Cook's swimming pool

The Tea and Sugar train, now on display at the National Railway Museum, Port Adelaide, SA

As remote towns go, it doesn't get any more isolated than this. At the centre of the Nullarbor, in the harshest of climates, lies the ghost town of Cook. Nothing but desert for miles around, even the Eyre Highway, which crosses the Nullarbor, is 100km away to the south. Adelaide and Perth are more than 1000 kilometres away on either side. The nearest town is Ceduna, a five-hour drive away.

Cook exists because of Australia's east-west railway line, known as the Trans Australian Railway, which was completed in 1917. To facilitate the maintenance of the line, small settlements of six houses per siding and 30 km apart were built along the most isolated sections of the line on the Nullarbor Plain. Some remained tiny settlements; others, like Cook, were developed as bases for maintenance gangs along the line or to accommodate changeover railway crews, and became thriving towns.
Cook was one of a number of the sidings that were named after early Australian Prime Ministers. Cook honours Prime Minister Sir Joseph Cook (Period in Office 24 June 1913 to 17 September 1914). It has a 3,939 m loop, low level platform, triangle, sidings, fuel sidings and spur lines. It is on the longest stretch of straight railway in the world, at 478 km which stretches from Ooldea to beyond Loongana. When the town was active, water was pumped from an underground Artesian aquifer but now, all water is carried in by train.
Before World war II, Cook was a thriving community with about 200 residents. There used to be a hospital here, it even had a swimming pool (it still exists, but is now filled-in with dirt and turf) and golf course. A few homes are still used as resting homes for passing train drivers, but otherwise it is a ghost town.
In Cook's heyday, a special train serviced the settlements beside the Trans Continental railway line. Known as the Tea and Sugar Train, it was in reality a mobile shopping centre, with everything from hardware, household goods, foodstuffs and even a butcher's van that brought fresh meat to the settlements. The Tea and Sugar Train's last trip was made on 30th August 1996 ending a colourful chapter in railway operations in Australia.
The switch from steam to diesel powered locomotives in the 1960s improved conditions for the train crews considerably, but heralded the beginning of the end for the Nullarbor railway townships. Diesels locomotives shortened the time taken to serve the remaining camps, although the distance was still the same. In the 1980s railway engineering advanced rapidly and with some urgency adopted a range of low maintenance materials that essentially eliminated the need for local maintenance gangs. Most notably the use of highly durable concrete sleepers was adopted, and together with the ability of modern diesel locomotives to travel very long distances without refuelling, the staff along the line dwindled away. Settlements along the Trans Australia line ceased to exist and the families from these communities were settled elsewhere.
Today, Cook is the only place on the line with permanent railway staff; one couple remains to manage the servicing facilities for the Indian-Pacific (today's Sydney-Adelaide-Perth passenger train operated by Great Southern Railways). The Indian Pacific has only four scheduled stops on its journey from Sydney to Perth: Broken Hill, Adelaide, Cook (the only stop on the Nullarbor Plain) and Kalgoorlie. Organised tours are available at each stop except Cook.
The halfway point on the train journey across the Nullarbor, it is here that the Indian Pacific takes on water, changes drivers and passengers have an opportunity to stretch their legs on terra firma. Cook has a floating population that rises and falls between eleven and three. The only sign of life is the small souvenir shop where tourists coo over Cook-inscribed teaspoons and teddy bears. The ‘main street’, a dusty expanse between the railway and a line of unoccupied fibro homes has a hand-painted sign warning “Cook - last fuel for 868 kilometres” as if to say "venture beyond this point at your peril". It comes as no surprise that few people use this route, because if you get into trouble you are very much on your own. From what the locals at Cook say, the tracks only get used from time to time by Telstra engineers maintaining and checking the east west optical cable which has replaced the Telegraph Line. Since the optic cable was laid, little remains of the telegraph line with the exception of one or two poles every now and again.

Cook's two gaol cells

Alongside the railway line are the historic gaol cells of Cook, which are, essentially, two very small corrugated iron sheds that look more like outhouses than anything else. Built in bygone days to house criminals caught wandering around on the Nullarbor and held here until the next train arrived, the two cells are matching "his" and "hers", complete with bars, padlocks and their own "gaol house rock".