A former goldmining town, it now marks the junction of the standard gauge railway from Adelaide, with one line continuing north to Darwin, and the other turning west to Perth. These services share the same approximately 530 kilometres (329 mi) of track between Tarcoola and Crystal Brook. There is a triangular junction at Tarcoola which joins Crystal Brook, Darwin and Perth. Another triangular junction at Crystal Brook joins Tarcoola, Adelaide and Sydney.

Where is it?: Outback South Australia. 416 km north-northwest of Port Augusta.

A true ghost town, there are only two people living permanently in Tarcoola today, while relief and maintenance crews use the railway quarters during the working week. The town is served by the twice-weekly trains run by Great Southern Railway, The Ghan (running between Adelaide, Alice Springs and Darwin) and the Indian Pacific (running between Sydney and Perth. Each train stops twice a week heading in each direction at the railway station.

Tarcolla Hotel, a pub with no beer (or customers)

Origin of name: The name, assigned when the town was proclaimed on February 21, 1901, was taken from the nearby Tarcoola Goldfields, which in turn had been named after the winner of the 1893 Melbourne Cup horse race. The horse Tarcoola had been raised on Tarcoola Station on the Darling River. Tarcoola in the local aboriginal language around Tarcoola Station means river bend.


Brief history: Gold was discovered in the Tarcoola area by a shearing-shed hand and prospector named Nichols in October 1893. The attention of other prospectors was drawn to the area and further discoveries were made. The Tarcoola Goldfield was worked from 1900 to 1912 and sporadically thereafter until the present day. Total recorded production is 2 400 kg, most of it from the Tarcoola Blocks mine. The nearby Glenloth Goldfield (1899) produced about 315 kg. Tarcoola was originally surveyed and laid out into 330 allotments.

The original Tarcoola goldfields are long closed. However, there is now new exploration for minerals in the wider area, including the Challenger Mine.

The Trans-Australian Railway was built through Tarcoola in 1915, and in 2004 the Adelaide���Darwin railway diverged from Tarcoola to Darwin. The town served as a railway service centre until 1998, after which rail services and crew changes were increasingly facilitated from Port Augusta and Tarcoola began to be progressively closed down.