SAR Scenario East-West Express

Latest revision as of 17:28, 16 October 2022

	2   Vintage East-West Express: Terowie to Port Augusta Passenger
A scenario in the SAR Peterborough Base Session

A limited stop passenger service from Terowie to Quorn.

 The Historical Bit 

From 1917 to 1932 the  Terowie-Peterborough-Quorn-Port Augusta Line  was a vital part of the transcontinental rail link between Sydney, NSW on the east coast and Perth, WA on the west coast.

The South Australian Railways provided an express passenger service, the East-West Express, that ran between Terowie and Port Augusta via Quorn. The name "East-West" came from its role in connecting the eastern side of the continent to the western side - in reality the service ran mostly North-South. The return service, from Port Augusta to Terowie, was called the West-East Express.

At Terowie it connected with broad gauge services from Adelaide and Melbourne. At Peterborough it connected with narrow gauge services from Broken Hill where there was a standard gauge connection from Sydney. At Quorn it connected with narrow gauge services from the  Central Australia Railway . At Port Augusta it connected with the standard gauge  Trans Continental Railway  to Kalgoolie, where there was a narrow gauge connection to Perth.

Passengers making the entire trip from Sydney to Perth would:-

• change trains 5 times - at Parkes NSW, Broken Hill NSW, Peterborough SA, Port Augusta SA and Kalgoolie WA plus take a taxi between two stations in Broken Hill
• change track gauges 3 times - standard gauge to narrow at Broken Hill, narrow gauge back to standard at Port Augusta and standard gauge to narrow at Kalgoolie
• navigate through 5 different rail systems - NSWGR, Silverton Tramway, SAR, Commonwealth Railways and WAGR

The entire journey, from coast to coast, could take 6 days, if all the connections were made.

In 1932 a more direct broad gauge line from Adelaide to Port Augusta via Port Pirie was completed. This cut nearly 70 miles (113km) off the journey. The East-West Express then ran as a broad gauge service on that line although an express passenger service continued to run between Terowie and Port Augusta until 1937. In 1970 the narrow and broad gauge lines from Broken Hill to Port Pirie, Port Pirie to Port Augusta and Kalgoolie to Perth were converted to standard gauge, followed by the later conversion of the broad gauge line from Adelaide to Port Pirie.

Today passengers can board a luxury train, the Indian Pacific, in Sydney and travel the entire distance to Perth via Adelaide in 3 days without leaving the train or changing gauge.

Era:  1917 to 1930s  Duration:  3 hours  Loco:  SAR T 197 at Terowie Station Sidings The has locos available at the  Peterborough Loco Depot  for an optional loco swap SAR T 23 at  Loco Sidings  SAR T 233 at  Loco Sheds   Consist:  Attached to SAR T 197 3 BL Coaches 1 Guard Van

Each location in the layout has a detailed set of track diagrams that provide a variety of useful information The  Getting Started  guide below gives a summary of what is available. To display this information click any graphic, or go to the bottom of the page for all the session links (all links will open in this window).

Tutorial: A tutorial on using these scenarios is provided in the link on the left. The link will open in this window

Orders: Shunt the train into the narrow gauge Platform 3 at Terowie  Station  so passengers from the Adelaide Express on platform 2 can board. Proceed to Quorn according to the timetable shown below. At Quorn detach the loco and proceed to the  Loco  Depot. A CR loco and crew will take the train to Port Augusta. Coal and water the loco and stable in the shed. Terowie dep 08:05   Carrieton arr 09:57 (load coal) Peterborough dep 08:30     dep 10:07 Orroroo dep 09:14   Hammond dep 10:35 Eurelia arr 09:38 (load water)   Bruce dep 10:49   dep 09:42   Quorn arr 11:15 Driving Notes: A summary of the facilities and product loads at all locations along the lines is provided in the links and The approaches to all locations are protected by invisible signals to prevent the AI Half Speed Slowdown Problem when approaching a signal at stop. Trackmarks and industries have been provided for AI Drive To Trackmark, Drive via Trackmark and Drive to  Industry  commands. Click for details. Industry active stations (where you can use the Drive To industry command) are only at Terowie, Peterborough and Quorn. Industry active stations will have a longer than expected wait time. Manual (no AI) driving is possible. As a visual driving aid, a Caution warning sign has been placed at the location of the Main Approach Dn and Main Approach Up trackmarks. Click for details. If driving manually in yards, you are responsible for correctly setting any catch points.

Links: All links will open in this window
	Session Scenarios	Location List	Drive Tutorial	Rolling Stock	Loco Roster	Active Industries

This page was created by Trainz user pware in February 2021 and was last updated as shown below.