The Ghan (/ɡæn/)[2] is an experiential tourism-oriented passenger train service that operates between the northern and southern coasts of Australia, through the cities of Adelaide, Alice Springs and Darwin on the Adelaide–Darwin rail corridor.

[7] Some suggest the train's name honours Afghan camel drivers who arrived in Australia in the late 19th century to help the British colonists find a way to reach the country's interior.

"The Ghan Express" name originated with train crews in the 1890s as a taunt to officialdom because, when an expensive sleeping car was put on from Quorn to Oodnadatta, "on the first return journey the only passenger was an Afghan", mocking its commercial viability.

[9] By as early as 1924, because of the notorious unreliability of this fortnightly steam train, European pastoralists commonly called it "in ribald fashion The Afghan Express".

[13] Each train has an average of 28 stainless steel carriages, built by Comeng, Granville, in the late 1960s and early 1970s for the Indian Pacific, plus a motorail wagon.

[20] The original Ghan line followed the same track as the overland telegraph, which is believed to be the route taken by John McDouall Stuart during his 1862 crossing of Australia.

[23] In October 1980, a new standard gauge line from Tarcoola on the Trans-Australian Railway to Alice Springs opened, and the train took the form it has today.

[31][32] Construction of Alice Springs–Darwin line was believed to be the second-largest civil engineering project in Australia, and the largest since the creation of the Snowy Mountains Scheme.

[33][34] Line construction began in July 2001, with the first passenger train reaching Darwin on 3 February 2004, after 126 years of planning and waiting[35][36] and at a cost of $1.3 billion.

[37] The Ghan's arrival in Darwin signified a new era of tourism in the Northern Territory,[38] making travel to the region easier and more convenient.

[40] In preparation for the connection to Darwin, one of the locomotives was named after wildlife expert Steve Irwin, an international symbol of outback Australia,[41] to promote the new service and tourism to the region.

[43] The original Ghan was featured in an episode of BBC Television's series Great Railway Journeys of the World in 1980, presented by Michael Frayn.

The entire journey from Adelaide to Darwin which was filmed in 2017, was condensed into a three-hour highlights show with no voiceover or narration, much of it featuring footage directly from the front of the locomotive and various helicopter views.