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,
Esther Ghan Firestone Esther Ghan Firestone Esther Ghan Firestone (1925 – 28 May 2015) was the first female cantor in Canada, although she was not ordained. She began as a cantor in the mid-1950s at Toronto’s Temple Beth-El, and worked in Toronto at Temple Beth-El (mid-1950s to mid-1960s), Temple Emanu-El (1977), and later at Congregation Habonim Toronto from 1985 until some time in 2015. She was also a member of Kol Nashim (Hebrew for “All Women”), a sextet of female lay cantors founded in 1987. Aside from her cantorial work, she was a singer; after training as a pianist in Winnipeg and giving