RailSA

The Indian Pacific’s 40th birthday marked a double-whammy in Australia’s rail history.
It was this train that ran Australia’s first east-west rail service on standard gauge, which departed from Sydney’s Central Station on Monday, February 23 1970 and arrived in Perth on Friday, February 27 to 10,000 people.

It was the movement some thought would never happen. Train number 2AL8, better known as Great Southern Rail’s ‘The Southern Spirit’, pulled out of Adelaide Parklands Terminal shortly after 8:30AM this morning bound for Alice Springs.

Passengers on board The Ghan, which was forced to return to Darwin after large parts of the train track were flooded, praised the efforts of the train driver yesterday.

Repair crews may have to wait until Sunday before they can start work on a section of the Adelaide-to-Darwin rail line washed away by floodwaters.

Passengers almost halfway through a train journey across Australia have had to turn back because of flooding in the desert.