February 15- The Indian Pacific

Our Train Journey today

Our Valentine dinner at the hotel last evening was delicious. It was a fixed price meal that began with tomato basil bread and dipping oil with basil and other spices plus some very dry crumbled feta cheese. Next course was a platter that featured two of each-scallops, a chicken and corn mixture in pastry, venison tartare with orange chocolate sauce, and a crab, salmon roe mixture in a small rye basket. We both selected beef filet and that came with a salad of mixed greens and a very different potato dish of thinly sliced white and sweet potato. Dessert was also a platter of two each of a chocolate mousse with a creme sauce to pour over the top, a heart shaped cold creamy cake and  something else that neither of us can remember.....but it was all tasty. We found it interesting that every party in the restaurant was a party of two and the young women were dressed very fancy and most of the men were casual in jeans.

This morning we leave our home at the Sebel Playford Hotel and are off to travel on The Indian Pacific Train from Adelaide to Sydney. We are traveling with Gold Service, as we did on The Ghan, which means we have a hostess, a special dining room for our meals, a special lounge car for drinks and a compartment attendant to set up the berths and then reset the space in the morning. This is our second over-night train journey for this week and if the people are as chatty and congenial as they were on The Ghan this will be as equally a lovely journey. The Indian Pacific’s entire route gives the traveler a view of two oceans- the Indian and the Pacific oceans. Perhaps we'll get to see the eagle in the train logo.

The history of the Indian Pacific can be traced back to the early 1900’s. The colonies of Australia were headed towards Federation at the end of the 19^th Century. The colony of Western Australia was lured to join this new nation by promise of a transcontinental railway, linking this isolated western region with the rest of the eastern colonies.

A skeleton rail link extended from the east to the west coasts of Australia, except for a 1,996 kilometre gap in the system between Kalgoorlie in Western Australia and Port Augusta in South Australia

On 17 October, 1917, in a remarkable surveying and engineering feat, two construction teams, one starting from Port Augusta and the other from Kalgoorlie, made an historic achievement, meeting to join the lines at what is now the tiny South Australian siding of Ooldea on the Nullarbor Plain. This was the longest railway ever built as a single project in Australia, taking five years to complete. It was constructed using the most basic tools – pick and shovel, carthorse and camel. Reminds me of the Transcontinental Railroad constructed in the US and joined together by a golden spike in 1869. 

At 10:15am on 25 October, 1917, the first eastbound passenger train, the Transcontinental Express, departed Kalgoorlie for Port Augusta. The different rail gauges required guests to change trains several times along the journey. Glad we won't have to do that now.

A standard trip from Sydney to Perth comprised of: Sydney to Albury on a standard gauge track; change trains at Albury to travel to Melbourne on broad gauge; continue on to Adelaide on broad gauge through to Port Pirie; change trains in Port Pirie for the short journey into Port Augusta and then on to Kalgoorlie on standard gauge; change trains in Kalgoorlie for the narrow gauge journey into Perth.

It was not until 1969 that an uninterrupted rail line from the Pacific Ocean in the east to the Indian Ocean in the west existed when the standard gauge railway line across Australia was completed. The first unbroken journey of the new Indian Pacific commenced at Sydney Central Station on Monday 23 February, 1970, arriving in Perth to a crowd of over 10,000 on 27 February.


So we are off to see another part of this huge country. They say the scenery will be different. There is almost always some sort of commentary from the Train Manager about what we are seeing. It is controlled by the radio in the compartment but we chose to listen most of the time to see what we could learn. Having a new experience is always a great way to learn!