Rail transport in Australia

The railway transport system plays in Australia's total of only a subordinate role. Exceptions to this are the commuter networks in metropolitan areas and in the coal and freight trains in passenger transport.

• Train Travel and City Train connections
• CountryLink and CityRail compounds
• V / Line Connections
• Transwa connections

• Indian Pacific
• The Overland
• The Ghan

• 2.1 Basic Facts
• 2.2 passenger 2.2.1 Highway
• 2.2.2 transport

• 2.3.1 Pacific National
• 2.3.2 Erzbahnen
• 2.3.3 cane railways

History

Historical Overview

1854, with the 3.6 km long Melbourne Sandridge line Australia's first steam railway. They ran between the city center and the port of Melbourne. A year later, the 22 km long standard gauge line was opened from Sydney to Parramatta. Again, a year later, also drove in Adelaide the first railway: It connected over 12km North Terrace with Port Adelaide. Many private companies and the emerging state railways built in the period following railway lines.

Already in the 1890s each Australian colony could have at least one rail and supported in the populous colonies on the east coast lines from the hinterland to the commercial ports the export of mining income and agricultural products. At its heyday in the 1920s and 1930s the Australian rail network extended to approximately 45,000 km - with the rise of air and road transport in Australia shrank it but to just 36,000 km in the early 1990s. Today, it has a length of 38 445 km.

Selection of important events

This section presents the basis of a selection of important events the story of the Australian rail transport on:

The track gauge problem

Since before 1901, the merger of the Australian colonies to the State, these were legally independent of each other, was the ruling on the gauge, in which the respective railway should be built affair of the individual colony. On February 19, 1850 a law was passed in Victoria, which approved the construction of a railway from Melbourne to Port Adelaide, Port of Melbourne, in standard gauge. On July 27, 1852 New South Wales passed a law with the aim to build its railway network in a broad gauge of 1600 mm (5 feet 3 inches ). The original plan for a standard gauge railway line between downtown and the Port of Melbourne was - although Victoria had been separated in 1851 as a colony of New South Wales - therefore abandoned in favor of this decision. As New South Wales shortly thereafter reversed its decision again and returned to the normal track, Victoria could not support this decision as railway facilities corresponding vehicles were ordered already created in broad gauge and also. For this legislative chaos results to date of the problems still causing break in the track width of the rail networks from Victoria and New South Wales.

Besides these two gauges on the other colonies opted for - cheaper to be built - Cape gauge. In the choice of gauge, the colonies followed probably largely of their economic power. Smaller systems selected are other narrow gauge gauges. The led on the whole to the following result:

• Cape gauge ( 1067 mm): Queensland, Western Australia, Tasmania, Northern Territory, South Australia ( partially ), Federal Railways ( partial)
• Standard gauge ( 1435 mm): New South Wales, Federal Railways ( partial), South Australia ( partial)
• Broad gauge (1600 mm): Victoria, South Australia ( partial)

As the networks grew together, this resulted in significant operational problems. There were in Australia up to 36 gauge interchange stations, where travelers change, transhipped goods or had to be umgespurt vehicles.

A general meeting convened to assess the situation by the Governor-General of Australia, " Royal Commission " came in 1921 to the conclusion " that the track gauge of 4 feet 8 ½ inches as the standard for Australia to be determined that no mechanical device, not a third rail or other device to can remedy problems and that unity can only be achieved by a means, namely the re-gauging of all the tracks that have a track other than 4 feet 8 ½ inches. "

This was - only partially followed by three rail tracks or Umspurung - for cost reasons. The Federal Railroad built eventually all their new lines to standard gauge. The first step of the recommendation of the Royal Commission, to connect all the capitals of the states on the mainland to the standard gauge is realized since the extension of the Central Australian railway from Alice Springs to Darwin in 2004. This trend continues: So part of the once main broad gauge route of the Victoria Railways between ( Sydney ), Albury and Melbourne in 2009 was final and at the same time also abandoned the formerly largest lane changing station in Australia, Albury, in favor of a newly built standard gauge track.

Presence

Basic Facts

The length of the railway network is 38,445 km (including 2717 km electrified ):

• 3355 km broad gauge (1600 mm)
• 21,674 km standard gauge ( 1435 mm ) (of which 650 km electrified )
• 9539 km narrow gauge ( 1067 mm ) (of which 2067 km electrified )
• 3877 km meter gauge (1000 mm)

The private rail network - especially transport of iron ore in the Pilbara region, coal and sugar cane trains in Queensland - it has a share of around 5500 km.

Passenger

Long-distance traffic

The Great Southern Railway operates three long-distance trains:

• Indian Pacific ( Sydney - Adelaide - Perth ),
• The Ghan (Adelaide - Alice Springs - Darwin)
• The Overland (Melbourne - Adelaide ).

The Indian Pacific and the Ghan are especially important for tourism.

Transport

In the metropolitan areas of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth, where lives more than half the population of the continent, there are well-developed S-Bahn networks. In Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide also exist trams, the tram network Melbourne is one of the longest in the world, while there are only a few tram lines in Sydney and Adelaide. In Sydney also drove the Sydney Monorail 1988-2013.

Previously, the public railway was taken over by state institutions, but a large part of the sector was privatized and henceforth organized through franchises since the 1990s. Therefore, the rail traffic in the states is now being taken over by various operators, which are partly state, partly private. Most of the operation is fundamentally divided into metropolitan and regional, as these areas in both conditions ( well-developed, electrified network through residential areas - thin, based on diesel power through vast land ) and requirements (processing of daily commuter rush-hour traffic with high clock rates distinguish providing a structural connection for the purpose of travel at any time) very strong -.

The following table lists the most important operators are listed below:

In Tasmania, any rail transport is handled by Tasrail; the S and tramways of Adelaide in South Australia are operated by Adelaide Metro; in the Northern Territory there is no public transport on the rail; and in the Australian Capital Territory the tasks de facto of New South Wales NSW Train Link be adopted.

Freight traffic

Pacific National

Pacific National is Australia's largest private rail freight transport. In 100 different regions around 1,000 locomotives and 10,000 freight cars are used on all three gauges. For the transport of the 12,720 -ton coal trains on the Cape gauge in Queensland in early August 2009 were 23 six-axle and 132 -ton AC locomotives of the series 7100 used new.

Erzbahnen

Four heavy-duty mining railways to transport iron ore to ports in the North West of Western Australia. These rail lines serve only to mining and have been a stand-alone operation.

Sugar cane railways

In Queensland there are approximately 15 narrow gauge railways that transport sugar cane to the processing factories.