. After these were absorbed in the Australian National in 1974 , these were operators. After its dissolution, The Ghan was taken over by the Great Southern Railway like other famous interstate long-distance trains in Australia ( Indian Pacific , The Overland ) . Today, the train is largely a hotel train ; there is hardly any local traffic.

The train runs twice a week during the main tourist season and once a week during the rest of the year. The timetable change is announced annually, depending on the train's load. The travel time is 47-49 hours. The train stops four hours in Alice Springs and Katherine . The travelers are there short trips - z. B. in the Katherine Gorge , which are not included in the fare.

vehicles

Locomotives

Double headed by The Ghan , behind it a crossing freight train

Platinum class

Passenger car with lettering

The Trans-Australian Railroad is operated by Freight Link . It crosses the Australian continent in a single lane from north to south and is not electrified . The Ghan is therefore pulled by two diesel locomotives provided by the Pacific National railway company . The second is not needed because of the traction power , but carried along as a " fear locomotive " if the first locomotive should become unfit to drive. Given the long distances, it would take too long to get a replacement locomotive.

dare

The train is 403 meters long and as a “double train” it is even 686 meters long. Its total mass without the locomotives is 807 tons, as a "double train" 1288 tons. The Ghan is usually made up of the following coaches :

• Luxury class:
  • A “Platinum” class passenger coach with compartments twice the size, double beds arranged next to each other and superior service
  • In addition, a number of saloon cars are offered that can be rented privately and attached to regular trains.
• First class
  • Five sleeping cars in the “Gold Service” class (“Doppelzug”: 11). There are those with single compartments that are arranged on both sides of a central aisle, and sleeping cars with two-bed compartments that are located across the direction of travel on a side aisle
  • A dining car ("Doppelzug": 2) (the "Gold Service" includes meals)
  • A saloon car ("double train": 2)
• Second grade
  • A passenger coach of the "Red Kangaroo" class, an open seating coach with seats
  • A sleeping car of the “Red Kangaroo” class with small compartments arranged on both sides of a central aisle and offering sleeping space for two people.
  • A buffet car of the "Red Kangaroo" class
• service
  • A generator car ("double train": 2)
  • A van
  • A sleeping car for the staff ("double train": 2)
  • If necessary, the train carries car transport vehicles on which cars can be taken.

The fares are (converted) around 300 euros for the “Red Kangaroo” class and 1,000 euros for “Gold Service”.

Since July 2016, the Ghan has only sold first-class and luxury-class cars.

Picture gallery

• 

  1st class saloon car

• 

  1st class dining car

• 

  2nd class check-in

• 

  2nd class dining car

• 

  Car transporter

• 

  The Ghan in Alice Springs train station

• 

  The Ghan in Darwin

literature

• WH Callaghan: Great Northern to Government Gums . In: Australian Railway Historical Society Bulletin. 2008, pp. 283-301; 323-336; 368-374.
• Central Australia Railway: "Time-Table with Connecting Services to and from Adelaide". March 1, 1978.
• Basil Fuller: The Ghan - The Story of the Alice Springs Railway . Sydney 1975. ND 2003. ISBN 9781741108064 .
• Graham Reid: The Demise of the Central Australia Railway . In: Australian Railway Historical Society Bulletin. January 1996, pp. 10-23.
• NN: leaflet. Across Australia's Center . Approx. 1975. [then issued to the travelers of the Ghan]

Web links

Commons : The Ghan  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official German representation of Rail Australia for The Ghan: railaustralia.eu
• The Ghan homepage
• The Ghan ephemera digitized and held by the National Library of Australia
• The Ghan on the Australian network

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Fuller, pp. 10f.
2. ↑ See: Fuller, especially: Chapter 2 u. 10.
3. ↑ Fuller, p. 212.
4. ↑ Fuller, p. 212; if that were true, that would probably have been the only case in which the sign that Fama invented the prohibition of picking flowers while driving, to the mockery of branch lines in German-speaking countries , could actually have meaningfully been screwed into the car.
5. ↑ Callaghan, p. 334.
6. ↑ Callaghan, pp. 373f.
7. ↑ Fuller, pp. 279f.
8. ^ Fuller, p. 281.
9. ^ Central Australia Railway.
10. ^ Central Australia Railway: Time Table.
11. ↑ The history of the "Ghan" on the official website. Retrieved November 21, 2016
12. ↑ Bode, p. 1; Lehmann, p. 171.
13. ↑ Lehmann, p. 172, note.
14. ^ NN: GSR cuts services during economic downturn. In: Railway Digest, March 2009, p. 4.
15. ↑ Timetable in: Platform 7/2008, p. 62.
16. ↑ All information according to: NN: Journey Overview . In: Platform 7/2008, p. 29.
17. ^ Great Southern Rail Travel Pty. Ltd .: Private Carriages , undated [marketing brochure].
18. ^ Salon car in Australia
19. ↑ Railway for high rollers as Indian Pacific cuts economy class. In: ABC News. March 8, 2016, accessed January 18, 2018 .