Talk:Central Australia Railway

Requested move 16 June 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved, looks reasonable. Michael Billington (talk) 10:34, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

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Central Australian Railway → Central Australia Railway – The title of this page is incorrect; the railway was named the "Central Australia Railway" with no "n" after Australia. The title of this page should obviously be consistent with the railway's actual name. References:
Australian National Railways Commission. (1983). Onward and upward : to commemorate the new Central Australia Railway crossing the border of South Australia and the Northern Territory. [Canberra] : Australian National Railways
Australia. Commonwealth Railways. Commissioner's Office. (1964). Central and North Australia railways.
Commonwealth Railways (Australia) (1900), Central Australia railway : historical notes http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/12446621 --Relisted. George Ho (talk) 07:37, 23 June 2015 (UTC) 2001:44B8:23C:C300:E92C:B2E3:A215:1551 (talk) 05:10, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

• Support per nom. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 01:01, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Early history of the name "Central Australian Railway"

There are a number of references to Central Australian Railway from approving the act to 1960's. These incluede

• The Age (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) 06 May 1961, Sat Page 17
• The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia) 15 Jan 1938, Sat Page 20
• The Age (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) 25 Mar 1967, Sat Page 7
• The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney, New South Wales, Australia) 12 Apr 1930, Sat Page 19
  • The Commonwealth Railways Commissioner (Mr. Gahan) announced that the winter timetable for the Central Australian Railway will commence with the Train leaving Adelaide on May 11th.

Skillsy (talk) 09:10, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

Resources

Thanks must go to ozlingula who produced a KML file around 2005. [Atlas] and [[1]] were used to verify. OpenStreetMap was updated at the same time so any mistakes will probably be replicated in OSM. Skillsy (talk) 09:10, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

Issues

There is some conjecture around Wire Creek, Todmorden, Mt Sarah and Mt Rebecca and a couple of other small sidings however I believe that the route is accurate. Where the standard gauge slightly overlaps or uses the same reserve (eg Puttapa and Beltana), I have kept it separate for simplicity. There are a number of areas where the route has been altered slightly a number of times but this is not shown. Level crossings have not been added due to the vast number along the Oodndatta track probably doubling the length of the box. Skillsy (talk) 09:12, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

External links modified

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Removal of para re population reduction along line.

I have removed "Communities after closure... One major change with the building of the new line (and resulting closure of the old) was that Oodnadatta and other communities along the route of the original line lost their railway service.[clarification needed][citation needed]" as there appears to be little census data to verify this during the period of the line and just after. The localities were too small to appear in the census and the figures for locations like Hawker disprove this. This requires further analysis or rewording. Clearly small sidings used by steam trains would have reduced with the transfer to diesel electric but droughts, farm consolidation and mechanical improvements would also be part of the decline in numbers which is more a general part of the period.

Town	1921 Census	1954 Census	1966 Census	1986 Census
Quorn	429	869	588	1386
Hawker	495	567	291	490
Kanyaka	153	153	153	in Quorn figures
Marree	-	-	286	-
Oodnadatta	-	-	147	-

--Skillsy (talk) 14:21, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

separating the older narrow gauge line from the newer line

Proposed separation of the two lines - the article as it stands could be confusing for first time readers not aware of the two separate lines and what and how things worked.

Anyone with thoughts on this matter? Worth the discussion before a formal move/separation stage. JarrahTree 03:06, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to it, but I think it could some additional content in this article before thinking about breaking it out - the delineation is not clearly explained here to begin with. The Drover's Wife (talk) 07:17, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

exactly there is no clear delineation ! JarrahTree 08:05, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

So do it here first, and then split it out later if there's enough to say on it - until that's done we've got no clue what a split article would look like. The Drover's Wife (talk) 08:22, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Agree, this article should be about the former narrow gauge railway. Text on the standard gauge line should be worked into the Adelaide-Darwin railway article. Teaxanball (talk) 21:21, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Concur with The Drover's Wife The standard gauge to Marree is best discussed here and if sufficient content, happy to split it out. Skillsy (talk) 09:24, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Are you talking about the standard gauge line to Marree? Remember it was inextricably tied in with the narrow gauge Stirling North–Marree line, by virtue of the so-called "pickaback" service (which I'm trying to get a licensable photo of) carrying narrow-gauge cars on standard-gauge flatcars -- i.e., operating as part of the CAR service. And the reason for building the SG line was that the NG line was too lightweight to handle the new postwar coal traffic and it was not much more expensive to build a brand new route than upgrade the flood-prone NG. Re Teaxanball's comment "Text on the standard gauge line should be worked into the Adelaide-Darwin railway article", I don't see any connection between the two (other than a coincidental but irrelevant 1435 mm). Please put me right if I'm misinterpreting you here (my mental acuity just may be affected by some, er, lab testing of a fine 10-year-old shiraz tonight). SCHolar44 🇦🇺 💬 14:16, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Telford Cut

Writing from the other side of the world (so obviously an expert ), I have revised Telford Cut#Rail transportation to make the CAR connection more explicit and fixed a few WP:EGG problems while there. Would someone with a bit more local knowledge check that it still makes sense, please? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 14:48, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Done! SCHolar44 (talk) 04:33, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

BBC Film 1980

I can find no evidence that the BBC filmed this line before closure as part of the 1980 series Great Railway Journeys of the World.

One of the 1980 episodes features the journey from Sydney to Perth. It is possible that the CAR was referred to in this episode.

Lkingscott (talk) 10:37, 20 January 2024 (UTC)