Rail transport in South Australia
The Railway in South Australia is characterized by a - from lush variety of track widths - even for Australian conditions.
- 4.1 Literature
- 4.2 External links
- 4.3 cards
History of the route network
After an initial, significant opposition to the construction of railways, which culminated in a petition to Queen Victoria, was the first railway in Australia - but a horse railway and is therefore not "officially" out as the first railroad - in South Australia on broad gauge of 1,600 mm (5 feet 3 inches ) in 1854 in operation. The route connected the Murray River port of Goolwa with the lake - Port Elliot. It was later extended to Victor Harbor and is today a tourist attraction as Victor Harbor Horse Drawn Tram in operation. The first locomotive - drawn railway in South Australia was opened in 1856 between the city and the port of Adelaide. Here the attempt of a private company failed initially to build the track and the state took over the construction and operation in-house. This was the core of the later State Railways of South Australia, the South Australian Railways. The first three locomotives were supplied by William Fairbairn & Sons Manchester and received the name of Adelaide, Victoria and Albert ( after the British Prince Consort Albert of Saxe- Coburg and Gotha ).
Broad gauge
Since before the Australian State in 1901, these were the union of the colonies and independent of each other, was the ruling on the gauge, in which the respective railway should be built affair of the individual colony. On July 27, 1852 a law was passed in the oldest and leading economic colony of New South Wales, which was to be built in the broad gauge of 1600 mm with a rail link. South Australia then decided - to ensure compatibility with the railway in New South Wales to preserve - to build its tracks also in this gauge. As New South Wales shortly thereafter reversed its decision and decided on the standard gauge, South Australia could not change his decision in favor of the broad gauge, since railways corresponding vehicles were ordered already created in broad gauge and also. For this legislative chaos results in a part of to this day still problems causing breakdown in the track gauge of the railways of South Australia.
The route network was used primarily for the transportation of mining and agricultural products to the ports, but also joined the far-flung population centers for the first time in passenger effectively with each other. The power developed in a star shape, starting from the capital Adelaide. 1887 was the first time in Serviceton (Victoria) the connection to the - reaches railway in Victoria - also broad-gauge. Since January 19, 1887 continued the Intercolonial Express, a continuous direct link between Melbourne and Adelaide. The train was the first transfer-free connection between two Australian capital cities and needed for the then nearly 900 km long distance 18 hours. Later, the train was officially called Adelaide Express, even if he was called in South Australia as The Melbourne Express and perverse as the overnight train. Today it operates as The Overland and as Tagzug.
A second connection to Victoria came from 1906. This route, beginning from 1915, the border at Pinnaroo. The South Australian section of the track was 1998 umgespurt to standard gauge, so that a lane change in Pinnaroo railway station was built. There are considerations in migrating the tracks located in Victoria part of the route. 1937 reached the broad gauge Port Pirie, where they met the standard gauge railway Transaustralische. The railway Adelaide Port Pirie was umgespurt 1982 on standard gauge.
Cape gauge
In the far away from the capital of the country, the construction of railroads began in Cape gauge, especially with random distances from the ports to the hinterland. The routes were initially conceived as isolated projects, not as building blocks for a future network. Here, since the settlement was much thinner than in the vicinity of the capital, the most cost -effective design in Cape gauge was chosen without considering the difficulties this would cause in the future. Their construction. Nevertheless emerged from these beginnings over time narrow gauge networks. As wide - and narrow-gauge finally met later in 1880 Terowie station, railway stations Hamley Bridge, Wolseley and Mount Gambier each other, considerable problems and costs for the continuous transport showed. The track gauge problem was solved, that most of the narrow gauge lines were umgespurt 1953-1956 to broad gauge in the south of the state. The narrow-gauge railways in the northern part of the country have been partially replaced by broad or standard gauge routes or set the operation. Only the outgoing routes from Port Lincoln who never got a connection to the rest of the network, have been preserved as a larger network elements. Their first line was opened in 1908 in operation and the network extends to about 800 km to 1950. The first narrow gauge lines were:
Other ports from which kapspurige tracks the hinterland were opened Port Augusta, Port Lincoln, Beachport, Kingston SE and Wallaroo ( South Australia ).
Most ambitious project of the narrow gauge was push forward from the 1879 experiment with it to Darwin in the Northern Territory. With begun to Great Northern Railway and the corresponding project of the Northern Australian Railway, which was driven from Darwin to the south, South Australia had adopted, though. It entered the railway in 1911 the Commonwealth of Australia from that assumed financial responsibility for the route from then on, they subsequently in his Commonwealth Railways built, from 1926, for operation itself and by 1929, after 50 years of construction, Alice Springs reached where the project got stuck permanently. The line was abandoned in 1981 when the central Australian railway went into operation.
Standard gauge
In 1901, the six hitherto autonomous Australian colonies joined together for the Australian Federation. Condition for the accession of Western Australia was the promise of the other colonies, that the federal government would build a railway, the associations, the isolated from the rest of the country settlement center of the colony around their city of Perth situated in the south and east of the continent other population centers of the new state. This Transaustralische railway was carried out in standard gauge, and put into operation on 17 October 1917. It led from Kalgoorlie in Western Australia to Port Augusta in South Australia. This South Australia received a third gauge for main lines. At both ends of the connection closed andersspurige paths that in South Australia initially broad gauge. Travelers had to change trains, goods are transhipped.
Adaptation measures
In 1937, the eastern end of the Trans- Australian Railway to standard gauge was extended to Port Pirie. This saved the passengers changing to the broad gauge. They could now equal change to the narrow gauge to Broken Hill. At the same time so that the station of Port Pirie now met each other three gauges. 1970, reached a plain track to standard gauge, of New South Wales Coming, Port Pirie. 1980, the southern section of the standard gauge Central Australia Railway was opened, replacing the old narrow gauge railway to Alice Springs. In 1982, the route (Port Pirie ) Crystal Brook Adelaide was transferred to standard gauge and 1995 umgespurt the route between the two capitals, Adelaide and Melbourne on standard gauge.
Railway
The state-owned South Australian Railways was initially the operator of most of the routes. It was taken over in 1978 by the Commonwealth Railways in an attempt to lead all the railways of Australia under the auspices of federal agencies. But besides these two companies only railway in Tasmania joined this project, it remained a torso. The merger nevertheless was named Australian National Railways (ANR ), better known as Australian National. In its resolution of 1992, the freight and the freight wagon 1992, the National Rail Corporation (NR) has been transferred, sold the railways in South Australia to the Australian Southern Railroad, over the long-distance passenger traffic from the Great Southern Railway. This limited today to the trains The Overland (Adelaide -Melbourne ), Indian Pacific ( Sydney - Perth ) via Adelaide and The Ghan (Adelaide - Darwin). The transport in the Greater Adelaide operates TransAdelaide. The freight is now carried out by the Australian Railroad Group, Pacific National, QRNational, Freight Link and SCT Logistics, however, is greatly diminished, since the transport of grain was allowed on the road at the end of the 1980s.
Museum institutions
In Port Adelaide, the Australian National Railway Museum, the largest railway museum in Australia is.
The Pichi Richi Railway operates between Quorn and the section Port Augusta the former Great Northern Railway as a heritage railway. The train is named after the Pichi Richi Pass, which crosses the railway.