Central Australia line a much-debated project from Port Augusta in 1878 started by South Australian Railways
A 1940s Commonwealth Railways poster for the Central Australia journey showing a train travelling at a greatly exaggerated speed past cliff heights on the narrow-gauge line prone to frequent delays from flooding. At right: The Central Australian Railway narrow-gauge (in green) route from Port Augusta to Alice Springs. The orange line shows the section upgraded to standard gauge in 1957.
Images courtesy Wikipedia Commons
The Central Australia Railway, from Port Augusta and Alice Springs, was built between 1878 and 1929 in three sections: Port Augusta-Maree completed 1884, Maree-Oodnadatta 1891 and Oodnadatta-Alice Springs 1929. The first two sections were built by the South Australian government railways and the third by the commonwealth government after Australian federation in 1901.
The proposal for a Central Australian Railway (also known as Port Augusta-Oodnadatta, Great Northern and The Ghan railway) heading north from Port Augusta, at the top of South Australia's Spence Gulf, took 18 years to progress to the turning of the first sod for the project. A major debate about the significant cost for the South Australian colony delayed and eventually altered the final design.
Mineral extraction was touted as the key benefit of the line, with farming and passenger traffic being deemed by many as being uneconomic alone although others suggested the key products to benefit were wool, station stores, and copper'” in that order. The three major cost factors of line gauge, maximum weight to be carried and maximum speed, also were hotly debated.
The government-owned South Australian Railways wanted to build the line but others who thought “capitalists”, mainly from the United Kingdom, would offer better value for money. South Australan Railways, who prevailed, tested its engineering capacity on the northern extension railway to Burra Burra.
Around 1871, South Australian Railways assistant engineer Robert C. Patterson, engineer in chief H. C. Mais and the government surveyor general George Goyder (of Goyder rainfall line fame) agreed the line shouldn’t go further north than Beltana (232 kilometres) due to rainfall and environment. The more-expensive Pichi Richi route was preferred to the Western Plains as offering access for farmland.
After an extensive survey, the final route was mapped to Government Gums due to water being available there. Government Gums was the original name for Farina, a future ghost town on the edge of a desert, optimistically settled in 1878 by farmers hoping that rain followed the plough.
The length of the line to Government Gums/Farina, with work started at Port Augusta in 1878, was to be "198 miles 66.92 chains" and the route "no less than 64 bridges, ranging in length from 20 feet to 740 feet”. The line was extended to Maree (372 kilometres) by 1884, Coward Springs (501km) 1888 and Oodnadatta (770km) 1891.
The debate moved to extending the existing line or starting a standard-gauge railway north from Tarcoola. The new Australian federal government had responsibility for the line from 1911 but South Australian Railways continued to run service until 1926 when the federal Commonwealth Railways took over.
That signalled the start of planning to extend the line north to Alice Springs. The federal parliament went for the cheaper (£1.3 million versus £4.5 million) narrow gauge extension, rather than standard gauge. This was completed in August 1929.
Railway workers were paid £5 8/- a week and a request for a raise to £6 pounds was refused by John Quick in the federal arbitration court in 1927. With concerns about Aboriginal people as a threat to the project, newspapers reported it was “intended to ask the state and federal governments to endeavour to keep the wilder natives and especially those from the Musgrave and Everard ranges in their fastnesses for a few years.”
The first train to Alice Springs had 12 carriages including mail and fruit vans. There were 60 first class and 60 second class passengers but an official opening ceremony by the prime minister was cancelled due to the cost of running a special train.
The tortuously-curving line between Maree and Alice Springs was notorious for delays, often caused by flash floods washing away bridges and tracks. Some track was laid on sand without ballast, and the wood sleepers used were ready food for termites.
The 1,241 kilometres of narrow-gauge (3 feet 6 inches) line was closed in 1980, when it was superseded by a standard-gauge (4 feet 8 inches) line.
