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Australia toasts transcontinental railway
Darwin, Australia, Feb 15: Like a silver snake slithering through a rust-coloured desert, Australia`s longest passenger train winds its way through the heart of the nation from the far south to the tropical north.
Darwin, Australia, Feb 15: Like a silver snake slithering through a rust-coloured desert, Australia's longest passenger train winds its way through the heart of the nation from the far south to the tropical north.
The terrain is flat and dry as far as the eye can see, yet a few young men appear as if from nowhere to toast ''The Ghan'' on its inaugural 2,979 km (1,847 mile) journey this month from Adelaide to the Port of Darwin in the northern territory.
The trip by the kilometre-long train marks the fulfillment of a century-old dream for passenger trains to travel from the south, where Antarctic Sea whips the coast, up to the north, a land of cyclones and crocodiles.
''They have been promising it for a long time and now it is finally here. The territory has been opened up to Australia,'' said Tina Fowler, 37, who took her two daughters to see the train when it stopped at Katherine, 280 km southeast of Darwin.
''The Ghan'', named after the pioneering Afghan camel riders who travelled this route carrying goods and communication to outback towns, inspired an outpouring of community spirit along its route.
Residents from towns and some of the nation's most remote communities along the track came out to watch the gleaming 45-carriage train as it roared past. Some waved flags. Two farmers held up a placard reading ''at last''.
The idea of a transcontinental railway was first mooted 100 years ago and it is 75 years since the first train travelled from Adelaide to Alice Springs in central Australia.
But after years of economic and political debates, the dream of a south-to-north railway only became reality last year when a 1.3 billion (1 billion) extension to Darwin was completed using a mix of private, state and national funding.
The track extension was billed as one of Australia's biggest infrastructure projects, involving 93 bridges, two million concrete sleepers and 146,000 tonnes of steel rail.
The line was christened with the passage of a freight train in January but the departure of the first passenger train marked a new era in Australian travel, with heavy demand for the 340 tickets for the inaugural trip that cost up to a 12,000 ( 9,600).
Former Deputy Prime Minister and self-confessed train buff Tim Fischer was aboard ''The Ghan'' for its first trip and said it was an opportunity he would not have missed.
''It's the world's only north-south seamless continental railway because Europe has a break of gauge between France and Spain and Poland and Russia,'' Fischer said. Bureau Report
The trip by the kilometre-long train marks the fulfillment of a century-old dream for passenger trains to travel from the south, where Antarctic Sea whips the coast, up to the north, a land of cyclones and crocodiles.
''They have been promising it for a long time and now it is finally here. The territory has been opened up to Australia,'' said Tina Fowler, 37, who took her two daughters to see the train when it stopped at Katherine, 280 km southeast of Darwin.
''The Ghan'', named after the pioneering Afghan camel riders who travelled this route carrying goods and communication to outback towns, inspired an outpouring of community spirit along its route.
Residents from towns and some of the nation's most remote communities along the track came out to watch the gleaming 45-carriage train as it roared past. Some waved flags. Two farmers held up a placard reading ''at last''.
The idea of a transcontinental railway was first mooted 100 years ago and it is 75 years since the first train travelled from Adelaide to Alice Springs in central Australia.
But after years of economic and political debates, the dream of a south-to-north railway only became reality last year when a 1.3 billion (1 billion) extension to Darwin was completed using a mix of private, state and national funding.
The track extension was billed as one of Australia's biggest infrastructure projects, involving 93 bridges, two million concrete sleepers and 146,000 tonnes of steel rail.
The line was christened with the passage of a freight train in January but the departure of the first passenger train marked a new era in Australian travel, with heavy demand for the 340 tickets for the inaugural trip that cost up to a 12,000 ( 9,600).
Former Deputy Prime Minister and self-confessed train buff Tim Fischer was aboard ''The Ghan'' for its first trip and said it was an opportunity he would not have missed.
''It's the world's only north-south seamless continental railway because Europe has a break of gauge between France and Spain and Poland and Russia,'' Fischer said. Bureau Report