Re: SAR steam

Good arithmetic fella's, it is about 24 miles from Pt Augusta to Quorn, the narrow gauge line was 755 miles from Pt Augusta to Alice Springs, quite a trip in the day.
The railway gauge muddle in Australia could fill many volumes and this line had a few changes outlined in this brief history, copied from Chris Drymalik's Comrails.com

"The Central Australia Railway extended from Port Augusta, in South Australia, to Alice Springs, in the Northern Territory. Work on the first section of this railway was commenced by the South Australian Railways (SAR) in 1878, and it was opened to Quorn in 1879. Under South Australian Railways the 3 ft. 6 in. gauge railway, known as the Great Northern Railway, was extended in stages and reached Oodnadatta in 1891. The South Australian Government subsequently made offers to several syndicates to construct a line north from Oodnadatta to Pine Creek on the land grant system, however negotiations were unsuccessful and Oodnadatta remained the railhead.
This railway passed to Commonwealth ownership on 1 January 1911, but continued to be operated by the South Australian Railways until the Commonwealth Railways took over operations on 1 January 1926. The Commonwealth Government also undertook the extension of the railway to Alice Springs, and this was completed in 1929. In the years following World War II large tonnages of coal were railed from Leigh Creek and heavy demands were placed on the railway. In many ways the original line was inadequate; sharp curves and heavy gradients limited train loads, whilst light track and bridges restricted speeds and axle loads. Consequently a new railway, of 4 ft. 8½ in. gauge, was constructed to avoid the heavier graded terrain, and extended from Stirling North, via Telford (Leigh Creek) to Marree. Completed in 1957, the new line enabled much larger quantities of coal to be carried. The old 3 ft. 6 in. gauge line between Marree and Hawker was closed, but between Stirling North and Hawker it was retained and used to a limited extent for some years. The track between Stirling North and Hawker was closed in 1972 and the section between Stirling North and Quorn handed over to the operations of the Pichi Richi Railway Preservation Society.
The country traversed by the 3 ft. 6 in. section of the Central Australia Railway from Marree to Alice Springs was subject to periodic flooding, and rarely a year passed without washaways and traffic disruptions. It was eventually decided that a railway constructed on higher terrain further west of the existing line would offer a route less subject to flood damage, and so a 4ft. 8½ in. gauge railway, between Tarcoola and Alice Springs was constructed causing the narrow gauge section of the original Central Australia Railway to be closed in 1981"

As mentioned, the line went thru flood prone country around Lake Eyre and the line was cut most years, with the 'Ghan' passenger train stranded for days at a time, passengers had to often be rescued by helicopter, the land in Central Australia is very remote with very few roads for access. One anecdote was about a female passenger who complained that she may give birth on the train if they didn't get to Alice Springs soon, the conductor replied that she should not have been travelling in that condition anyway, she retorted that she wasn't in this condition when she got on the train!

Wayne from Oz