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
Enterprise (train service) by Eurostar, with the interiors identical. The EMU stock is articulated and permanently coupled, but the Enterprise is ordinary coaching stock. The service had suffered from a lack of reliability of the locomotives, which provide head end power to the train. Unlike IÉ's Dublin-Cork services, which operate with the locomotive operating with a generator control car that provides power for lighting and heating the train, the Enterprise fleet was only equipped with an ordinary control car, which had no power generating capability. This meant that the locomotive had to provide all the power for the train, both motive and generating.