A transcontinental railroad or transcontinental railway is contiguous railroad trackage that crosses a continental land mass and has terminals at different oceans or continental borders. Such networks may be via the tracks of a single railroad, or via several railroads owned or controlled by multiple railway companies along a continuous route. Although Europe is crisscrossed by railways, the railroads within Europe are usually not considered transcontinental, with the possible exception of the historic Orient Express. Transcontinental railroads helped open up interior regions of continents not previously colonized to exploration and settlement that would not otherwise have been feasible. In many cases, they also formed the backbones of cross-country passenger and freight transportation networks. Many of them continue to have an important role in freight transportation, and some such as the Trans-Siberian Railway even have passenger trains going from one end to the other.
Africa
East-west
There are several ways to cross Africa transcontinentally via connecting east–west railways. One is the Benguela railway, completed in 1929. It starts in Lobito, Angola, and connects through Katanga to the Zambia railways system. From Zambia several ports are accessible on the Indian Ocean: Dar es Salaam in Tanzania through the TAZARA, and, through Zimbabwe, Beira and Maputo in Mozambique. The Angolan Civil War made the Benguela line largely inoperative, but efforts are being taken to restore it. Another west–east corridor leads from the Atlantic harbours in Namibia, either Walvis Bay or Luderitz to the South African rail system that, in turn, links to ports on the Indian Ocean ( i.e. Durban, Maputo). A 1015 km gap in the east–west line between Kinshasa and Ilebo is filled by riverboats. It could be plugged if a new railway were to be built, as was discussed in 2009. There are two proposals for a line from the Red Sea to the Gulf of Guinea, including TransAfricaRail. In 2010, a proposal sought to link Dakar to Port Sudan. Thirteen countries would be on the main route; another six would be served by branches.
North-south A north-south transcontinental railway had been proposed by Cecil Rhodes, who termed it the Cape-Cairo railway. This system would act as a direct route from the northernmost British possession in Africa, Egypt, to the southernmost one, the Cape Colony. The project was never completed. During its development, a competing French colonial project for a competing line from Algiers or Dakar to Abidjan was abandoned after the Fashoda incident. This line would have had four gauge islands in three gauges. An extension of Namibian Railways is being built in 2006 with the possible connection to Angolan Railways. Libya has proposed a Trans-Saharan Railway connecting possibly to Nigeria which would connect with the proposed AfricaRail network.
African Union of Railways The African Union of Railways has plans to connect the various railways of Africa including the Dakar-Port Sudan Railway.
Australia
East-west Australia's east–west transcontinental rail corridor, consisting of lines built to three different track gauges, was completed in 1917, when the Trans-Australian Railway was opened between Port Augusta, South Australia and Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. This line, built by the federal government as a federation commitment, filled the last gap in the lines between the mainland state capitals of Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. Passengers and freight alike suffered from time-consuming breaks of gauge: a Perth–Brisbane journey at that time involved two standard gauge 1435 mm (4 ft 81⁄2 in) lines, a broad gauge 1600 mm (5 ft 3 in) line, and three of 1067 mm (3 ft 6 in) gauge. In the 1940s and 1960s, steps were taken to progressively reduce the huge inefficiencies caused by the numerous historically imposed breaks of gauge by linking the mainland capital cities with lines all of standard gauge. In 1970, the route across the continent was completed to standard gauge and a new, all-through passenger train, the Indian Pacific was inaugurated. An east–west transcontinental line across northern Australia from the Pilbara to the east coast – more than 1000 km (600 mi) north of the Sydney-Perth rail corridor – was proposed in 2006 by Project Iron Boomerang to connect iron ore mining in the Pilbara and coal mining in the Bowen Basin in Queensland, with steel manufacturing plants at both ends.
North–south
Australia's north–south transcontinental rail corridor was built in stages during the 20th century, leaving a 1420-kilometre (880-mile) gap to be finished after the 828 kilometres (514 miles) Tarcoola to Alice Springs section was completed in 1980. That final section, from Alice Springs to Darwin, was opened in 2004. The total length of the corridor, from Adelaide to Darwin, is 2975 kilometres (1849 miles). Completion of the corridor ended 126 years of freight and passengers alike having to be transferred between trains on tracks of different gauges: the corridor is now entirely 1435 mm (4 ft 81⁄2 in) standard gauge. The corridor is an important route for freight. An upmarket experiential tourism passenger train, The Ghan, operated by Journey Beyond, makes the journey once a week in each direction from Adelaide to Darwin, and the company's east–west Indian Pacific runs on the southernmost 727 kilometres (452 miles) before heading west to Perth. There is no intermediate passenger traffic on the line. In 2018, the Australian Rail Track Corporation started building a 1700-kilometre (1000-mile) standard gauge fast-freight railway from Melbourne to Brisbane, known as the Inland Railway. As of June 2022, completion was anticipated in 2027.
Eurasia
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