The Line That Led to Nowhere

The story of the North Australia Railway

by Ian R. Stevenson

Rigby, 1979, [First Edition],  ISBN 0727010298, black and white photographic plates, hardcover, dustjacket

Very Good Condition, minor edge and shelf wear, minor rubbing to edges and corners, dustjacket shows minor edge and shelf wear with a little rubbing to edges and corners, no inscriptions (see photographs)

“The story of the Northern Territory from the earliest days of European settlement is a saga of hopes and frustrations, heavily spiced with danger and excitement.  A pattern of trial, error, and eventual defeat was established with British attempts at settlement in the first half of the nineteenth century, only to be repeated under South Australian control in the second half.  The history of the North Australia Railway is inextricably linked with the political and social developments and disasters of the Territory, serving as a bond between past and present, dreams and realities.
The railway had a humble beginning as a line to serve the goldfields and progressed by stages the 509 kilometres from Darwin to Birdum (the ultimate extent of the hoped-for north-south transcontinental line), which it reached in the late 1920s.  It became a vital defence link during the second World War but, in spite of a reprieve caused by the mining boom in the 1960s, it closed in 1976 after a series of faltering steps amid prickly State and Federal politics.”