English: Central Australia Railway location map. The railway was started in 1878 from Port Augusta as a low-cost agricultural development line with ambitions to provide a north–south transcontinental route. On account of economic fluctuations and political rivalries between governments, however, it only reached its eventual terminus, Alice Springs, in 1929. The North Australia Railway was built south from Darwin to Larrimah but a gap of 990 km (615 mi) between Larrimah and Alice Springs -- along a track that was unsealed until 1941 -- remained unfilled by a railway. The ambition of a transcontinental railway was only achieved (along a route substantially to the west of the Central Australia Railway) in 2004.