Sheeter:
Spardo - It appears that Northline, a large transport company in the area have withdrawn from using the new Alice Springs to Darwin rail link due to no financial advantage and loss of flexibility, thus putting 85% of the traffic back on to trucks.
See this link
Dave,
That is amazing, I really thought that the long awaited rail connection would spell the death knell for the long haul road operations, reducing it to feeder services east and west from the main spine of the Stuart Highway.
Why do you think this is? Did the train not stop at enough places en route or weren’t there enough trains? I don’t know what route the rail took, I assumed close to the highway, but perhaps it was too far out of the way. Just shows, if they had built the railway 100 years ago when first promised, would road trains have taken off the way they did? Whatever the answer I’m glad they did, it gave me the experience of a lifetime!
BTW - Liked the ‘plodden Fodden’, as Territorians used to call them!
Salut, David.