be adopted as the standard for Australia; that no mechanical, third rail, or other device would meet the situation, and that uniformity could be secured by one means only, viz., by conversion of the gauges other than 4-ft. The NRSR will help overcome inconsistent regulatory practices between the states and territories that have constrained rail transport operators across jurisdictional borders since federation. For at least 50 000 years, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have lived on these lands and practiced traditional cultures and languages. The Broken Hill to Port Pirie line in 1969 completed the standard gauge east-west transcontinental connection. In rail transport, track gauge is the spacing of the rails on a railway track and is measured between the inner faces of the load-bearing rails. For school and homeschooling projects or just reading New South Wales: In 1849, the Sydney Railway Company started building the first railway track in New South Wales between Sydney and Parramatta—a distance of 22 km. The late 19th Century was the high water mark of European imperialism. [36] From Cockburn to Broken Hill a new railway was built on an improved alignment, avoiding the private Silverton Tramway route. [17][18], Concerns over the gauge difference began to be raised almost immediately. While the railways were operated initially by private companies, a shortage of speculation capital resulted in the continued development of the railways being undertaken by individual colonial governments. Welcome to South Australia's SteamRanger Heritage Railway. Kalgoolie to Perth freight train times were reduced from 31 hours to 13 hours, and passenger train times from 14 hours to eight hours. Although there are still three different types of gauges used across the country, all Australian state capitals are linked by a single uniform gauge. The standard gauge link between Alice Springs to Darwin was completed in January 2004. Queensland: The first railway in Queensland ran from Ipswich inland to Grandchester using the narrow 1067 mm gauge. Before Federation in 1901, Western Australia had made the construction of a railway linking the nation’s eastern and western colonies a condition for joining the Commonwealth. Alice Spring… From the late 1700s, British colonies were established. New South Wales adopted the European standard gauge of 1435 mm, Victoria and South Australia built with the broad Irish gauge of 1600 mm, and Tasmania, Queensland, Western Australia and parts of South Australia used the narrow 1067 mm gauge. Australia's first rail systems were mostly built when the country consisted of sparsely settled colonies, before they combined to form a Federation of States in 1901. The 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) narrow gauge was introduced to Australia in 1865, when the Queensland Railways opened its first railway from Ipswich to Grandchester. Australian Railway Historical Society Bulletin, Australasian Railway Association 2004 network map, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rail_gauge_in_Australia&oldid=989640352, Use Australian English from February 2014, All Wikipedia articles written in Australian English, Articles containing potentially dated statements from 2014, All articles containing potentially dated statements, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, The NSW North Coast line from Acacia Ridge to, New standard gauge "strategic and developmental railway" from, This page was last edited on 20 November 2020, at 04:16. Queensland has retained its narrow gauge network, with only the interstate line to Sydney in standard gauge, while South Australia has the dubious distinction of having operating railways in all three gauges. In 1998, the ownership of the interstate rail network between Kalgoorlie in Western Australia and Broken Hill on the NSW / South Australian border and Serviceton on the Victorian / South Australian border was transferred from the Australian National Railway Commission to the newly formed ARTC. The different gauges can broadly be divided into the following four categories: Broad Gauge: width 1676 mm to 1524 mm or 5’6” to 5’0” Standard Gauge: width 1435 mm and 1451 mm or 4’-8⅟2” Metre Gauge: width 1067 mm, 1000 mm and 915 mm or 3’-6”, 3’-33/8” and 3’-0” Narrow Gauge: width 762 mm and 610 mm or 2’-6” and 2’-0”. For financial reasons with Birdum—a distance of 511 km—by 1929 of trade barriers, state. 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