A 3,000-km rail link spurs hopes of the city becoming a second Singapore
Australia's new transcontinental rail service from Adelaide to Darwin swung into action yesterday, the first freight train carrying with it a dream that the line will transform the country's most northerly city into a second Singapore.
The 1.2km-long train, decorated with Aboriginal artwork, pulled out of Adelaide's Keswick station carrying 1,300 tonnes of cargo, including cars, steel, cement and electrical goods.
Onlookers lined the tracks, waving the train off as it headed north into Australia's arid interior. The project's backers hope that the 3,000-km rail link will enable Darwin to become a trading gateway to Asia, handling billions of dollars of goods shipped to and from Southeast Asia, China, Hong Kong and Japan.
'The creation of the new trade route to Asia, which was conceived more than a century ago, will provide a fast, efficient and cheap transport system linking Australia with Asia,' Finance Minister Nick Minchin said.
For years the Northern Territory was known for its huge crocodiles, dramatic monsoon weather, Aboriginal culture and frontier characters.
The rest of Australia saw it as remote, swelteringly hot and populated by a motley assortment of eccentrics and renegades. An Australian novelist writing in the 1930s, Xavier Herbert, described the territory as a 'land of ratbags'.