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
Home Country Direct the services long predated international freephone service +800, it was required to establish a toll-free number in each country that conformed to that country's method of establishing such a service. Since many countries had not yet migrated their freephone services to the better known 800 area code, it made for a variety of different numbers, including short dialing codes. The service might also be limited to payphones, and might require pre-pay using coins or a card. Once the number was dialed, the call was routed through the international switch, over overseas circuits, directly to an operator in the country being