DescriptionMap of Australia's north-south rail corridor (Adelaide to Darwin).tiff
English: A satellite image of South Australia and the Northern Territory superimposed with the routes of the four railways comprising Australia's north–south rail corridor that connects Adelaide and Darwin. More details are shown below.
Date
Source
Background satellite image: NASA (Visible Earth -- public domain).
The map shows the continuous north–south standard-gauge rail corridor through the centre of the Australian continent that was finally completed in 2004, 126 years after construction of its two narrow-gauge predecessors – never completed – was started in 1878.
The line has one passenger service: the weekly (as of 2019) Adelaide–Darwin luxury passenger train, The Ghan. Far more significant for revenue is freight haulage.
Each of the five railways constituting the route has a separate, distinctive history and identity, with their opening dates spanning 87 years. From Darwin southwards, they are:
the Alice Springs–Darwin railway, consisting of the AustralAsia Railway (no longer named as such), opened in 2004
the Tarcoola–Alice Springs Railway (also no longer named as such), opened in 1980
the eastern end of the Trans-Australian Railway, opened in 1917
Collectively, these are most commonly referred to as the Adelaide–Darwin rail corridor or the north–south rail corridor.
Because five railways make up the transcontinental corridor, the name "Adelaide–Darwin Railway" does not exist in formal use, although the descriptive term "Adelaide–Darwin railway" (or "line" or "route") – with a lower-case "r" – is widely used. However, it can have various meanings: the news media in particular variously use it to refer to:
the entire route
or the Tarcoola–Darwin railway
or the Tarcoola–Darwin railway plus the Tarcoola–Port Augusta part of the Trans-Australian Railway.
The satellite image captures the region in winter, when rain falls in the southern temperate areas and the northern tropical wet season is yet to start. The centre of the continent is arid all year around.
The NASA website hosts a large number of images from the Soviet/Russian space agency, and other non-American space agencies. These are not necessarily in the public domain.
The SOHO (ESA & NASA) joint project implies that all materials created by its probe are copyrighted and require permission for commercial non-educational use. [2]
The person who associated a work with this deed has dedicated the work to the public domain by waiving all of their rights to the work worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law. You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.
http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.enCC0Creative Commons Zero, Public Domain Dedicationfalsefalse
Captions
A satellite image of South Australia and the Northern Territory superimposed with the routes of five railways comprising Australia's north–south rail corridor connecting Adelaide and Darwin
Uploaded a work by NASA and SCHolar44 from Background satellite image: NASA (Visible Earth -- public domain). Other artwork: SCHolar44 with UploadWizard
File usage
The following pages on the English Wikipedia use this file (pages on other projects are not listed):