The Ghan of the sidings. In October 1980, a new standard gauge line from Tarcoola to Alice Springs on the Trans-Australian Railway opened, and the train took the form it has today. The new line is approximately west of the former line in order to avoid floodplains where the original line was often washed away during heavy rain. It was also hoped that the construction of the new line would improve the train's timekeeping. In November 1998, one service per week was extended from Adelaide to Melbourne while from April 1999, the other was diverted to operate to Sydney. Construction of Alice
First Train Home it was too late and lived three hours away. So I was stuck [...] Literally, you just want to scream and slap everyone around (not really slapping everyone around - joking), but you know you just don’t want to be there. Panic attack set in. Cold sweats. And I just wanted to get on the first train home basically. I did eventually – got the first train home, stayed up all night and wrote the song on the piano at home really quickly. What’s lovely about it is that I recorded the song in the studio which is directly underneath