Christmas Vacation 1994 by Dan and Judy Danz
This world-famous train service operates twice a week
in both directions over the 4348 kilometers of track between Perth on the
Indian Ocean in Western Australia to Sydney on the Pacific ocean along the
east coast of the continent. The train makes but a few scheduled stops
along the way, notably in Adelaide, the capitol of South Australia. The
coast-to-coast service only became possible in 1970, with the adoption of
standard gauge rail lines in the three states through which it passes.
If the train is on time, we'll spend 66 hours and 50
minutes on the trip. The cost: $932/person, first class sleeper
compartment, including 7 big meals on board.
Train Schedule
Day Time Place
14:40 Sydney
18:00 Lithgow
19:30 Bathurst
20:40 Blaney
21:05 Orange
23:30 Parkes
+1 01:15 Condobolin
+1 04:30 Ivanhoe
+1 06:50 Menindee
+1 08:20 BROKEN HILL
+1 12:20 Peterborough SA
+1 13:15 Gladstone
+1 16:00 ADELAIDE arr
+1 18:00 Adelaide dpt
+1 21:00 Coonamia
+1 22:35 Port Augusta
+2 01:40 Pimba
+2 03:50 Kingoonya
+2 05:00 Tarcoola
+2 10:10 Cook
+2 13:40 Loongana
+2 15:40 Rawlinna
+2 21:40 KALGOORLIE
+3 00:55 Southern Cross
+3 02:25 Merredin
+3 04:50 Northam
+3 07:00 PERTH
Day 1 -Thursday 22 Dec 94
Sydney
Judy and I left Sydney Central
Station at 14:42, traveling on the first part of our journey with fellow
American-expatriates David and Connie Jansen.
 The
class-CC model CLP diesel engine weighs 130 tonne and generates 3300
horsepower while pulling 18 carriages, with a mixture of 1st-class sleepers,
economy coach, 2 club cars, a buffet car, 2 dining cars and a crew dormitory
& luggage car, with a double-deck auto carrier car tacked on to the back
of our engine.
We're in carriage H, compartment
15/16, in the middle of the train. It's our first experience with a sleeper.
Three-seat bench, two shallow closets, ensuite bathroom with pulldown sink,
pulldown toilet, and with a few tugs on a curtain the whole bathroom becomes
a shower stall !! Barely enough room to turn around. Only one person can
dress at a time. At night, two beds pull down, and it gets even more
cramped.
The carriage SQUEAKS and GROANS
whenever it tips as it goes through curves, and the sound appears to be
centered right underneath our compartment. I'm convinced its a defect in the
suspension. No other car seems to make this loud noise which at times sounds
like a woodpecker with an air hammer!!
Falconbridge NSW
We get caught with our first one
hour delay in this far-western suburb of Sydney -- an urban train car on an
adjacent track had caught fire, bringing all train activity in the area to a
halt. We saw two ambulances speed by on the roadway, but an article in the
newspaper the next day didn't mention any casualties.
The Blue Mountains NSW
Lithgow NSW
Day 2 - Friday 23 Dec 94
After a rough night of shake,
rattle, squeak, and roll, we awoke to the sight of many
'roos and a few emus alongside the train tracks. The kangaroos are rather
graceful
 Emus
are ugly -- like an ostrich with longer legs and a round plump body.
Together, the emu and the kangaroo are the national symbols of
Australia.
A drought grips much of the nation
and especially this portion of NSW, but its obvious that there's been some
recent rain -- which has quickly evaporated. The countryside, in places,
reminds us of the desert north of Phoenix. Scrub brush trees are a lot like
mesquite trees. The earth is red to red-orange with spots of sandy tan
earth.
There are a few sealed (bitumen)
roads, but most roads are just hard-packed red clay tracks. Drivers have to
beware of nocturnal animal hazards, and most vehicles we see are 4WD types
with roobars welded to the front.
Menindee NSW
08:00 - Surprise:
it looks like vineyards in the area, but we're later told the local farmers
have discovered that with an earlier growing season and irrigation from the
nearby lakes and rivers hey can beat crops from other parts of the country
to the lucrative Sydney markets -- by 3 to 4 weeks. So the vines provide
grapes for the grocery rather than a winery.
Other sights: houses with
corrugated iron fences, dogs basking in sunshine in the middle of the desert
(cool breezes). Outside of town, Connie notices animal skeletons alongside
the tracks.
The landscape changes every 15
minutes or so. The train stops for few minutes to make a delivery to folks
at a remote pumping station on a pipeline that has been running parallel to
the tracks. We're undecided about what the pipe carries: water, oil, gas. A
travelogue later told us we had crossed the last river we would see on the
trip, and that the pipeline carried water to cities farther west, like
Broken Hill. The tracks run straight and true for kilometers and kilometers.
Broken Hill NSW
Mine tailings on the horizon. Silver, lead, and zinc
mines. The train stops briefly at this remote city in the southwest of NSW.
Off the train to stretch our legs. Weather remarkably cool breeze, bright
sunshine.
The track gets a lot better now -- concrete ties (called
sleepers by Aussie railroaders, for some strange reason), welded rails, and
greater speed. The land gets more and more arid. Streams rarely flow, but
the land gathers water from flash storms.
Peterborough SA
A railroad town out in the middle
of nowhere. Railway Hotel. Houses with painted tin roofs, one a bright
green. Large Catholic church amid squalid tin-wall, tin-roof shacks. The
town died with the advent of diesel locomotives that no longer need to stop
for water as often as the steam trains. The crop of the area is
predominately wheat, with miles and miles of golden waves of grain. David
and Judy say it reminds them of the wheat fields of Nebraska and Kansas,
respectively.
Adelaide SA
Nice modern terminal but too far
away from anything else in the downtown area. We had more than an hour
layover, but spent it buying souvenirs in the terminal building and walking
the length of the train, watching as they prepared to swapout one of the
economy-class cars that had air conditioning problems. The Salvos (Salvation
Army) had a band and chorus to serenade us with Christmas carols. The
weather in Adelaide was sunny but quite cool, especially for a summer day.
Yes, summer! We're down under, remember?
We departed Adelaide nearly an
hour late; but this seems to be a way of life for travel on this train.
Apparently, nobody expects it to operate on time.
The train passes a modern,
well-kept cemetery where each section has a different kind of headstone, but
all of the grave markers in each section are the same. Strange custom!
The outer suburbs are clean and
neat, despite being on a major train track. A tall hedgerow separates the
inhabitants from the travelers.
Farther out, there's a large chook
(chicken) farm, and many vineyards. South Australia is home to a
rapidly-growing wine industry. Many of the vines are covered by transparent
plastic tents.
We finally turn west as the sun is
setting over rolling hills colored golden brown, like northern California
wine country. Not a very spectacular sunset tonight -- just a golden red
glow, despite winds and dust in the air. After
dinner, we retire to the club car for a glass of port or a brandy, and the
four of us are joined by two other couples: Alan, a former RAAF fighter
pilot and his wife Marcia from Sydney and Egbert, a Swedish sociologist and
his wife Edith. The Aussie sounded like he'd been on this train before. The
Swedes were on the last leg of 3 months of poking around the South Pacific.
They would fly home after Perth.
Day 3 - Saturday 24 Dec 94
Somewhere in the middle of a desert, SA 
05:00 - The
sun is just beginning to rise - a bright yellow orb that rapidly jumps above
the horizon to chase us across a land of red earth and lots of green bushes
and shrubs. No tall trees, though ... and certainly neither hills nor
mountains. The clouds are like the land -- long thin strings of cotton rope
that stretch from horizon to horizon. Occasionally - very occasionally - the
color of the earth switches to sandy tan - but it doesn't last long. Back to
sleep.
06:10 - Our
porter tap-tap-taps on the door. She's brought two cups of coffee and bickies
(biscuits, what Americans would called shortbread cookies). Outside, the
view is the same: green and red (appropriate for Christmas).
We both slept much better last
night - not only were we tired from the lack of sleep the night before, but
this time the track was a lot straighter and the creaking was subdued.
Suddenly, there's a row of
white-painted auto tires laid out on the ground, perpendicular to the train
tracks. And then every 10 yards or so, there's two of them - and then
another two - and so on. Some Aboriginal ceremonial ground perhaps? It must
be, because now off to the side, there's a circle of white-painted rocks
surrounding a ceremonial area. What's that in the center? Why, its a wind
sock !! And the tires are edge markers for a runway for light planes!!!
Soon we pass a railroad shantytown
-- five houses, a water tank, some earth moving equipment, and little else.
One place appears to be made out of nothing but large panels of corrugated
iron. No sign of life - but somebody's been there recently. The airstrip
must be there to serve this tiny community. The Royal
Flying Doctor Service operates a life-saving service out of Broken Hill
and Kalgoorlie.
These are badlands -- terrible to
try to cross on foot or on horseback. The bushes wouldn't give much shade
but would be obstacles to be dodged. Even from the highest ridge you could
see little except the next ridge (10 ft above the ground and 100 yards
away). And if you climbed it to see where the best path was, all you'd see
would be the next mound. Something like trying to walk in brush-covered sand
dunes. There's evidence of water flows (like flash floods in the Arizona
desert) but no ponds, streams, or rivers (and Alan told us there won't be
any until we get to the coast 24 hours away).
We just passed a solar-powered VHF
radio relay station -- and all of sudden, the trees disappeared, the land
got a lot flatter and the bushes thinned out considerably. A lone bush
that's 5 feet tall sticks out like a sore thumb on a vast floor of ... of
nothing. The horizon is now a few miles away - and there must be a road
because I see two cars, one going each direction. This must be the start of
the infamous Nullarbor (Null Arbor - lack of trees) region. If you were on
horseback now, you could certainly see where you were going - but would have
nearly nothing but the sun for navigation and as it rose (to the north,
remember) it would be very easy to become disoriented and walk in circles.
If there's any wildlife here, we
haven't seen it. Maybe lizards could survive, but the birds have given up.
Nary a one in sight. One supposed inhabitant is the predator of the outback,
the dingo, sort of a cross between a coyote and a wolf. Nowhere on the
journey will we see a dingo. Judy reads in an Aussie book the definition of
a dingo breakfast: a piss and a look around.
A sign alongside the tracks
proclaims it the longest stretch of straight track - 477+ kilometers,
without any bends. At our present rate, it'll take more than eight hours
before the track bends.
Vegetation is now down to - at
most - 10 bushes per square mile - and they're getting fewer and farther in
between.
Ten minutes later, its down to
less than one bush taller than six inches per square mile. Nothing but flat
scrub-covered earth punctuated by an occasional mammoth (2 feet tall) bush.
It's like being in a canoe in the middle of a calm ocean.
Cook SA
The sign on the railroad station
wall says Cook 5710 but there has never been 1/10th that many people here,
even when the trains stop. 5710 is the postcode. The
population is more like 78 adults and kids, with a dog or two, all stuck
smack dab in the middle of the Nullarbor. It's a train town, and the people
that work here are the last of a dying breed. I talked to a few. The only
thing keeping them in Cook is that their jobs don't exist elsewhere. One
woman had been there 8 years. She said the children grow up with train sense
instead of car sense, and have to be trained before they go to the big
cities. But they don't have any crime, they leave their doors unlocked, and
they for sure don't worry about traffic. One huge mountain of a man -
obviously fond of his Toohey's beer - pointed to his 4WD vehicle with
road-to-rail wheels on the front and said "Hell, the only traffic
problem! 'round here is ME!!"
Ahead of schedule, we spent 90
minutes in Cook. They have a school, a pub/club, general (company) store,
and an above-ground community swimming pool. Supplies arrive once a week on
a freight car tacked on to the end of the train from Adelaide/Port Augusta.
They sell souvenirs at the train station with the profits going to their
hospital. The signs say
When you're crook,
come to Cook
We had to wait for the eastbound
Indian Pacific to arrive. The conductor on our westbound train explained
"Our two drivers are on that train." This is one the two crew
changes on the trip; the train is operated by three rail companies.
Trees are abundant at Cook because
of artesian (bore) wells into the honeycomb limestone under the earth, but
after 10 minutes of traveling farther west, even with binoculars we are hard
pressed to find a bush, let alone a tree. Nothing but sagebrush covering the
orange sands.
Kalgoorlie-Boulder WA 
The train stops for 1:45, so we
have time to take a whirlwind bus tour of this mining town of 30,000 people
perched on the edge of the goldfields. Gold was discovered here in 1893.
Kalgoorlie is experiencing a
rebirth after becoming almost a ghost town. Modern technology makes it
economically feasible to go after gold in low-grade ore (7 tonne for 1 oz of
gold, which a flashing sign on main street told us worth $459).
It's nighttime when we tour the
golden mile of mines. Huge towers are lit up by strings of yellow-white
light bulbs. One tower supports an elevator that takes 50 miners and
disassembled mining equipment a kilometer or more to an underground 5 square
kilometer staging area and from there through 2,000 km of underground
tunnels that lace the area.
The town is down to only 27 hotels
(pubs)..down from 138 at the peak, but still too many to cover in the yearly
pub crawl for the benefit of the Royal Flying Doctor Service. Then they only
do 22 hotels. Some of old hotels have been beautifully restored. One
curiosity, though, is the Railway Hotel whose sign proclaims it was
established in 1887. But the narrow-gauge railroad didn't arrive until 1896.
Hmmmmm.
We also toured infamous Hay Street
- with its "not legal, not illegal, but well-tolerated" brothels.
Some of the working girls did a dance on the verandah for us as the tour bus
passed the three active houses, all lit up with red and yellow neon lights
and red flashing beacons. The prostitutes are not allowed to solicit past
the verandah. However, our guide swears that they do take Visa and
Mastercard, and one house even has an EFT/POS terminal for direct debit of
up to $400.
I guess its a case of the world's
oldest profession joining forces with the most modern one. I can see it now
- the latest from our former employer; the folks who brought you StoreNet
and HealthNet now bring you: HookerNet. For a change, downtime might be
desirable, and the concept of remote service will probably be replaced by
hands-on service.
The lady clerking at the souvenir
kiosk said that a guy she went to school with is now a she and
is the madam at one of the houses who now takes great delight in surprising
his old mates when they show up for a bit of sport.
Our tour guide told of her youth:
after getting a drivers license, she and her mates would drive past the
houses yelling "Dad! Hurry up and get home. Mum's out on the
streets lookin' for yuh!"
Day 4 - Sunday 25 Dec 94 - Christmas Day
Outskirts of Perth WA
Houses !! At last. And hills,
too!! The sun gets up early here -- 05:10 this morning -- as we make our way
through the foothills east of Perth. More vineyards, but at least we finally
see some civilization. We stop in Midland to take aboard a WA agricultural
inspector who's looking for forbidden fruit. Maybe he should grab an
eastbound train to Kalgoorlie and check on Hay Street.
Perth WA 
That's the end of the great train trip ... we spent the rest of the vacation
in Western Australia and then returned to Sydney by air.
 Qantas
did the transcontinental trip at 33,000 feet, in 8 percent of the time, for half
the cost.
There's more information about the Indian
Pacific train on the Web, including a similar description by another
traveler a year later.
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