On Apr 29, 2:53 am, "rodney" <pookiet...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Just a shot in the dark,
> any Australian Railways collectors?
> I am guessing this is
> CAR=Central Australian Railways
> and is the date the ****t Augusta to Alice Springs
> closure of the narrow guage .
> Looking for confirmation.
>
> http://cjoint.com/data/eDiYo2knr0.htm
Hi Rodney:
It is from a Last Day Cover from the old Ghan
(Central Australian Railway) Travelling Post Office
(TPO) #2. 03 JAN 1981.
****t Augusta (postcode 5700) to Alice Springs.
Here is the cover
http://i3.ebayimg.com/03/i/05/dc/1b/62_1_b.JPG
A similar cancel exists with a 1 for TPO #!1.
(note the cachet)
http://i15.ebayimg.com/01/i/05/d6/3d/80_1_b.JPG
For 50 years the old Ghan bumped and banged twice
a month to Alice Springs over a poorly planned
combined jumble of broad and narrow gauge tracks.
(Prior to 1929 passengers made the final lap by camel.)
It stood as evidence of the colonial mix-up that saddled
Australia with a railway system run on three different
gauges.
The old Ghan
http://www.aussieheritagetours.com.au/Gallery/OLDGHAN.jpg
http://www.bcl.com.au/darwin/images/nttc/000225.jpg
The old Ghan ran her last trip in 1980 and today has
joined the lore of the outback, living on in fondly told
madcap stories. The apocryphal yarn of the beer bottles
just could have happened. It is said that on one trip the
passengers were stranded for days by a washout, drank
every bottle of beer on board and then drank every bottle
from a new supply dropped by parachute. They tossed
the empties out of the windows, leaving a double line of
colored beer bottles s****ing for miles beside the lonely
meandering track.
The old Ghan
http://rides.webshots.com/photo/1006407660014232594vieOYEdNtR
The new line is laid some 100 miles west of the old one,
where rain cannot wash it out. While the old train covered
a 540-mile stretch of the route in about 31 hours - when it
was on time - the new Ghan, which started service in 1981,
runs the entire 968 miles on standard-gauge track from
Adelaide to the Alice in 22 1/2 hours.
The new Ghan
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c2/The_Ghan_train.jpg/800px-The_Ghan_train.jpg
Blair
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