SAR Scenario East-West Express V1

A scenario in the SAR Peterborough Base Session v1.0

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 the standard gauge and narrow gauge 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.

The  Getting Started  guide below gives a summary of what is available.