April 1, 2010
Perth - Kalgoorlie
TransWA Prospector Standard Class
Car 1 Seat 32
3:15pm – 10:00pm
The city of Perth has two railway stations – the large Perth Railway Station located downtown and the smaller East Perth Station, located in, well, East Perth. The main downtown station is served primarily by suburban commuter trains. The only “long distance” train would be
The Australind, serving Bunbury, some 200-km to the south. Both the
Indian Pacific to Sydney and The Prospector to Kalgoorlie arrive and depart from the East Perth station.
The East Perth Station is neither architecturally stunning like some big city stations nor quaint like some smaller country stations. It’s just a big red brick building that’s designed to be more functional than beautiful. Mission accomplished. It is also wonderfully air conditioned, something I very much appreciated after lugging my pack through 28°C heat and humidity whilst tramping up and across a bridge over the tracks used by the commuter train to the parking lot of the East Perth station on the other side. From there it was just another 200 yards to the entrance to TransWA’s ticket lobby and waiting room.
My train to Kalgoorlie,
The Prospector, was waiting at the station as I arrived at 2:00pm, a little over an hour early.
The train gets its name from the many thousands of prospectors who headed out to the Kalgoorlie gold fields in the late 1800s to begin mining what has since come to be known as “The richest square mile on Earth”. Recently, the 50 millionth ounce of gold was retrieved from Kalgoorlie’s mines.
The Prospector began service between Perth and Kalgoorlie in 1971. At that time, it was Australia's fastest train and cut travel time between Perth and Kalgoorlie from fourteen to eight hours. Besides being the first train to offer an “airline style” full-meal service, it also introduced the local travelers to such luxurious and unprecedented features as air conditioning, personal call buttons and reading lights.
In 2005, a new version of
The Prospector was introduced. Sleek and modern, it once again reclaimed the title of “Australia’s Fastest Train”. Mind you, we’re not talking Japanese Bullet Train or French TGV speed here. The G forces remain quite manageable. At its fastest,
The Prospector might rocket along at speeds approaching 150 kph. Still, the new train has shaved an additional hour and fifteen minutes off the old Prospector schedule.
The New Prospector
Boarding was called at 3:00pm, fifteen minutes prior to our scheduled departure. I had purchased my tickets in advance off the internet and so had only to present my printed ticket sent to me via PDF file. I had been assigned an aisle seat but when I asked if I might switch to a window, I was told that we were expecting a full train this afternoon so I’d best stay put.
Stepping into the main passenger cabin, I was immediately impressed by the modern airline style interior featuring enclosed overhead storage bins in addition to 2-2 seating that is both more comfortable and more spacious that that of its predecessor. One much appreciated addition were seat side power ports which allowed me to get in a fair bit of work on this report.
Prospector Interior
Spacious seating aboard the Prospector including power points
At 3:15pm on the dot, a hand blown whistle sounded and seconds later we accelerated out of the station.
The Prospector consists of two or three self-powered diesel/hydraulic rail cars. Today’s train consisted of just two cars. From a passenger perspective, it sounds as if the train is being “driven” which indeed it probably is though with an automatic transmission rather than the old manual transmission which I’ve clearly heard on some older railcars.
The first part of the journey took us through Perth’s eastern suburbs before climbing into the lush hills outside of Perth.
West Australian Hill Country
They weren’t very big hills and in many cases it might be fairer to say that we traveled through shallow valleys rather than climbed up any hills, per se. By the time we’d gotten a couple of hours out of Perth, the landscape had changed to dry rolling savannah dotted with Eucalyptus trees. It reminded me a lot of Central California and the lowlands of the Western Sierras.
Alas, the days of an on board airline style meal service aboard
The Prospector have long since disappeared. In their place a local concession, manned by the car attendants, sold hot and cold snacks such as Australia’s ubiquitous meat pies and sausage rolls along with salads, sandwiches, candy and peanuts, juice, sodas and three kinds of beer. A buffet kitchen/serving area was located in the rear of my car and over the course of the trip I downed a meat pie and a couple of Emu Bitters.
The Prospector Buffet
TransWA must have borrowed a page from Amtrak’s operations manual because on three separate occasions we were forced to pull onto a siding and wait for freight trains to pass. The result of this was that the first lights of Kalgoorlie didn’t began to appear until about 10:30pm, forty minutes late.
I’ve booked accommodations at the Desert Rest Guest House, conveniently located just a five minute walk from the heart of downtown. Once a converted hospice for elderly Aboriginals, it now functions as both a guest house and a church. Many of the people staying here are long termers, working jobs in the area. There are a few visitors like myself as well. The owners, Patrick and Ronnie, are onsite every day. Patrick also serves as pastor of the attached Kalgoorlie Alliance Church. That said, I would guess that only a dozen or so of the tenants here actually attend church and Patrick does an admirable job of hiding his disappointment in us.
My room at the Desert Rest
This is my third visit to Kalgoorlie since 2004. I like these desert towns and I’m looking forward to just kicking back and blending in with the scene here for a week. I’ve already seen the famous Super Pit and travelled to some of the little towns in the area. I will go down to the museum and check out the Aboriginal art currently on display, but otherwise I’m content to just hang out and relax in Kalgoorlie.
Here’s some pictures of classic Kalgoorlie architecture as seen in three Kalgoorlie hotels:
The Exchange Hotel
The York Hotel
The Kalgoorlie Hotel