AUSTRALIAN RAILWAY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3804, 8 February 1927, Page 50

AUSTRALIAN RAILWAY.

EROM NORTH TO SOUTH, r .. . SYDNEY, January 27. npn ? of the Australian contiintrL 1m 1 r i lday - a simple ceremony marked the honouring of a 20-year-iold promise to the South Australian State and people by the Commonwealth- Government The ceremony was the turning or tlie first sod of a line of railway at Oodnadatta, the terminus of the South Australian railway northwards, to link up with Ahce Springs, the terminus of the Northern Territory line southwards from Darwin. The promise was one given by the Federal Ministry of 1906 to South Australia that in exchange for the transfer of control of the Northern Territory, M len P or ti° n of South Australia, from le State to the Commonwealth, the north-south transcontinental line would be completed. The distance between the two present terminii is 291 miles. Oodnadatta is in the middle of the vast, dry, silent interior. Despite its dryness, this country is declared by those who know it to be capable of profitable development and production. The special train bearing Federal and State politicians to the scene of the ceremony saw plentv of evidence that the efforts of man could turn this apparently-arid region to blossoming plains, and residents aver that the linking of Oodnadatta and Alice Springs by rail will mean much the development not only of the p'ffiSenT" settled districts, but also of others where cattle and sheep rearing has not yet been attempted. The actual ceremony of turning the sod was witnessed by a little group of local residents and railway gangers. . The weather was mercurialiy cool?but a roaring wind scoured the bare brown plains and sent the dust swirling' round the speakers and audience. In the background aborigines beamed at the proceedings. The bells of a camel team jangled, and a little group of Afghans, drivers.of the camels watched, with who knows what feelings, the beginning of a work that will make their camels a back number.

No fewer than 11 speeches were made at the ceremony. The Federal -Minister for Works (Mr W. C. Hill) said that the line would cost, excluding rolling stock, £1,700.000. and would he completed not later than June 30, 1929. The principal advantages claimed for the new railway link are that it will prove an additional means of defence in a time of' war, it will tend to unite the people of south, north, and central Australia, and it xyill be .tlie forerunner of a definite attempt to provide a water supply and other facilities which would make for the settlement- and development of the interior of the continent. ,