The Ghan Katherine and Darwin; the stops at Alice Springs and Katherine allow time for passengers to take optional tours. Each train has 16 to 38 stainless steel carriages, built by Comeng, Granville, in the late 1960s / early 1970s for the "Indian Pacific", plus a motorail wagon. A Pacific National NR class locomotive, plus a second locomotive if necessary, usually hauls the train, but occasionally other engines assist, such as an AN class or a DL class locomotive. Starting in August 1929, "The Ghan" ran on the Central Australian Railway, originally built as a narrow-gauge railway to Alice Springs. In 1957,
Home Country Direct Home Country Direct Home Country Direct is a telecommunications service to facilitate calling one's home country while traveling abroad. It made it possible to speak with an operator familiar with the language of the traveler. The Home Country Direct number is usually a domestic toll-free number, and is specific to the pairing of originating and receiving countries. The first such services were established in the early 1980s by AT&T as "USA Direct"; reciprocal services from the United States were later established, and other countries also established the services, such as Canada Direct established by the former Telecom Canada alliance. As