Great Western Coffee Shop

The Ghan - from Adeaide via Alice Springs to Darwin - is a train of extremes. How does it sit in each of these?

* Least frequent (realistic) commercial passenger service ?

* Longest journey ?

* and, it would seem, longest train - see The Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/oceania/australia/articles/the-ghan-runs-one-of-world-s-longest-ever-trains/?)

Also highly recommended. Did Alice Springs - Darwin in Gold Class in 2013. Very memorable.
The trains coaches used up most letters of the alphabet but my main problem was that they were not in alphabetical order!

I am not a huge fan of overseas travel, but that *is* one train I would like to experience.

According to Wikipedia (the font of all knowledge!) The Ghan does not make it into the top 40 longest direct train journeys. The Trans Siberian being the longest at over 10000 km

I was lucky enough to spend some of my redundancy payment back in November 2009 on Gold Class trips on both the Ghan and Indian Pacific trains. Operated by the same company, the on-train experience on both is pretty much the same, but naturally the geography of each trip is very different. Either trip definitely comes very highly recommended, but if I had to choose one over the other, I would go for the Indian Pacific rather than the Ghan.

On my bucket list too, when I win the lottery.

Getting there would be the main problem for me. Not a fan of such a long flight. Perhaps over land as far as possible.

Bnm try container ships.

One way would be.

Ship  UK to USA East Coast:  train to West Coast: ship Japan/China: ship Australia Darwin the start of the Ghan.

You may even get one direct to Australia from UK.

From the Daily Mail (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8956337/Ghan-train-turned-Northern-Territory-leaving-Adelaide-COVID-19-cluster-grows.html)


Still on my "bucket list", but I won't be taking any substantial risk of kicking the bucket by going any time soon. 2022 or 2023 perhaps?

Agree, a friend of mine has made numerous voyages by cargo ship and highly recommends this mode of transport.
Cabin-----excellent, would be called "super double emperor class" or some such nonsense on a cruise ship.
Food------Limited choice but of excellent quality, included in fare.
Drink-----Again limited in choice but very cheap, had to be paid for at "duty free" prices, not pub or bar prices. Soft drinks FOC.
Entertainments and communications limited to satellite TV, radio, library, DVDs, and very expensive sat phone.

Reasonably green. Ships use a lot of low grade and polluting heavy oil, but the EXTRA fuel used by adding a passenger is negligible.

Most voyages were between the UK and the USA, but included one direct voyage to Australia.
One voyage was in truly extreme weather, with the shipping weather forecast describing the sea state as "phenomenal" The very experienced Captain looked worried, and the officers kept checking the lifeboats.
The crew were observed to be praying for deliverance.

Other voyages have been less exciting.

For one awful moment I read that as ?Voyagers? to Australia. It would explain the prayers for deliverance.