East–west rail corridor, Australia

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 & the Melbourne–Adelaide railway Crystal Brook Adelaide-Port Augusta railway Port Augusta Trans-Australian Railway Tarcoola Adelaide–Darwin railway Trans-Australian Railway SA/WA border Trans-Australian Railway Kalgoorlie Eastern Goldfields Railway Northam Eastern Railway Perth

The east–west rail corridor is a standard gauge railway that runs across Australia starting in Sydney, linking the Eastern states to Western Australia.^[1] The Indian Pacific passenger service operates along the route, as do a number of local passenger services.

The route is made up of a number of individual railway lines constructed by various government railway authorities since the 1880s, the most significant portion being the Trans-Australian Railway which connected between Kalgoorlie and Port Augusta. It was not until 1970 that gauge conversion was carried out and through trains were possible along the entire route.^[2]

The rail corridor has an 81% share of land freight between the Eastern States and Perth, up from 60 percent in 1996–97,^[3] and saw a record 3.46 billion gross tonne kilometres of freight carried in November 2007.^[4] Major freight operators on the corridor include Pacific National, Aurizon, and SCT Logistics.

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