Editing Transcontinental railroad (section)

===East-west===
*[[Sydney-Perth rail corridor|Australia's east–west transcontinental rail corridor]], consisting of lines built to three different [[track gauge]]s, was completed in 1917, when the [[Trans-Australian Railway]] was opened between [[Port Augusta railway station|Port Augusta]], [[South Australia]] and [[Kalgoorlie railway station|Kalgoorlie]], [[Western Australia]]. This line, built by the [[Government of Australia|federal government]] as a [[Federation of Australia|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 [[break of gauge|breaks of gauge]]: a Perth–Brisbane journey at that time involved two standard gauge 1435&nbsp;mm (4&nbsp;ft 8{{frac|1|2}}&nbsp;in) lines, a broad gauge 1600&nbsp;mm (5&nbsp;ft 3&nbsp;in) line, and three of 1067&nbsp;mm (3&nbsp;ft 6&nbsp;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&nbsp;km (600&nbsp;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.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://ausimm.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/05-Iron-Boomerang-AusImm-Mining-Roundup-30-May-2019.pdf |title= PIB Project Update |date= August 2019 |website= Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy |publisher= AusIMM Cairns |access-date= 30 August 2020 |archive-date= 18 September 2020 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20200918093233/https://ausimm.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/05-Iron-Boomerang-AusImm-Mining-Roundup-30-May-2019.pdf |url-status= live }}</ref>