The Pichi Richi Railway is a narrow-gauge heritage railway in the southern Flinders Ranges of South Australia between Quorn and Port Augusta. For much of its length the line 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 Commonwealth Railways ran trains through the pass until 1980, when it ceased its by then meagre services. In July 1973 the not-for-profit Pichi Richi Railway Preservation Society Inc. was incorporated, initially to ensure conservation of the fine dry stone walls and the bridges in the Pichi Richi Pass. It became evident that the prospect of operating heritage trains was possible and after undertaking restoration of deteriorated sections of the line the Society then tentatively operated its first trains, from 1974. By 1979, following further track repairs, trains were able to travel to Stirling North – at that time the western terminus of the line. A newly built extension to Port Augusta was opened in 2001. 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 between March to November each year. Background The line was built under severe cost restraints as part of the South Australian Railways' Port Augusta and Government Gums Railway. 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. In keeping with the intention to extend it to become a north–south transcontinental line, it was named the Great Northern Railway in 1882. When the Commonwealth Railways took over operations in 1926 it had the more prosaic name, given a year earlier, Central Australia Railway. Completed as far as Stuart (renamed in 1930 as Alice Springs) near the centre of Australia, the line never went further north. 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. The Pichi Richi section also became the feeder route to the east–west Trans-Australian Railway from 1917 to 1937. It had the steepest gradients of the whole route, necessitated by the refusal of decision makers to heed the advice of surveyors