- Australia's trascontinental train system now links the cities of Sydney, Perth, Melbourne, Adelaide and Darwin, crossing the continent east to west and south to north.
Since 1970, when standard gauge rail tracks were completed between Sydney and Perth, the Australian transcontinental train of note has been the Indian Pacific which ran east to west (and west to east) through the lower half of the continent, from Sydney through much of Outback New South Wales and South Australia and the Nullarbor Plain to Perth in Western Australia.
For Australia, the Indian Pacific — linking the Indian and Pacific Oceans by land — carried with it the cachet of adventure and romance, much like the Orient Express and other great trains of the world.
Now, not only is there an east-west continental crossing by rail but now competing for the mantra of romantic train travel is the Ghan which has traveled since 1927 between Adelaide in South Australia and Alice Springs in the Northern Territory but has now extended its south-north continental route — through the heart of Australia — to the Northern Territory capital, Darwin, at Australia's Top End.
Transcontinental train travel
The Ghan and the Indian Pacific belong to the same railway family, Great Southern Railway, which also operates The Overland between Melbourne in Victoria and Adelaide.
It is now possible to take just the one train from Adelaide to Darwin on the south-north continental crossing. Not only that, but passengers from Sydney or Perth (on the connecting Indian Pacific) and Melbourne (from the connecting Overland) can link to the Ghan at Adelaide for all-the-way train travel to the Top End from Sydney, Melbourne or Perth.
On the rail trip from Adelaide to Darwin, there is also the option to disembark from the Ghan at Alice Springs, and take a few days in the Red Heart of Australia, including a visit to that famous rock monolith, Uluru, before continuing one's journey.
Next page: The Ghan > Page 1, 2, 3, 4
- (Photos courtesy of Great Southern Railway)
