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The train was running late, but the 35 aboriginal children who had travelled for two hours through the South Australian desert to meet it did not seem to mind. It was, after all, Australia’s and one of the world’s most unusual train journeys. When the Indian Pacific passenger train finally ground to a halt at Watson, a siding on Australia’s transcontinental line, the children burst into a rendition of a Spanish Christmas song, "Feliz Navidad", as Father Christmas disembarked to distribute gifts.
Watson is a red desert moonscape on the Nullarbor Plain at the eastern end of the world’s longest stretch of straight rail track, 478km (297 miles). This is a mere one-tenth of the 4,352km, three-day journey the train was making between Sydney on Australia’s east coast and Perth on the west coast. The Indian Pacific and its predecessors, such as the Tea and Sugar Train that took provisions to isolated outback communities, were once symbols of Australia’s conquest of its vast distances. But by the 1990s, air travel and the neglect of Australia’s railways by their federal and state-government owners almost killed the last east-west passenger train.
After threatening to close the loss-making Indian Pacific, the federal government in Canberra sold it and the Ghan, another outback passenger train, to Great Southern Railway (GSR), a British-owned private consortium, in 1997. GSR has now turned a first-year loss of A$20m ($15m) into a small operating profit by restoring rolling stock, hiring young, multi-skilled, non-unionised crews and re-marketing the trains to locals and tourists alike. One innovation was to send the Indian Pacific on a whistle-stop Christmas run taking gifts and music to the outback. This year’s journey, the fifth, with impromptu concerts at remote sidings by Jimmy Barnes, an Australian rock star, drew the biggest crowds so far. Broken Hill, a town in western New South Wales struggling since its big silver, lead and zinc mine started winding down, now relies on the Indian Pacific’s tourist passengers for economic lifeblood.
The Ghan’s revival on the north-south transcontinental line has been even more remarkable. The 65,000-plus passengers it carried through the Northern Territory in 2004 were 60% more than in the previous year. Public interest grew after the opening of a new line between Alice Springs and Darwin, allowing people to make the two-day journey from Adelaide by rail for the first time. GSR plans to double the Ghan’s frequency in 2005.
The railway revival still has inefficiencies to overcome. The Indian Pacific competes for space on the single track with trains that carry 80% of the freight between Australia’s east and west coasts. Though most of the line is straight and flat, speed limitations mean this is not a journey for anyone in a hurry.
注（1）：本文选自Economist; 12/18/2004, p54-54, 2/5p；
注（2）：本文习题命题模仿对象2004年真题Text 1；
1. What was the Indian Pacific like before its selling to GSR?
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