Travel Australia

Classic Railway Stations: Tarcoola, South Australia

Tarcoola, 416 kilometres north-northwest of Port Augusta, is a former goldmining town. It now marks the junction of the standard gauge railway from Adelaide, with one line continuing north to Darwin, and the other turning west to Perth. There are only a handful of people living permanently in Tarcoola today, while relief and maintenance crews use the railway quarters during the working week. The mail for Tarcoola arrives by train. The Trans-Australian Railway was built through Tarcoola in 1915, and in 2004 the Adelaide–Darwin railway diverged from Tarcoola to Darwin. The town served as a railway service centre until 1998, after which rail services and crew changes were increasingly facilitated from Port Augusta and Tarcoola began to be progressively closed down.



The Ghan (running between Adelaide, Alice Springs and Darwin) and the Indian Pacific (running between Sydney and Perth) passenger services through Tarcoola both run once per week in each direction all year round, and twice per week at various times. These services share the same approximately 530 kilometres of track between Tarcoola and Crystal Brook, but generally do not stop at Tarcoola.


NSW steam locomotive 3801 takes on water at Tarcoola

There is a triangular junction at Tarcoola which joins Crystal Brook, Darwin and Perth. Another triangular junction at Crystal Brook joins Tarcoola, Adelaide and Sydney. The station has two triangles, one for turning locomotives, and the larger one to the west of the town gives direct access from the Darwin line to the Trans-Australian Railway to Kalgoorlie In 2018, the track between Tarcoola and Adelaide was upgraded from 47 kilograms per metre (95 lb/yd) to 60 kilograms per metre (120 lb/yd) rails. This was done while the track was open for service, with 600 metres (2,000 ft) of rail being replaced at a time between train services. The upgrade increased the maximum permitted axle load by four tonnes. The town's name, assigned when the town was proclaimed on February 21, 1901, was taken from the nearby Tarcoola Goldfields, which in turn had been named after the winner of the 1893 Melbourne Cup horse race. The horse Tarcoola had been raised on Tarcoola Station on the Darling River. Tarcoola in the local aboriginal language around Tarcoola Station means river bend.


Ruins on the Tarcoola Goldfields

Gold was discovered in the Tarcoola area by a shearing-shed hand and prospector named Nichols in October 1893. The attention of other prospectors was drawn to the area and further discoveries were made. The Tarcoola Goldfield was worked from 1900 to 1912 and sporadically thereafter until the present day. Total recorded production is 2 400 kg, most of it from the Tarcoola Blocks mine. The nearby Glenloth Goldfield (1899) produced about 315 kg. Tarcoola was originally surveyed and laid out into 330 allotments. The original Tarcoola goldfields are long closed. However, there is now new exploration for minerals in the wider area, including the Challenger Mine.


Trans Australian Expresss at Tarcoola, 1920s

When the gold petered out, Tarcoola almost died, but was given a new lease of life when the Transcontinental railway to Western Australia was pushed through Tarcoola South during the First World War. A bakery was built at Tarcoola to provide freshly baked bread to the passenger trains over the Trans Australian line and workers along the route.



The historic Wilgena Hotel (above), which still stands today, was moved down from the main town block of Tarcoola North at that time to service the collective thirst of the railway construction and maintenance gangs. When it closed, it was one of only two iron hotels left operating in South Australia. While at its original location, it was well patronised by shearing teams from the extensive pastoral runs of the area including Commonwealth Hill which is easily the biggest contiguous sheep run in SA and arguably the whole of Australia.



In 1980, when the old narrow gauge Ghan line through Marree and Oodnadatta was closed, a new standard gauge line to Alice Springs was built and it spurred north from the Transcontinental line immediately west of Tarcoola. The town then became a significant railway maintenance, crew-change and service centre with its own school, hospital, church, hotel, police station and community hall. After 1998, when Australian National transferred the responsibility for the Indian-Pacific and Ghan lines to the Australian Railtrack Corporation Ltd., rail services and crew changes were increasingly facilitated from Port Augusta and Tarcoola began to be progressively closed down.



Today there are only a handful of people living permanently in Tarcoola while relief and maintenance crews use the railway quarters during the working week. Most of the infrastructure is still intact and in reasonable order. The hospital is used periodically as a clinic and people from the surrounding sheep stations use the building intermittently for meetings and social purposes. The hall is an impressive structure; there is still a town power generating system and water is available from the extensive railway dams nearby.


To reach Tarcoola by road, take the Stuart Highway from Adelaide to Glendambo, and then to Tarcoola.