The east–west rail corridor is a standard gauge railway that runs across Australia starting in Sydney, linking the Eastern states to Western Australia. The Indian Pacific passenger service operates along the route, as do a number of local passenger services.
The route is made up of a number of individual railway lines constructed by various government railway authorities since the 1880s, the most significant portion being the Trans-Australian Railway which connected between Kalgoorlie and Port Augusta. It was not until 1970 that gauge conversion was carried out and through trains were possible along the entire route.
The rail corridor has an 81% share of land freight between the Eastern States and Perth, up from 60 percent in 1996–97, and saw a record 3.46 billion gross tonne kilometres of freight carried in November 2007. Major freight operators on the corridor include Pacific National, Aurizon, and SCT Logistics.