Southern Cross is a town in

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

, 371 kilometres (230.5 miles) east of state capital

Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

on the Great Eastern Highway. It was founded in 1888 after gold prospectors Richard Greaves and Ted Paine during their October 1887 expedition successfully found gold, and gazetted in 1890. It is the major town and administrative centre of the Shire of Yilgarn. At the , Southern Cross had a population of 680. The town of Southern Cross is one of the many towns that run along the Goldfields Water Supply Scheme pipeline from Mundaring to

Kalgoorlie Kalgoorlie-Boulder (or just 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 referred to as Kalgoorlie–Boulder as the surroundi ...

, engineered by C. Y. O'Connor, and as a consequence is an important location on the Golden Pipeline Heritage Trail. A succession of gold rushes in the Yilgarn region near Southern Cross in 1887, at Coolgardie in 1892, and at Kalgoorlie in 1893 caused a population explosion in the barren and dry desert centre of Western Australia. It is named after the

Southern Cross CRUX is a lightweight x86-64 Linux distribution targeted at experienced Linux users and delivered by a tar.gz-based package system with BSD-style initscripts. It is not based on any other Linux distribution. It also utilizes a ports system to ...

constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The first constellati ...

, and the town's streets are named after constellations and stars. The surrounding areas produce

wheat Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...

and other

cereal A cereal is a grass cultivated for its edible grain. Cereals are the world's largest crops, and are therefore staple foods. They include rice, wheat, rye, oats, barley, millet, and maize ( Corn). Edible grains from other plant families, ...

crops. The town is a receival site for Cooperative Bulk Handling. Southern Cross is in the Federal electorate of O'Connor.

Climate

Railway

Narrow gauge route

The former narrow gauge route of the Eastern Goldfields Railway reached Southern Cross on 1 July 1894, and the Southern Cross to Coolgardie narrow gauge railway (via Boorabbin) was closed 29 November 1971. The Wyalkatchem to Southern Cross railway line, initially to Bullfinch from 1911, was opened in its full length in 1929. In 1933, the ''Southern Cross Southwards Railway Act 1933'' authorised the construction of of railway line south of Southern Cross, which would have taken the railway into the area of Marvel Loch, which was surveyed but not constructed. In 1932 the Wheat Pool of Western Australia announced that the town would have two

grain elevators A grain elevator or grain terminal is a facility designed to stockpile or store grain. In the grain trade, the term "grain elevator" also describes a tower containing a bucket elevator or a pneumatic conveyor, which scoops up grain from a lowe ...

, each fitted with an engine, installed at the railway siding. The ''Railways (Cue-Big Bell and other Railways) Discontinuance Act 1960'', assented to on 12 December 1960, authorised the official closure of 13 railway lines in Western Australia, among them the Southern Cross to Mukinbudin section of the railway to Wyalkatchem.

Standard gauge route

Southern Cross railway station Southern Cross railway station (until 2005 known as Spencer Street station) is a major railway station in Docklands, Victoria, Docklands, Melbourne. It is on Spencer Street, between Collins Street, Melbourne, Collins and La Trobe Street, La Tr ...

is on the

standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), international gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the ...

railway from Perth to Kalgoorlie. The construction and opening of the line from Perth was completed on 1 May 1967, and the connection to Kalgoorlie via Koolyanobbing was completed by 4 November 1968. The ''

Prospector Prospector may refer to: Space exploration * Prospector (spacecraft), a planned lunar probe, canceled in 1962 * ''Lunar Prospector'', a NASA spacecraft Trains * Prospector (train), a passenger train operated by the Denver & Rio Grande Western ra ...

'' and '' Indian Pacific'' passenger trains service the town.

References

External links