Port Augusta is a small coastal city in South Australia about 310 kilometres (190 mi) by road from the state capital, Adelaide. Most of the city is on the eastern shores of Spencer Gulf, immediately south of the gulf's head, comprising the city's centre and surrounding suburbs, Stirling North, and seaside homes at Commissariat Point, Blanche Harbor and Miranda. The suburb of Port Augusta West is on the western side of the gulf on the Eyre Peninsula. Together, these localities had a population of 13,515 people in the 2021 census.
Port Pirie is a small city on the east coast of the Spencer Gulf in South Australia, 223 km (139 mi) north of the state capital, Adelaide. Port Pirie is the largest city and the main retail centre of the Mid North region of South Australia. The city has an expansive history which dates back to 1845. Port Pirie was the first proclaimed regional city in South Australia, and is currently the second most important and second busiest port in SA.
Tocumwal is a town in the southern Riverina region of New South Wales, Australia, in the Berrigan Shire local government area. The town, 270 kilometres (170 mi) north of the city of Melbourne, lies on the northern bank of the Murray River, which forms the border with Victoria.
Crystal Brook is a town in the Mid North of South Australia, 197 kilometres north of the capital, Adelaide. According to the 2021 Census, the population of the town was 1,322. Crystal Brook is in a very picturesque location, being at the start of the Flinders Ranges. The town has multiple viewing points and parks. It was named after the spring-fed creek next to which it was founded.
Peterborough is a town in the mid north of South Australia, in wheat country, just off the Barrier Highway. It was originally named Petersburg after the landowner, Peter Doecke, who sold land to create the town. It was one of 69 places in South Australia renamed in 1917 due to anti-German sentiments during World War I.
Australians generally assumed in the 1850s that railways would be built by the private sector. Private companies built railways in the then colonies of Victoria, opened in 1854, and New South Wales, where the company was taken over by the government before completion in 1855, due to bankruptcy. South Australia's railways were government owned from the beginning, including a horse-drawn line opened in 1854 and a steam-powered line opened in 1856. In Victoria, the private railways were soon found not to be financially viable, and existing rail networks and their expansion were taken over by the colony. Government ownership also enabled railways to be built to promote development, even if not apparently viable in strictly financial terms. The railway systems spread from the colonial capitals, except for a few lines that hauled commodities to a rural port.
The first railway in colonial South Australia was a line from the port of Goolwa on the River Murray to an ocean harbour at Port Elliot, which first operated in December 1853, before its completion in May 1854.
Merredin is a town in Western Australia, located in the central Wheatbelt roughly midway between Perth and Kalgoorlie, on Route 94, Great Eastern Highway. It is located on the route of the Goldfields Water Supply Scheme, and as a result is also on the Golden Pipeline Heritage Trail.
Laura is a rural town in the Mid North region of South Australia, 12 km north of Gladstone on the Horrocks Highway and 40 km east of Port Pirie. The first European to explore the district was Thomas Burr in September 1842. His promising reports soon led to occupation of the district by pastoralists, one of whom was Herbert Bristow Hughes. When the present town was surveyed he named it for his wife, Laura née White.
Wolseley is a small South Australian town near the Victorian border. It is five kilometres south of the Dukes Highway and 13 kilometres east of Bordertown. It was first proclaimed a town in 1884.
Booleroo Centre is a town in the southern Flinders Ranges region of South Australia. The town is located in the Mount Remarkable District Council local government area, 282 kilometres (175 mi) north of the state capital, Adelaide. At the 2006 census, Booleroo Centre had a population of 516.
The Crystal Brook–Broken Hill railway line is a 371 kilometre line running from Crystal Brook to Broken Hill on the Australian Rail Track Corporation network.
The Steamtown Heritage Rail Centre ("Centre") is a static railway museum based in the former railway workshops located in Peterborough, South Australia.
Peterborough railway station is located on the Crystal Brook-Broken Hill line in Peterborough, South Australia.
Gladstone railway station is located on the Crystal Brook-Broken Hill line in Gladstone, South Australia.
Ellen Street railway station was the second of six stations that operated successively between 1875 and the early 2010s to serve the rural maritime town of Port Pirie, 216 km (134 mi) by rail north of Adelaide, South Australia. Soon after construction of the line towards Gladstone began in 1875, an impromptu passenger service commenced. The inaugural station, Port Pirie South, was 800 metres from the centre of the town. Since two tracks had already been laid down the middle of Ellen Street to the wharves, a small corrugated iron shed was erected as a ticket and parcels office. The street-side location was unusual for the South Australian Railways. In 1902, when passenger traffic had increased greatly, a stone building was erected in a striking Victorian Pavilion style. After the tracks were removed in 1967 and the station closed, the building's design assured its retention as a museum of the National Trust of South Australia.
Port Pirie railway station (Mary Elie Street) was the fifth of six railway stations for passengers that operated at various times from 1876 to serve the small maritime town (later city) of Port Pirie, 216 kilometres (134 miles) by rail north of Adelaide, South Australia. As with several of Port Pirie's other stations before it, the station was built to accommodate a change of track gauge on railway lines leading into the town.
Solomontown is a suburb of Port Pirie in South Australia. It was historically a separate town. It was named after Emanuel Solomon, who owned the land that the town developed on.
The Wilmington railway line was a railway line on the South Australian Railways network. It opened from Gladstone to Laura on 2 June 1884. It was extended from Laura to Booleroo Centre on 13 April 1910, and to Wilmington on 20 July 1915.
The railway station located at Port Pirie South bore the name "Port Pirie" from when it was built in 1876 until it was superseded in 1902 by a passenger station in the centre of Port Pirie. The new station was then assigned the name "Port Pirie railway station" and the original was named Port Pirie South railway station, in keeping with the naming of the adjacent Port Pirie South railway yards.
