Alice Springs Station is a railway station on the Adelaide-Darwin railway

Adelaide-Darwin railway

The Adelaide–Darwin railway is a north-south transcontinental railway in Australia, between the cities of Adelaide, South Australia and Darwin, Northern Territory...

 transcontinental railway

Transcontinental railroad

A transcontinental railroad is a contiguous network of railroad trackage that crosses a continental land mass with terminals at different oceans or continental borders. Such networks can be via the tracks of either a single railroad, or over those owned or controlled by multiple railway companies...

 line located in Alice Springs, Northern Territory

Alice Springs, Northern Territory

Alice Springs is the second largest town in the Northern Territory of Australia. Popularly known as "the Alice" or simply "Alice", Alice Springs is situated in the geographic centre of Australia near the southern border of the Northern Territory...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. Alice Springs is 1546 kilometres from Adelaide

Adelaide

Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...

, and 1433 kilometres from Darwin

Darwin, Northern Territory

Darwin is the capital city of the Northern Territory, Australia. Situated on the Timor Sea, Darwin has a population of 127,500, making it by far the largest and most populated city in the sparsely populated Northern Territory, but the least populous of all Australia's capital cities...

. The station is operated by Great Southern Railway (Australia)

Great Southern Railway (Australia)

Great Southern Railway , owned by Serco Asia Pacific, is a tourism business and rail transport operator in Australia.GSR operates interstate passenger trains aimed at the tourist market:* The Indian Pacific...

.

Service

Two trains of The Ghan per week stop at the station in each direction, for a total of four stops per week.

Station features

In the foyer of the current station is a memorial, by sculptor Gabriel Stark, this memorial is in memory of the Afghan

Afghan (Australia)

The Afghans or Ghans were camel drivers who worked in outback Australia from the 1860s to the 1930s. While called Afghans, not all of them were from Afghanistan; some came from the northern regions of British India, areas that now constitute modern-day Pakistan...

 camel trains that transported supplies to Central Australia

Central Australia

Central Australia/Alice Springs Region is one of the five regions in the Northern Territory. The term Central Australia is used to describe an area centred on Alice Springs in Australia. It is sometimes referred to as Centralia; likewise the people of the area are sometimes called Centralians...

 before the arrival of the train.

History

Originally the line was constructed to Alice Springs with a narrow gauge railway via Oodnadatta arriving in Alice Springs in 1929. At this time the railway station was located in Railway Terrace, the line entered the town parallel to that street. Goods Yards and railway staff were situated in the area now occupied by Murray Neck's shopping complex.

In 1980 the line was rebuilt to Alice Springs using the standard gauge on a totally new alignment. The station was relocated at that time to its present location.

External links

• Station details
• Image

The Ghan
Tennant Creek Tennant Creek, Northern Territory Tennant Creek is a town located in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is the fifth largest town in the Northern Territory and it is located on the Stuart Highway, just south of the intersection with the western terminus of the Barkly Highway....	↔	Alice Springs	↔	Kulgera Kulgera, Northern Territory Kulgera is a locality in the Northern Territory of Australia.Kulgera is accessible by train. The Ghan, run by Great Southern Railway between Adelaide and Darwin arrives twice weekly in each direction. The post code of Kulgera is 0872....