Over 120 Years to Cross the Continent

ON February 3, 2004,  a train almost three quarters of a mile long eased into Darwin Railways Station in Australia's sparsely populated Norther Territory.  Thousands of people were on hand to celebrate its arrival. Dubbed The Ghan, the train had just completed its inaugural 1, 850 mile, two-day south-to-north crossing of the continent.

More than 2,000 camera-laden spectators had gathered along the rail line, so the train had to slow down as it approached the city of Darwin.  As a  result, it arrived about 30 minutes late.  But no one complained.  The nation had been waiting for over a century already. Traversing one of the driest, hottest, and loneliest regions on earth, the line from Adelaide to Darwin had taken 126 years to complete.

The Need for a Railway

In the late 1870's, the tiny colony of Adelaide,  at the eastern end of a wide bay called the Great Australian Bight, had dreams of opening up economic  development  in the region and establishing a better traded route to the far north.  The United States had competed its transcontinental railroad in 1869.  Thinking on a similar scale, Adelaide's citizens hoped to build a railway linking their colony to Port Darwin, as Darwin was then called.  This steel highway would not only open up the interior but also dramatically  cut travel time to Asia and Europe.

The concept appeared simple, but the railway would need to cross a brutal mosaic of rocky hills and mountain ranges, dense scrub, and sandy and stony deserts-part of which turned into a quagmire or raging torrents after rain. Explorer John Stuart had finally crossed this hard terrain on his third attempt in 1862. But along the way, both he and his partner nearly died from lack of food and water.  

Next time: Over 120 Years to Cross a Continent/Blistering Heat, Sandstorms, and Flash Floods 

From the Awake! magazine