Adelaide Parklands Terminal, formerly known as Keswick Terminal, is the interstate passenger railway station in

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest o ...

. It is the only station in the world where passengers can board trains on both north-south and east-west transcontinental routes. The terminal is north of the suburb of Keswick, by road south-west of the

city centre A city centre is the commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart of a city. The term "city centre" is primarily used in British English, and closely equivalent terms exist in other languages, such as "" in Fren ...

, and adjoins the south-western sector of the West Parklands. It was within the boundary of Keswick until 1987 when, inclusive of adjacent business sites and covering a total area of , Keswick Terminal was declared a suburb in its own right.

History

The terminal opened on 18 May 1984 as Keswick Terminal (and located near, but not connected to, the now demolished Keswick station). It was developed by Australian National (AN) as a dedicated long-haul passenger rail station, allowing AN to vacate the then State Transport Authority's

Adelaide railway station Adelaide Railway Station is the central terminus of the Adelaide Metro railway system. All lines approach the station from the west, and it is a terminal station with no through lines, with most of the traffic on the metropolitan network eithe ...

. It was included in the sale of Australian National's passenger operations to Great Southern Rail in 1997. In June 2008, the station was renamed Adelaide Parklands Terminal following Stage One of a plan to "improve guest comfort and amenity, traffic and passenger movement, food and retail facilities, image, identity, presentation and sustainability".

Services

The terminal was built as a

dual gauge In railway engineering, "gauge" is the transverse distance between the inner surfaces of the heads of two rails, which for the vast majority of railway lines is the number of rails in place. However, it is sometimes necessary for track to ca ...

station for ''

The Ghan ''The Ghan'' is an experiential tourism oriented passenger train service that operates between the northern and southern coasts of Australia, through the cities of Adelaide, Alice Springs and Darwin on the Adelaide–Darwin rail corridor. O ...

'', ''

Indian Pacific The ''Indian Pacific'' is a weekly experiential tourism passenger train service that runs in Australia's east–west rail corridor between Sydney, on the shore of the Pacific Ocean, and Perth, on the shore of the Indian Ocean – thus, like ...

'' and ''

Trans-Australian The ''Trans-Australian'' (originally known as the ''Trans-Australian Express'') was an Australian passenger train operated by the Commonwealth Railways initially between Port Augusta and Kalgoorlie on the Trans-Australian Railway line, and lat ...

'' to the north and ''

The Overland ''The Overland'' is an Australian passenger train service between the state capitals of Melbourne and Adelaide, a distance of 828 km (515 mi). It first ran in 1887 as the ''Adelaide Express'', known by South Australians as the ''Melb ...

'' to the south-east – the latter train being on broad-gauge tracks at the time, before conversion to in 1995. It was also served by regional trains until all passenger trains outside the Adelaide conurbation had ceased operation by 1990. In 2020 a new passenger train service, the Great Southern to

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Queensland, and the third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of approximately 2.6 million. Brisbane lies at the centre of the South ...

, also operated from the terminal. , these trains were operated by

Journey Beyond Journey Beyond is the business name (together with more than a dozen other related names) of Experience Australia Group Pty Ltd, a private equity-owned company known mainly for operating Australian interstate experiential tourism trains ('' Th ...

.
Journey Beyond website Visiting passenger trains from interstate also visit the terminal, albeit rarely.

Local transport

Although three suburban rail lines run parallel to the terminal, the nearest suburban railway station is to the south. The nearest bus stop is away, also to the south.

Gallery

File:Indian Pacific adelaide.JPG, The ''

'' at the terminal File:Adelaide Parklands Rail Terminal.jpg, Main platform with carriages from ''

'' File:AdelaideParklandsTerminal.jpg, Terminal entrance (2014) File:Choo Choos Cafe.jpg, Choo Choos Cafe (2011) File:GM22 Keswick Terminal, 1986.JPG, GM22 at the head of the ''Trans Australian'' in 1986. (Note dual gauge tracks)

References

External links

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Flick gallery
{{City of West Torrens suburbs Railway stations in Adelaide Railway stations in Australia opened in 1984