Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows part of the inaugural trip of the Ghan from Adelaide to Darwin in 2004. ABC reporter Mark Bowling explains the train’s history and says it was named after Afghan cameleers. Historical footage shows camel trains, the original rail line to Alice Springs under construction in the 1920s and the first Ghan that travelled the route. As the train passes over the Finke River in the Northern Territory, two VIP passengers – Mike Rann, the premier of South Australia, and Clare Martin, the chief minister of the NT – discuss the river’s antiquity.

Educational value points

• The inaugural trip of the Ghan from Adelaide to Darwin in February 2004 was the first train crossing of Australia from south to north, the realisation of a long-held vision to link Adelaide and Darwin by rail. Construction of the line originally began in 1878 with track laid between Port Augusta and Quorn. It progressed in stages over the next 50 years, but halted at Alice Springs in 1929 because the rail service was operating at a loss.

• In September 2003, after 30 months of construction, a 1,460-km extension from Alice Springs to Darwin completed the transcontinental line. The $1.3 billion extension was built by a private consortium that contributed $750 million, with additional finance from the Australian, NT and SA governments, including $165 million from the Centenary of Federation Fund.

• During the 19th century camel trains with Afghan cameleers were vital to the development of inland Australia, bringing supplies to remote pastoral stations and hauling equipment for the construction of major projects such as the Overland Telegraph Line and inland railways. As Bowling notes, the original train on the Adelaide to Alice Springs route was named the Afghan Express or the Ghan after the cameleers, who were mainly from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

• As the historical footage reveals, construction of the original Adelaide to Alice Springs railway relied on picks and shovels and on camel trains of up to 30 animals that transported building materials required for the railway. Camels were preferred as draught animals in the outback because they could go for eight days without water, carry four times as much as a horse, travel up to 32 km a day and cross rough terrain inaccessible to wagons.

• As the clip notes, it was anticipated that the extension of the transcontinental line to Darwin would promote tourism and development in the NT, an expectation that was fulfilled. In its first year of operation 70,000 people travelled on the Ghan, injecting an estimated $28 million into the NT economy and far exceeding the expectations of the tourism industry.

• The Finke River, over which the Ghan passes in the clip, is among the oldest rivers in the world, predating the surrounding ranges, which formed about 400 million years ago. It runs for 640 km from the MacDonnell Ranges in the NT to the Simpson Desert in SA. Usually a string of waterholes, the Finke River can also be a torrent and in 1980 the line to Alice Springs was rerouted to avoid flooding.