The Indian Pacific

On Sun., Nov. 3, around noon, the Indian Pacific railroad train pulled away from the train station in East Perth. The Indian Pacific has a total of 28 cars, including 1 engine, at least 2 baggage cars, and 3 car-transport cars, each carrying 8 passenger vehicles. Each car of the train is about 75 feet in length. There are 3 levels of service on the Indian Pacific: Gold, Platinum, and Red. The Gold level has sleeping berths. I'm not sure what the Platinum includes. And the ghetto, I mean Red, consists of recliner seats. We traveled in the Red Recliner seat section. Most of the passengers on the train were in the Gold class. The Indian Pacific is so called because it travels from Perth, on the Indian Ocean, to Sydney on the Pacific Ocean. We boarded the Indian Pacific in Perth, but were only riding as far as Adelaide, a 40 1/2 hour ride. We left Sunday at Noon and were scheduled to arrive in Adelaide at 7 o'clock Tuesday morning. There is a 2 1/2 hour time difference between Perth and Adelaide. The "train people" told us to move our watches forward a certain amount at designated times - not all at once. They said we were not on Perth time or Adelaide time or Sydney time, but we were on "Train Time". If we didn't have our watches set to the proper train time, we ran the risk of missing the train if we got off at one of the designated stops and did not get back on in time. The train traveled an average speed of 90 km/hour, which seemed very slow. Saturday we traveled faster than that by car, when the highways we were on had speed limits of 110 frequently posted. When the train got out into the open Nullarbor Plain, it picked up to 110 km/hour. When we first left Perth, after getting through the suburbs, we climbed slightly over some rolling hills, and then descended on the other side of these wooded hillsides and then eventually the land opened up to vast wheat fields, some hay fields, and some sheep farms. (There are lots of sheep in Australia.) As we traveled east, the land got flatter and flatter. It's obvious when looking over the landscape that the drainage is not well developed, and there are shallow sandy pools here and there. There continues to be a sense that Australia is mostly a dry, barren, desert country.

The lone Red car on the Indian Pacific is not full on this trip. There is room to spread out, and people are encouraged to do so, as well as to get up and walk around. The only 2 cars we are allowed to occupy are the one we are traveling in and the car directly behind us, which is the dining car. The people in the Red car are from all over the world: Switzerland, Austria, Germany, the UK, and there is at least one lady on board from Australia. There is also one very annoying lady who is playing her IPOD so loudly that even with her earphones in use, we know all the lyrics to the song "I Want to Know What Love is", and who talks so loudly on her cell phone that the whole Red car is now aware that she is 3 months behind on her rent. There are about 48 seats in the Red car. The seats are very comfortable, and they adjust almost to a reclining position (but no footrests). We were instructed not to sleep on the floor. There is lots of leg room. We were allowed to bring food on board and so we have our bags and backpacks full of sandwiches and snacks at our feet for easy access. There are also seat tray tops that you can put across your seat for eating on, or for reading and/or writing. There is a water fountain in the rear of the Red car, and a restroom and shower up front. The first designated stop the train made was at the town of Kalgoorlie. We left the train and boarded buses for a tour of Kalgoorlie, and also to view a mining pit. This tour actually took place from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. because it just happened to be the time we pulled into Kalgoorlie. Kalgoorlie is a mining town and the biggest ore mined here is gold. In fact, because of the large amount of gold mined here, Kalgoorlie is considered to be the Gold Capital of the world - at least that's the story according to the bus driver/tour guide. Because of the abundance of gold here, the mining pit is huge. The dimensions are listed as 3.5 km by 1.6 km (roughly 2 miles by 1 mile), and it is almost 700 meters (almost half a mile) deep. It is an enormous hole in the ground. They are so creative that they've called it the "Super Pit". No kidding, that's the official name it goes by. We were told that Kalgoorlie is not actually desert, but qualifies as semi-arid. The surrounding areas, however, are considered desert. Some of the areas nearby haven't had rain in 5 years. After leaving Kalgoorlie, we soon entered the Nullarbor Plain - a hot, barren plateau of pretty much nothing. Nullarbor means without (null) trees (arbor).

While the first part of the Nullarbor Plain is not totally devoid of trees - there are only a scraggly few here and there - it is a huge flat plain with very little else. As far as the eye can see, on either side of the train, just open flat plains. Occasionally the train slows down and then just comes to a complete stop. Apparently the rails are shared by other trains - both freight and passenger - and there are only certain places on the line that trains can pass each other. So we sit and wait until another train comes along and passes us in the opposite direction, and then we continue on our way. If some trains are not running on schedule, it then apparently affects the schedule of many other trains. One of the towns we passed through on the Nullarbor Plain is called Forest, this despite the fact that by now there are no trees in sight. It turns out that the town was named after an important Australian whose name was Forest.

The Nullarbor Plain eventually becomes completely treeless, true to its name. Even the few scattered trees are gone. All that's left is the red Australian dirt and some scruffy ground cover. This section of railroad track is the longest straight stretch of track in the world - 478 km (almost 300 miles). When the railroad line was being built, small settlements were built periodically along the track to assist with maintenance of the line. One of the remaining towns is a small settlement called Cook. Cook was once a thriving community, but now there are only 5 permanent residents left. At one time, Cook boasted of the fact that it had a hospital - very unusual for a small outback town. The only problem was that it needed patients to keep it viable. So Cook used to advertise for sick people to come here. Sick people were called "crook", so the first sign you see when you exit the train is a remnant from those days that reads

"If you're crook, come to Cook" and on the other side, it says "Our hospital needs your help. Get sick." Today the 5 residents are served medically by the aforementioned Royal Flying Doctor Service.

We disembarked from the train, walked around the dusty, hot streets of Cook (it felt like the upper 90s or low 100s), saw the old abandoned buildings: jail (Gaol in Australia) cells, general store, post office, school, hospital, and a Memorial Rock.

A plaque on the Memorial Rock marks an attempt by local residents to defy the treeless nature of the Nullarbor Plain. In 2006, 1000 trees were planted in Cook; a few of these trees remain today, and are the tallest and maybe the only trees in the Nullarbor. The Indian Pacific train brings food and supplies to the 5 residents of Cook, and in return the residents provide the train with fuel and water. Upon leaving Cook, we moved our watches forward 1 1/2 hours, so combined with the end of Daylight Savings Time in Pittsburgh last weekend, we are now back to 15 1/2 hours ahead of Pittsburgh time. It's ironic that the closer we get geographically to the US as we move east across the continent of Australia, the bigger the time difference, due to the International Date Line separating Australia and the US. We pulled into Adelaide around 7:45 a.m. Tuesday. Although the Indian Pacific train ride was extremely enjoyable, we woke up pretty tired this morning after spending 2 nights trying to get comfortable enough to sleep in the recliner seats. It will be nice to be back in a regular bed tonight.