From the Trains Newswire: "Never Never" train crosses Australia... northward ADELAIDE, Australia - After 140 years of planning to complete a railroad across the Australian continent north-and-south, Australia celebrated the departure of the first passenger train on the route yesterday. The train left Adelaide, South Australia, on a three-day journey northward to the Northern Territory seacoast city of Darwin, according to a report from the BBC. The 1851-mile line, which for decades was half-built as far north as Alice Springs in the central part of the continent, cost almost $1 billion to complete. (Australia has also had an east-west transcontinental railway for decades.) The first freight train reached Darwin on January 17. Described as one of the world's greatest train voyages, the line passes through forbidding Northern Territory desert country known as the “Never Never.” The idea of the railroad being completed had also been known as The Never Never because, as a local politician explained it, nobody ever thought it would never happen. Paul, any shots of this new railway in the Aussie print or electronic media? This project sounds like it ranks up there with the building of the trancontinental railroads here in the States, or the Trans-Siberian in Russia.
A few weeks back, I stumbled onto a neat site about this construction. Wish that I could find it again. There were some impressive bridges built! Boxcab E50
Lots of photos here of the construction http://www.aarc.com.au/aarc/news/photolib/index.html Main page Here for more picture gallery's and info [ 05. February 2004, 05:58: Message edited by: 31.2Kbps ]
That is a great site, and a good insight into this fascinating project. Is the line mainly for freight trains, or are passenger trains planned also?
Yes The Ghan will be a weekly service from Sydney to Darwin, I'm not 100% but there could be other services running Here is a site about the service The Ghan
Judging by some of the paint schemes of the diesels, it looks like Genessee & Wyoming are involved in the project as well. I did like the pics of the engines on the first train north to Darwin.
there were news reports on tv when the first freight train left adelaide, when it arrived in darwin, when the first ghan left adelaide and when it arrived in darwin, i thought it was pretty cool not often ive seen trains on the news other than if theyd derailed or hit someone.
These days, the first train over a new railway line is news anywhere. Australia is one of the last (if not the last) areas on the planet for large railway construction. The closest we'll have here in North America (if it ever gets built) would be a railroad from British Columbia to Alaska. You Aussies oughta be proud to have this line finally built.
I certainly hope it's a HUGE success! No. It will probably be the new tunnel from Los Angeles to Honolulu! Boxcab E50
