Camel train train" often applies to Australia, notably the service that once connected a railhead at Oodnadatta in South Australia to Alice Springs in the center of the continent. The service ended when the train line was extended to Alice Springs in 1929; that train is called "the Ghan", a shortened version of "Afghan Express", and its logo is camel and rider, in honor of the "Afghan cameleers" who pioneered the route. The history of camel trains in the United States consists mainly of an experiment by the United States Army. On April 29, 1856, thirty-three camels and five drivers arrived at
The Ghan contrary view is that the name was a veiled insult. In 1891, the railway from Quorn reached remote Oodnadatta where an itinerant population of around 150 cameleers were based, generically called "Afghans". "The Ghan Express" name originated with train crews in the 1890s as a taunt to officialdom because, when an expensive sleeping car was put on from Quorn to Oodnadatta, "on the first return journey the only passenger was an Afghan", mocking its commercial viability. By as early as 1924, because of the notorious unreliability of this fortnightly steam train, European pastoralists commonly called it "in ribald fashion The