|
 |
| Pichi Richi Railway - when it was transcontinental! |
|
The road from Port Augusta through the South Flinders Ranges to Quorn closely follows the route of the Pichi Richi Railway. Today's Pichi Richi Railway is all that remains of the original narrow gauge Central Australia Railway, which included the old Ghan line to Alice Springs via Maree and Oodnadatta.
There was also a short period in its original operational life from 1917 until 1937, where it formed a small section of main transcontinental rail route between Sydney on the east coast and Perth on the west coast. Leading up until 1917 when the Commonwealth Railways completed construction of a standard gauge line between Port Augusta and Kalgoorlie, existing rail networks in South Australia were a mix of broad and narrow gauges with no standard gauge lines.
The first interstate rail connection to the state was with the Victorian system's broad gauge and this influenced the gauge used in any further construction of new lines built in the south eastern parts of the state. Rail networks to the north of the state however were built with a sense of economic rationalism in mind and all were built in a narrow gauge.
One of these narrow gauge lines included one between Port Pirie and Cockburn, a town just inside the South Australian border with New South Wales which was completed 1887. This line via Peterborough to the east was built with the intention to service the mines at Broken Hill. However, the New South Wales Government at the time disallowed the South Australian Government from extending this line over the border to reach Broken Hill.
To get around this problem, a private entity called the Silverton Tramway was formed and they completed a separate narrow gauge line between Broken Hill and Cockburn a year later in 1888. But it wasn't until 1919 when a connection was finally established with the east coast, when the New South Wales Government Railway completed a standard gauge line to Broken Hill.
Technically, from 1919, you could now get a serious of different trains from Sydney to Perth and up until 1937, one of these trains was a service that used the Pichi Richi Railway between Cockburn and Port Augusta via Peterborough and Quorn.
This all came to an end in 1937 when the Commonwealth Railways extended their standard gauge line from Port Augusta down to Port Pirie and the South Australia Railways extended their Broad gauge line up to Port Pirie from Adelaide. From this point in time, a rail traveller could now get a direct broad gauge rail connection to Adelaide and onto to Melbourne from the new terminus of the standard gauge transcontinental line at Port Pirie.
However for those travelling east to Sydney it was still a narrow gauge train to Cockburn, only now from Port Pirie via Crystal Brook, Gladstone and Peterborough. At the border at Cockburn, another change of trains was needed to get a Silverton Tramway service to Broken Hill's Sulphide Street Station. Arriving in Broken Hill, a walk or taxi ride for two blocks was needed to access the New South Wales Government's standard gauge line to Sydney, at their railway station on Crystal Street.
It took until 1970 for a standard gauge line to be finally built to replace the multiple narrow gauge lines to Port Pirie from Broken Hill. It was also around the same time that the Western Australian Government had built a standard gauge line from Kalgoorlie to Perth. Now a rail traveller could get onto just one train that will take them all the way across the continent, from Sydney to Perth or from Perth to Sydney and that train is called the "Indian Pacific". |
|
|
|
| To access the twentyfour 700 pixel wide photos (over three pages) of views along the road to Quorn, click on the smaller photos or associated page links below to access pages with eight shots. Links at the bottom of each page will take you to the the next or back to this index page. |
|
Views along the road to Quorn through the South Flinders Ranges, South Australia.
Photo © Peter Andrews / Outimage.
|
 |
|
| The Road to Quorn. Photos by Peter Andrews: Page 1. |
|
Views along the road to Quorn through the South Flinders Ranges, South Australia.
Photo © Peter Andrews / Outimage.
|
 |
|
| The Road to Quorn. Photos by Peter Andrews: Page 2. |
|
Saltia Crossing on the Pichi Richi Railway.
Photo © Peter Andrews / Outimage.
|
 |
|
| The Road to Quorn. Photos by Peter Andrews: Page 3. |
|
| Outimage Publications © 2017. |
|
|
|
| Outimage
Links and Site Info |
|
 |
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
 |
 |
| Outimage Help Page |
Copyright Info |
| |
|
|
|
|
| This
page was checked and found to be a valid
XHTML 1.0 Transitional webpage by the WC3
organisation. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
