The Indian Pacific

The route

The line across the desert was the price of Federation. Western Australia agreed to join the new Commonwealth on condition that a railway would tie it to the east. The first sod was turned at Port Augusta on 14 September 1912, and gangs laid track from both ends until they met near Ooldea on 17 October 1917. The National Museum of Australia counts more than 3,400 men at work by 1916.

Water was the problem from the start. The line crosses no permanent fresh stream, and the bore water was so full of minerals that boiler repairs became most of the locomotives’ maintenance. The steam engines drank the soak at Ooldea dry by 1926.

For decades the line met different gauges at each end. Only when the tracks were standardised could one train run coast to coast, and the first Indian Pacific left Sydney at 10.50pm on 23 February 1970. About 10,000 people met it in Perth three days later. Since 1986 the train has detoured to Adelaide, reversing at Crystal Brook, which makes today’s journey about 4,350 km.

The heart of it is the Nullarbor. Surveyor E. A. Delisser named it in 1865 from the Latin for “no tree”. The plain is an old seabed, lifted about 14 million years ago, and the University of Melbourne calls it the largest exposure of limestone in the world. Fossil pollen from its caves shows a forest of gums and banksias stood here between five and three and a half million years ago. Today it carries low saltbush and bluebush to the horizon.

What the rail journey is like

Several riders expected the Nullarbor to bore them, and found otherwise. Hels, who writes the blog Art and Architecture, mainly, travelled in Gold and mentions no hosting. She had expected to prefer forests and sea, and wrote in July 2024 that she “actually loved” the scenery. Joan Elizabeth, writing in January 2024, called it “incredibly flat and beautiful country”.

Jessica Lockhart of Lonely Planet, writing in August 2026 after travelling as the operator’s guest, was the exception: to her the plain was a test of endurance in which time went missing.

We know a little of that country ourselves. In the winter of 2009 we cycled from Perth to Adelaide. For the first four days the Great Eastern Highway ran with the railway on one side and the huge water pipeline to the Goldfields on the other. Out on the Eyre Highway, well south of the line, the road had a curious beauty in the early morning as the sun came up. It also had a relentless sameness, mile after mile.

The real draw is the land itself, a continent crossed slowly enough to watch it change.

On board, life gathers in the lounge car. Riders describe live music, wine and board games, and Lockhart counted the conversations with strangers among the highlights. The Gold cabins are small: a sofa by day and bunks by night, made up by the staff while you are at dinner. Every account that mentions the crew praises them, hosted or not, and Hels found good vegetarian dishes in the Queen Adelaide restaurant.

Two warnings run through the accounts. The first night, from Sydney towards Broken Hill, is the roughest, and Lockhart and the blogger Danielle Fear, who paid for Platinum, both called it bumpy. Light sleepers should be ready for that. And there is no wifi outside the lounge cars, with long stretches without a phone signal.

The stops are what riders remember best. At Rawlinna, on the Western Australian side, the train has served dinner beside the track or lit a bonfire under the stars. Five of our eight accounts single it out, two of them by guests of the operator.

At Cook, a railway town that once had a hospital, a school and a pool, passengers walk streets that are now almost empty. At Broken Hill several riders took the morning Priscilla walk, led by drag queens, and enjoyed it more than they expected.

The stages

The times are Seat61’s, updated in August 2026, and the stops follow the operator’s 2026 and 2027 itineraries. The operator does not publish its timetable on a page we could read, so confirm the times when you book. No source we found says which side has the better view, so the side notes below give the sun’s position instead.

Going east, the train leaves Perth at 5.55pm on Saturday and takes four nights. It stops at Kalgoorlie the next morning, crosses the Nullarbor in the afternoon and reaches Cook late at night. Then it stops for a dinner in the Barossa and at Broken Hill. You can spend the last morning in the Blue Mountains, where a charter train takes you down to Sydney Central for about midday on Wednesday.

Stops worth breaking the journey for

The operator sells the Sydney to Adelaide and Adelaide to Perth sections separately, so Adelaide is the one place where you can break the journey and pick up a later train. The other stops are excursions on the train’s own timetable, mostly two hours or less according to Lonely Planet.

Broken Hill

A silver town in the desert, where Charles Rasp found ore on the Line of Lode in 1883 and the company that became BHP began. The whole city joined the National Heritage List in 2015, and it keeps South Australian time.

Adelaide

The train waits five hours here on the westbound run, long enough for an evening at the Central Market or in the Adelaide Hills. Join or leave here to ride only half the line. Our guide to Adelaide.

Cook

A railway town founded in 1917 and named after Prime Minister Joseph Cook. It once held about 200 people, and now has a reported four. The train stops here in both directions while it takes on fuel and water.

Kalgoorlie

On the eastbound itinerary. The gold town of Paddy Hannan’s 1893 strike, beside the Super Pit, about 3.5 km long and more than 675 m deep. When we cycled into Kalgoorlie in 2009, we saw giant trucks working the deep excavations.

Planning the journey

Where to sit

Every passenger has a cabin, so the question is which side of the train it is on. We found no source that recommends a side.

What we can tell you is where the sun is. Across the Nullarbor the line runs nearly due west, and at about 31°S the sun stands in the northern half of the sky at midday, and for most of the day outside summer. Travelling west, that puts it on the right-hand side of the train, and on the left going east. In summer it swings to the south side early and late in the day. Platinum cabins have windows on both sides.

Gold, Gold Premium, Platinum or a suite?

There is no ordinary train on the line and no budget fare. The seated carriages went in 2016. The choice is between levels of the same all-inclusive service.

The two Platinum accounts we found disagree. Fear, who paid about US$8,300 for her cabin, found it good but “probably not as plush” as the price suggested, and wrote that Gold and Platinum share a menu. Helena Melton of Luxury Escapes, the operator’s guest and writing for a company that sells the trip, found nothing to fault.

Booking and fares

The fares change by season and the westbound and eastbound journeys are priced differently. The lowest fares are for June and July, and the highest for March and September to November. The cheapest advance purchase fares are for full payment about six months ahead, with no changes allowed.

Bookings are open to the end of 2027. We found no rail pass that covers the Indian Pacific.

Which way, and how to get home

Most journeys are one way, so book your way back when you book the train. Go west for the shorter journey, the evening in Adelaide and the dinner at Rawlinna. Go east for the extra night, the Kalgoorlie morning, the Barossa and an arrival through the Blue Mountains. Either way, the Nullarbor gets a full day.

If the fare is beyond you, two ordinary trains cover parts of the line. Transwa’s daily Prospector takes about eight hours from Perth to Kalgoorlie, and NSW TrainLink’s weekly Outback Xplorer about thirteen from Sydney to Broken Hill.

Travelling with a mobility need, and luggage

Gold Access cabins have two lower berths, an accessible ensuite with a shower chair and a 0.85 m door, and you will need to complete the operator’s Fitness to Travel assessment before booking. The operator says there are a few on each departure; an accessibility site said in 2022 that there is one per train. Ask when you book. Some excursions have wheelchair access, including Echo Point in the Blue Mountains. The Broken Hill on Show walk does not, according to the agent Great Trains.

Checked luggage travels in a separate van that you cannot reach on the way: up to 60 kg a person in Gold, 75 kg in Gold Premium and 90 kg in Platinum. The cabins are small. Hels, Lockhart and the bloggers Cat and Joe all say to pack light and soft-sided.

If the journey breaks down

The line crosses desert that floods, and when it floods the train stops. A little preparation goes a long way:

• Watch the weather in late summer. In March 2024 flooding closed the line near Rawlinna and cancelled departures. In March 2026 washaways between Ooldea and Watson turned a train back to Perth and cancelled later trips, which the farm press called the third such closure in four years.
• Expect changes at short notice. Around the turn of 2023–24, by her post’s own dating, a crash near Broken Hill sent one rider’s train the long way round by Melbourne. Fear’s group learned a week before departure that a coach would replace the Blue Mountains section.
• Take travel insurance that covers the full fare, and read the operator’s terms on events beyond its control. The last terms we could read, for 2023, gave a credit note when a journey could not run.
• Leave a spare day before an onward flight, and download what you need before you board.