Re: Long haul distances

[telljb@ozemail.com.au (Terry Burton)]

"David Bennetts" <davibenn@pcug.org.au> wrote:

>> According to Train Journeys of the World, the Indian Pacific travels
>3960km from Perth to Sydney (2461 miles to you imperialists), the Alice
>Springs Darwin line, despite political pronouncements from time to time,
>still looks a long way off, the first sod is still to be turned.  It's
>about 1500 km by road from Alice Springs to Darwin, so obviously a new line
>wouldn't be cheap, there was some talk a few months ago about private
>enterprise funding construction, supposedly Indonesian finance was involved
>in part, but look what's happened to their currency just recently.
>Regards
>David Bennetts

Not sure about Indonesian involvement, but the field
has been narrowed down to 6 consortiums and I under-
stand an announcement of the successful bidder will be
made at the end of this month according to Northern
Territory Government sources.

If it fails this time, I doubt it will ever be built.

Cheers

----Tell
Alice Springs NT