Tarcoola railway station is a railway station in the Australian state of

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

located on the

Trans-Australian Railway The Trans-Australian Railway, opened in 1917, runs from Port Augusta in South Australia to Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, crossing the Nullarbor Plain in the process. As the only rail freight corridor between Western Australia and the easter ...

in the state's west. It serves the town of Tarcoola and is the northern junction of the Sydney-Perth and Adelaide-Darwin railways, which share approximately of track between Tarcoola and Crystal Brook.

History

The

was built through Tarcoola in 1915, and in 1980 it became a

junction station ''Junction station'' usually refers to a railway station situated on or close to a junction where lines to several destinations diverge. The usual minimum is three incoming lines. At a station with platforms running from left to right, the minimum ...

when the Adelaide–Darwin railway diverged from Tarcoola to

Alice Springs Alice Springs ( aer, Mparntwe) is the third-largest town in the Northern Territory of Australia. Known as Stuart until 31 August 1933, the name Alice Springs was given by surveyor William Whitfield Mills after Alice, Lady Todd (''née'' Al ...

. This was extended to Darwin in 2004. It was initially built as a standard gauge replacement for the

Central Australia Railway The former Central Australia Railway, which was built between 1878 and 1929 and closed in 1980, was a 1067 mm narrow gauge railway between Port Augusta and Alice Springs. A standard gauge line duplicated the southern section from Port Aug ...

. There is a

triangular junction In railroad structures, and rail terminology, a wye (like the'' 'Y' ''glyph) or triangular junction (often shortened to just "triangle") is a triangular joining arrangement of three rail lines with a railroad switch (set of points) at each co ...

at Tarcoola which joins Crystal Brook, Darwin and Perth. Another triangular junction at Crystal Brook joins Tarcoola, Adelaide and Sydney. The station has two

triangles A triangle is a polygon with three edges and three vertices. It is one of the basic shapes in geometry. A triangle with vertices ''A'', ''B'', and ''C'' is denoted \triangle ABC. In Euclidean geometry, any three points, when non-collinear ...

, a smaller one for turning locomotives, and the larger one to the west of the town gives direct access from the Darwin line to the

Kalgoorlie Kalgoorlie is a city in the Goldfields–Esperance region of Western Australia, located east-northeast of Perth at the end of the Great Eastern Highway. It is sometimes referred to as Kalgoorlie–Boulder, as the surrounding urban area includ ...

. The latter has been put out of service. In 2018, the track between Tarcoola and Adelaide was upgraded from to rails. This was done while the track was open for service, with of rail being replaced at a time between train services. The upgrade increased the maximum permitted axle load by four tonnes.

Services

The Ghan ''The Ghan'' is an experiential tourism oriented passenger train service that operates between the northern and southern coasts of Australia, through the cities of Adelaide, Alice Springs and Darwin on the Adelaide–Darwin rail corridor. O ...

and the

Indian Pacific The ''Indian Pacific'' is a weekly experiential tourism passenger train service that runs in Australia's east–west rail corridor between Sydney, on the shore of the Pacific Ocean, and Perth, on the shore of the Indian Ocean – thus, lik ...

passenger services pass through Tarcoola both running once per week in each direction all year round.Ghan Timetable April 2019 to March 2020
Great Southern Rail The mail for Tarcoola arrives by train.

References

External links

**Photo
Station building ca.1926-1940
*Photo
Flickr gallery
Railway stations in South Australia Trans-Australian Railway Far North (South Australia) {{SouthAustralia-railstation-stub