The volunteer organisation has fully restored a fleet of South Australian Railways (SAR), Commonwealth Railways (CR) and Western Australian Government Railways (WAGR) steam and diesel locomotives, passenger and freight rolling stock. Trains variously operate through the Pichi Richi Pass to Woolshed Flat and Port Augusta, and in also operates out of Port Augusta to Quorn. The headquarters of the PRRPS is at the Quorn railway station, where restoration and repair work is undertaken by volunteers at the locomotive depot. : 6 : 5, 6 This source of decades of operational nuisance and expense has become, in the line's old age, the source of enjoyment for travellers as locomotives work hard to ascend the grades.ĭiesel-electric locomotive NSU 52, unlike the railway's steam locomotives, is able to operate on days of high fire danger It had the steepest gradients of the whole route, necessitated by the refusal of decion-makers to heed the advice of surveyors and engineers to stay west of the Flinders Ranges, giving priority instead to servicing promising copper prospects and expected agricultural wealth in the locality. : 8, 9 The Pichi Richi section also became the feeder route to the east–west Trans-Australian Railway from 1917 to 1937. Nevertheless, it served for a century as a lifeline for isolated outback communities, a vital link for supplies in World War II, and the setting for the famous passenger train, The Ghan. Completed as far as Stuart (renamed in 1930 as Alice Springs) near the centre of Australia, the 1,225 kilometres (761 miles) line never went further north. When the Commonwealth Railways took over operations in 1926 it had the more prosaic name, given a year earlier, Central Australia Railway. In keeping with the intention to extend it to become a north–south transcontinental line, it was named the Great Northern Railway in 1882. It started in 1878 at Port Augusta, proceeded through the Pichi Richi Pass (being opened at Quorn in 1879), and reached Marree (then named Hergott Springs) in 1884. The line was built under severe cost restraints as part of the South Australian Railways' Port Augusta and Government Gums Railway. The society continues to be managed and staffed by its volunteer members and operates its own restored steam and diesel hauled trains on a variety of services. A newly built extension to Port Augusta was opened in 2001. Further track repairs allowed trains to travel to Stirling North – at that time the western termination of the line – by 1979. Soon the prospect of operating heritage trains became evident, and after undertaking restoration of deteriorated sections of the line, the society operated trains, at first tentatively, from 1974. was incorporated, initially to ensure conservation of the fine stonework and bridges in the Pichi Richi Pass. In 1973 the not-for-profit Pichi Richi Railway Preservation Society Inc. The Commonwealth Railways ran trains through the pass until 1980, when it ceased its by then meagre services. For much of its length it lies in the picturesque Pichi Richi Pass, where the line was completed in 1879 as work proceeded north to build a railway to the 'Red Centre' of Australia – the Central Australia Railway.

The return journey departs Quorn at 2.30 pm, arriving at Port Augusta at approximately 4.The Pichi Richi Railway is a 39 kilometres (24 miles) narrow-gauge heritage railway in the southern Flinders Ranges of South Australia between Quorn and Port Augusta.

Departs Port Augusta at 10.30 am, and arrives at Quorn at approximately 12.15 pm.

Single (one-way) tickets are available for a one-way journey from either Port Augusta or Quorn.

Diesel services use an historic Ghan locomotive, either NSU52 or NT76.

Wherever practicable, original Ghan steam locomotive NM25 and genuine timber-bodied carriages built in the late 1920s will be used.Approximately 6 hour return journey, including 2 hour stopover in Quorn.Port Augusta to Quorn and return (78 km).Full-day journey from Port Augusta Railway Station.The Ghan used the Pichi Richi Railway route until 1956 when a new standard-gauge railway from Stirling North to Brachina bypassed the narrow gauge railway through the Pichi Richi Pass. The railway was ultimately extended to Alice Springs by 1929. In time, this was abbreviated to the Ghan. The Afghan Express is the name railwaymen gave to the passenger train that ran from Terowie to Oodnadatta, through Quorn, in 1923. Travelling the old Ghan route over red earth and bluebush plains from Port Augusta, you'll watch the ranges creep ever-closer before entering the Pichi Richi Pass with its rocky outcrops, dry riverbeds and beautiful hilly scenery. See the ancient Flinders Ranges landscape unfold before you on the full-day Afghan Express return trip from Port Augusta Railway Station to the historic outback town of Quorn.

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