Freight trains are back running again after 24 days

Nine freight trains are expected to use the repaired Trans-Australia network today which will come as a relief for Perth and also along the northern link to Darwin.

The railway line was closed for 24 days after record flash floods in the Tarcoola region of outback South Australia late last month.

Much-needed supplies such as fresh food, beverages and retail goods can start moving again.

More than 100 Australian Rail Track Corporation staff worked around the clock to restore line to service after the flooding basically cut the nation in two.

Freight is moving along the Stuart Highway between Adelaide and Darwin after the flash floods also exposed the frailty of the road network.

More than 50,000 tonnes of ballast and rock has been used in the repairs.

Weather experts described the flooding as a one-in-200-300 year event with more than 200mm of rain in 24 hours forcing ARTC to close the inter-state network between Port Augusta and Tarcoola.

ARTC group executive (interstate network) Simon Ormsby said all of Australia owned a debt of thanks to the crews and contractors who have worked extremely hard to bring the interstate network back online.

"ARTC crews from Port Augusta led the charge with support by teams from Kalgoorlie, Adelaide and Port Augusta," he said.

"Contractors and staff from other areas were also called in to assist due to the overall scale of the operation," Mr Ormsby said.

"In the end we had more than 100 staff on ground working around the clock to fix 18 locations along a 300km stretch of track in 24 days."

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Mr Ormsby also thanked the companies that rallied to pitch in such as McMahons, Exact Mining and Bardavcol which reallocated resources from their mining and road projects in the region to support the rail recovery efforts.

"A special mention also to John Holland who brought in specialist rail construction resources from the Eastern States and Arc Infrastructure and Sydney Trains who supplied specialist equipment to be utilised in the recovery effort," he said.

More than 25 units of heavy machinery were used across the work sites and in a number of areas ARTC was forced to re-build access roads from the highway to the rail network to enable the movement of heavy machinery to site requiring a massive coordination of civil works.

"I would also like to thank all our customers for their patience during this period while they have been working with us as we moved towards the resumption of services today," Mr Ormsby said.

"We are hoping to get back to normal operation as soon as possible."

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