East–west rail corridor (Australia)
Australia's east–west rail corridor is a standard-gauge line that runs for across Australia from Sydney, New South Wales, to Perth, Western Australia.
The Indian Pacific long-distance passenger train operates along the entire route and The Ghan along part of it. A number of local passenger services operate at each end.
The corridor is heavily trafficked by freight trains.
, the rail corridor carried 81 per cent of land freight between the eastern states and Perth, up from 60 per cent in 1996–97; and in November 2007, 3.46 billion gross tonne-kilometres of freight was carried, a record at the time.
, 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 :
