The new bright yellow and orange color scheme is designed to be highly visible for pedestrians and motorists. It is the first of the newly liveried locomotives to hit the tracks, replacing the iconic blue color scheme that has decorated the Indian Pacific for the past decade.
“GSR are contributing to a strategy that involves industry and government working together on an extensive suite of measures to improve rail safety – particularly level crossing safety,” said Chief Executive of Great Southern Rail, Tony Braxton-Smith
“This is a demonstration of GSR‟s commitment to playing our part in implementing new measures that will help to reduce the risk of collisions at level crossings” he added.
In 2010 there were 77 vehicle-train collisions and more than 1,000 near-collisions recorded at Australian and New Zealand railway level crossings.*
Studies by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau show the key contributor to these events is driver behavior. Suburban Adelaide has been identified by rail industry sources as one of the national “hot-spots” for rail level crossing incidents.
“Community awareness of rail safety is a major concern for the whole of the rail industry. It takes up to 800 metres for a train to stop so it is vital that pedestrians and motorists obey the road rules at level crossings,” said Mr. Braxton-Smith.
“Great Southern Rail welcomes the new South Australian Government advertising campaign “a thousand horses” launched this week. Community education is sorely needed. Improved road user awareness and compliance are critical factors in reducing incident rates at level crossings in South Australia, and the government is to be congratulated for this initiative,” said Tony.
The majority of locomotives hauling the Indian Pacific, The Ghan and The Overland are NR class locomotives, provided and driven by Pacific National. The newly branded diesel electric locomotive NR 18 is 22 meters long, weighs 132 tones and operates at a maximum speed of 115km/h.
Each year, Australian and New Zealand rail operators, track owners, Government bodies and Police work together to promote National Rail Safety Week. This year’s theme is “safer railways for safer communities‟.

City.Mobi

Also in New Zealand today, City.Mobi is celebrating the success of its new guide to Wellington.

City.Mobi offers the most comprehensive mobile travel guides available, with over 800 cities in 200 countries listed. Each is developed by the City.Mobi team to combine into a single global travel directory.

However, each city retains its own mobile identity via a dedicated domain. Already on offer are Brussels.Mobi, Paris.Mobi, Sanfrancisco.Mobi and Sydney.Mobi.

Wellington.mobi is the latest in this illustrious line up, offering click to call functionality – which means no scribbling down telephone numbers.

Most entries are also linked to websites where users can quickly access more detailed information if needed.

Other key features include information on accommodation, restaurants, attractions, entertainment, nightlife, shopping, and transport.

City.Mobi guides include user reviews and traveller utilities such as a translation guide, currency converter, news and local weather guide.