Reliving history on Australia's old Ghan railway

By Jason Szep

ALICE SPRINGS, Australia, Nov 21 (Reuter) - As the train chugs through the harsh, sunbaked desert, Evelyn Thomson's expression sinks into disbelief as she looks out the window at the dusty contours of the Australian outback.

"It's strange," the 69-year-old American from upstate New York says slowly in a tone mixed with awe and curiosity. "As far as I'm concerned this is all better than New York."

Thomson was aboard the historic Ghan train, named after the Afghan camel drivers who first carved the route from Adelaide in southern Australia to Alice Springs in the continent's dry desert heart in the late 1800s.

The original Ghan, which opened in 1929 after 50 years of construction, creaked across termite-ridden railway sleepers for weeks in blistering heat to usher a new era of industry into the unsettled outback and put Alice Springs on the map.

Now, the trip is done in 22 hours and is considered the most luxurious train ride in Australia, evoking the pioneering mystique of the original Ghan while symbolizing an effort to revive long-distance railway travel in the country.

"It's one of the Australian icons," explains Randall Whyte, a sales manager at Australian National Railways, a government-run agency that refurbished the Ghan in 1988. "It has a history behind it. We call it the legendary Ghan."

The Ghan now runs at speeds of 110 kmh (68 mph) on an entirely new track. Ticket sales by international travelers are up 40 percent over the past five years.

"Not many use it as pure transportation. Most people treat it as a one-off novelty," said Glen Dahlenburg, a Ghan steward as he makes his way through the Ghan's 23 cars which stretch for one kilometer (over half a mile).

The Ghan's trip begins in Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, where it rolls through grassy plains and foothills. From there, it traces a virtual straight line through old mining towns like Coober Pedy and Tarcoola to the Simpson Desert.

As complete darkness overtakes the train, it is easy to imagine the awe and harrowing emptiness felt by bands of workers in the late 1800s, who rode for months across the desert on the backs of camels, laying a telegraph line between Adelaide and Darwin on Australia's north coast.

Time seems to slow as the Ghan churns ahead. The sleeping cars, adorned in Art Deco motifs reminiscent of the era when the original Ghan blew its first whistle, begin to fill and lights are slowly turned off.

Some passengers, drawn from various quarters of the globe, linger in the lounge cars, swapping travel stories over drinks or sometimes stumbling on amusing cultural differences.

Passengers wake in the morning to find themselves in Australia's "red centre" -- a rugged, red desert considered among the oldest crusts of earth on the planet -- as the train rolls towards the town known in the outback merely as Alice.

Early risers watch for kangaroo. Many passengers are in no rush to reach Alice Springs and say they use the time to relax from an otherwise busy travel schedule, reading books they've wanted to read for years.

"It's lived up to its expectations," said John Keohane, a British traveller and train buff who works as a beefeater (warder) at the Tower of London. "For me the Ghan was a must."

The train has won the hearts of many tourists willing to pay up to A$456 (US$337) for first class tickets, but 45-year-old engine driver Lyton Launer still affectionately remembers the days of the original and often unreliable Ghan.

"There was no air conditioning on those trains. I don't think people could hack it today," said Launer, who has worked on trains for 24 years.

Dahlenburg nods and recalls times when the original Ghan would crawl so slowly people could walk beside it. "She was a classic," he says wistfully.

The refurbished Ghan is built for tourists and has no such sentimental quirks. Most use it as a colorful way to get to Alice Springs before heading west to nearby Uluru, the aboriginal name for the massive red monolith once known as Ayers Rock, one of the country's big tourist attractions.

(Article is no longer on reuters.com)