Forrest is a former small railway settlement and stopping place on the

Nullarbor Plain The Nullarbor Plain ( ; Latin: feminine of , 'no', and , 'tree') is part of the area of flat, almost treeless, arid or semi-arid country of southern Australia, located on the Great Australian Bight coast with the Great Victoria Desert to i ...

, west of the

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to ...

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 ...

state border. It was established in 1916 during construction of 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 ...

. The

2016 census Sixteen or 16 may refer to: *16 (number), the natural number following 15 and preceding 17 *one of the years 16 BC, AD 16, 1916, 2016 Films * ''Pathinaaru'' or ''Sixteen'', a 2010 Tamil film * ''Sixteen'' (1943 film), a 1943 Argentine film dir ...

recorded no residents. In the , the area had "no people or a very low population". Forrest is on the part of the Trans-Australian Railway that is the longest – at – stretch of straight railway line in the world. The settlement was named after

Sir John Forrest Sir John Forrest (22 August 1847 – 2 SeptemberSome sources give the date as 3 September 1918 1918) was an Australian explorer and politician. He was the first premier of Western Australia (1890–1901) and a long-serving cabinet minister i ...

, the explorer who became the first

Premier of Western Australia The premier of Western Australia is the head of government of the state of Western Australia. The role of premier at a state level is similar to the role of the prime minister of Australia at a federal level. The premier leads the executive br ...

. He was much involved in the push for Australia's federation and was the pre-eminent advocate for building the Trans-Australian Railway. By road, Forrest is accessible only by unsealed roads from the

Eyre Highway Eyre Highway is a highway linking Western Australia and South Australia via the Nullarbor Plain. Signed as National Highways 1 and A1, it forms part of Highway 1 and the Australian National Highway network linking Perth and Adelaide. It ...

at Eucla and Mundrabilla, about to the south-east and south respectively. Forrest Airport, on the east–west air route, is an important stopping place for refuelling aircraft with short-range flight capacity. It was established in 1929, when it was the overnight stop on the first scheduled passenger air service between

Perth Perth is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the Australian states and territories of Australia, state of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth most populous city in Aust ...

and

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater A ...

, operated by West Australian Airways from 1929 to 1934. It has been in continuous use since then. Today, the airfield consists of two sealed runways 1350 metres and 1520 metres long, an aircraft parking hangar, and Avgas and Jet A1 aviation fuel refuelling points. Nearby cottages can be booked for overnight accommodation. Although the Trans-Australian Railway runs past Forrest and there is a long crossing loop in the single-line track, Forrest no longer functions as a minor station as it did when it originated, in 1916, from the need to service steam locomotives and maintain track. Up to about a dozen railway families lived there for four decades. However, from 1951, when steam engines were replaced by diesel locomotives that did not have to stop regularly for water and were very reliable, fewer employees were needed. A change-over from timber to concrete sleepers, continuous welded rail and mechanised track maintenance equipment also reduced the need for labour, and eventually the employee housing and all other railway facilities were demolished. After 1997, when the assets of Australian National Railways were sold to private operators, all maintenance of track and facilities was undertaken by non-resident contractors. The track configuration was a crossing loop, a goods loop of and a short camp-train siding for emergency use. The sole passenger train on the line, 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, li ...

'' experiential tourism train, does not stop there.

Climate

Forrest has a typical

arid climate The desert climate or arid climate (in the Köppen climate classification ''BWh'' and ''BWk''), is a dry climate sub-type in which there is a severe excess of evaporation over precipitation. The typically bald, rocky, or sandy surfaces in deser ...

; however it is cooler in summer than much of the Australian desert due to its proximity to the ocean. Despite this, Forrest held the record for the equal 6th-hottest temperature in Australia, being recorded on 13 January 1979.

Notes

References

{{authority control Towns in Western Australia Goldfields-Esperance Nullarbor Plain Trans-Australian Railway

Climate

See also

Notes

References