The “New” Ghan on the Finke River Bridge Take 1 (1989)

This is Part 1 of a 3 Part Series.

In about April/May 1989, Australian National (AN) asked me to do a publicity shoot for their newly-painted and refurbished Ghan passenger train, including photos of the train on the Finke River bridge - the oldest river in the world. I got the gig having done previous successful publicity shoots for AN based on my ability to shoot quality images with minimal disruption to train movements and schedules.

The plan was to ride the Ghan to Alice Springs as a “working” passenger, taking photos of the new interiors and capturing as many passenger activities as possible. These were to be candid and natural images shot on film without any additional lighting or setups! Quite a challenge on a moving train and with people I didn't know and who may not want to be photographed!

This part of the assignment went OK, though with slide film, one could never be sure until I returned to Adelaide and had the film processed. I took a variety of images as requested and enjoyed the relaxed journey on the train, especially the hospitality!

The main objective however, was capturing photos of The "New" Ghan in all its corporate splendour on the Finke River bridge where we were expected to arrive early on the morning of arrival day in Alice Springs. I had been allocated just 15-20 minutes to get off the train accompanied by a staff member with a train radio, scramble down the embankment, cross the sandy river, find a suitable location and start shooting. When I was ready, the train was to be called forward slowly via the train radio to enable shots from as many angles as possible, then stopped with just the “newly-painted” carriages on the bridge. After the quick shoot, we were required to get back up the embankment and onto the train - all within 20 minutes! The "New" Ghan could not be late like the legendary narrow gauge train of the same name!

When we left Adelaide, the train was all "corporate" from start to finish, including two reasonably clean locos up front.

Imagine my surprise when I detrained at the Finke River to see a bright canary yellow non-Ghan AN brake van had been inserted into the consist, presumably during the stop in Port Augusta. This of course ruined the intended "corporate" train shot with the locos, but I was still able to get photos of the coaches/carriages on the bridge with their Ghan colours, all within the allotted time constraint. Now of course these days, there are many alternative methods and software for dealing with such an occurrence, but back then "airbrushing" or editing the photo would have be very painstaking and time consuming.

So it was a nice trip to The Alice on The Ghan, but of course, the images of the locos and train on the bridge were not what AN had requested, so they were consigned to the rail enthusiast magazine pile and another shoot was planned.

The second shoot, Take 2, occurred on June 2, 1989 and you can see the photo and read the story of that adventure here: flic.kr/p/2pJUP8j

So the details: the "New" Ghan with AN "bulldogs" GM15 and GM33 doing the honours, pauses on the oldest river in the world, the Finke River, en-route to Alice Springs in May 1989.

(89.069.32_GhanFinkeBridgeA3Mwt)

Taken on: April 17, 2024

Tags:

The Ghan

Finke River

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GM33

Bulldogs

Bulldog

Passenger Train

AN Passenger

Luxury Passenger Train

Finke River Bridge

1989

Australian National

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