Sydney–Perth rail corridor

Australia's east–west rail corridor is a 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 ¹⁄₂ in) standard gauge line that runs for 4,352 kilometres (2,704 mi) across Australia from Sydney, New South Wales, to Perth, Western Australia.[1][2]

East–west rail corridor (Australia)

Sydney Sydney–Brisbane railway Sydney–Melbourne railway Main Suburban line Parramatta Main Western line Orange Broken Hill line Broken Hill NSW/SA border Broken Hill-Crystal Brook line to Adelaide and the Melbourne–Adelaide railway Crystal Brook Adelaide-Port Augusta railway Port Augusta Trans-Australian Railway Tarcoola Tarcoola–Darwin railway Trans-Australian Railway SA/WA border Trans-Australian Railway Kalgoorlie Eastern Goldfields Railway Northam Eastern Railway Perth

The 4,352 kilometres (2,704 mi) east–west rail corridor, which includes the 1,691 kilometres (1,051 mi) historically significant Trans-Australian Railway shown by a solid line (click to enlarge)

Leaving Kewdale Freight Terminal, Western Australia, is a typical freight train of the East–west rail corridor, with three locomotives totalling 9,340 hp (10,490 kW) power output, a crew car, and a train of up to 1.8  km of container cars (many of them double-stacked)

The Indian Pacific long-distance passenger train operates along the entire route[3][note 1] and The Ghan along part of it.[4] A number of local passenger services operate at each end.

The corridor is heavily trafficked by freight trains. As of 2008, the rail corridor carried 81 per cent of land freight between the eastern states and Perth, up from 60 per cent in 1996–97;[5] and in November 2007, 3.46 billion gross tonne-kilometres of freight was carried, a record at the time.[6]

As of 2020, major freight operators on the corridor include Pacific National, Aurizon, and SCT Logistics.

Historically, as a consequence of differing choices of gauges by three state governments, passengers and freight on the east–west journey had to be trans-shipped at Broken Hill, Port Pirie, and Kalgoorlie. These stations were on the following lines (from east to west):

• the New South Wales Government's standard-gauge Sydney–Broken Hill line, opened in 1927[7]
• the Silverton Tramway Company's short narrow-gauge line from Broken Hill to Cockburn, opened in 1888[8]
• the South Australian Government's narrow-gauge Cockburn–Port Pirie line, completed in 1888[9]^:27
• the Australian federal government's standard-gauge Port Pirie–Port Augusta line, opened in 1938,[9]^:27 and its contiguous standard-gauge Trans-Australian Railway, opened in 1917 as a project of Australia's federation[10]
• the Western Australian Government's narrow-gauge Eastern Goldfields Railway from Kalgoorlie to Perth, opened in 1897.[11]