Railway networks reach across Australia from east to west and from north to south. They include busy urban lines with trains passing every few minutes, heavy freight railways bearing huge tonnages of minerals, interstate and regional lines carrying passenger and freight services, branch lines that see minimal traffic, and a series of 610 mm gauge lines in Queensland for conveying cut sugar cane to processing mills. In 2016 the National Transport Commission reported that Australian railway networks consisted of a total of 41,461 kilometres of track (Who moves what where: freight and passenger transport in Australia, p. 62); however, not all of these lines were operational. The total length of operational heavy railways using the three major railway gauges in Australia in 2021 was 32,868 route kilometres, of which around 10 per cent was electrified.

A breakdown of operational heavy railways by gauge and state or territory is indicated in the following table.

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Total route kilometres of railways open in each state and territory of Australia in September 2021

                                                                                                           Gauge

State or Territory                            1067 mm        1435 mm        1600 mm        Dual               Other              Total

New South Wales                                    0                 7121                    73                 0                     10                7194

Victoria                                                   16                1904                 2309               32                    30                4291

Queensland                                        8146                  117                       0               36                      4                8303

Western Australia                               2970                4701                       0             207                      0                7878

South Australia                                     184                2561                   254               22                      0                3021

Tasmania                                              611                      0                       0                 0                      7                  618

Northern Territory                                     3                 1690                      0                 0                      0                 1693

Australian Capital Territory                       0                      6                       0                 0                      0                      6

Total                                                11,930              18,100                 2636              297                   41             33,004

Source: Australian infrastructure and transport statistics yearbook 2021, Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and

     Communications, Canberra, 2021, p. 153.

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The figures in the above table do not include the sugar cane railways in Queensland, which have a total length of around 4000 km.

Five states have electrified railway lines: New South Wales had a total of 666 km of electrified railway lines in September 2021; Victoria had 383 km; Queensland had 2173 km; Western Australia had 181 km; and South Australia had 45 km. The total length of electrified railway lines in Australia was 3430 km. Electrified railways in Victoria and New South Wales use 1.5 kV (kilovolts) DC, while those in Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia use 25 kV AC.