Re: THE GHAN

[telljb@OZozemail.com.au (< Tell >)]

"Derick Wuen" <cullend@webone.com.au> wrote:
>
> By the '70's the track speed restrictions were such that a name change from
> the Fast Mixed to practically anything that did not promise to deliver speed
> was inevitable. Progress across the NG could be described as stately at
> best, a crawl at worst.


How true, but it was a unique trip.
  
The term Fast Mixed was not a reference to track speed,
but sectional times.  The Ghan was not allowed to go
any faster than the others.  The slow mixed trains
carried passengers in the original NG Passenger stock
but they were "slower" due to wayside goods, parcels,
setting down and picking up wagons and passengers.

The Slow Mixed also had one other very important
function, a lot of the fettlers camps had no water
supply, the evaporation rate was too high for dams and
the bore water if found was unfit for humans, so tank
wagons were used to drop water into underground tanks
at trackside.  

----Terry Burton
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