The Sydney–Perth rail corridor, also known as the East–west rail corridor, is a railway route that runs for across Australia from

Sydney, New South Wales Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

, to

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 ...

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 ...

. Most of the route is under the control of the

Australian Rail Track Corporation The Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) is an Australian Government-owned statutory corporation. It operates one of the largest rail networks in the nation, spanning across five states and 39 worksites. ARTC continues to expand the networ ...

. The corridor is heavily trafficked by long-distance freight trains. , the rail corridor carried 81 per cent of land freight between the eastern states and Perth, up from 60 per cent in 1996–97; and in November 2007, 3.46 billion gross tonne-kilometres of freight was carried, a record at the time. , major freight operators on the corridor included

Pacific National Pacific National is one of Australia's largest rail freight businesses. History In February 2002, National Rail Corporation, National Rail's freight operations and rollingstock, jointly owned by the Government of Australia, Federal, Governm ...

Aurizon Aurizon Holdings Limited ( ) is a freight rail transport company in Australia, formerly named QR National Limited and branded QR National. In 2015, it was the world's largest rail transporter of coal from mine to port. Formerly a Queensland G ...

, and

SCT Logistics SCT Logistics is an Australian interstate transport company operating rail and road haulage, with facilities in Brisbane, Sydney, Parkes, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. History SCT Logistics was founded in 1974 as Specialised Container T ...

. The ''

Indian Pacific The ''Indian Pacific'' is a weekly experiential tourism-oriented 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 – ...

'', an experiential tourism passenger train, operates along the entire route, with the journey typically taking three days. Its sister train, ''

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 ...

'', travels over part of the corridor – from

Adelaide Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...

to Tarcoola – before it proceeds north to Darwin. Some local passenger services operate at each end (in

and

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

) but not in the central part, in

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

. Until the route was converted to

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 ...

in 1970, differing choices of track gauges by three state governments required passengers and freight to be trans-shipped at

Broken Hill Broken Hill is a city in the Far West (New South Wales), far west region of outback New South Wales, Australia. An inland mining city, it is near the border with South Australia on the crossing of the Barrier Highway (A32) and the Silver City Hi ...

Port Pirie Port Pirie is a small city on the east coast of the Spencer Gulf in South Australia, north of the state capital, Adelaide. Port Pirie is the largest city and the main retail centre of the Mid North region of South Australia. The city has an ex ...

, and

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 ...

. These stations were on the following lines (from east to west): *the New South Wales Government's standard-gauge Sydney–Broken Hill line, opened in 1927 *the Silverton Tramway Company's short narrow-gauge line from Broken Hill to Cockburn, opened in 1888 *the South Australian Government's narrow-gauge Cockburn–Port Pirie line, completed in 1888 *the Australian federal government's standard-gauge Port Pirie–Port Augusta line, opened in 1937, and its contiguous standard-gauge

Trans-Australian Railway The Trans-Australian Railway, opened in 1917, runs from Port Augusta railway station, Port Augusta in South Australia to Kalgoorlie railway station, Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, crossing the Nullarbor Plain in the process. Built to standa ...

, opened in 1917 as a major project following Australia's

federation A federation (also called a federal state) is an entity characterized by a political union, union of partially federated state, self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a #Federal governments, federal government (federalism) ...

*the Western Australian Government's narrow-gauge

Eastern Goldfields Railway The Eastern Goldfields Railway, was built in the 1890s by the Western Australian Government Railways to connect Perth with the Eastern Goldfields at Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie. It is a part of the interstate standard gauge railway between Per ...

from Kalgoorlie to

, opened in 1897.

References

Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:East-west rail corridor, Australia Railway lines in South Australia Railway lines in New South Wales Railway lines in Western Australia Standard-gauge railways in Australia Interstate rail in Australia Railway lines opened in 1970