Norris Garrett Bell was an Australian Railway Engineer. Tall Tales but True – a series courtesy the National Road Transport Hall of Fame in Alice Springs. Norris Garrett Bell was born in Scotland in 1860. He was employed as the Commissioner of Railways from 1917 to 1929 and played a significant role in planning, constructing and overseeing all aspects of the Oodnadatta to Alice Springs railway link. After qualifying as an Engineer Bell migrated to Australia in 1886 and took on the position of Resident Engineer for Queensland’s Cooktown Railway. He later said the difficulties of operating that railway in the monsoonal tropical far north of Australia had prepared him for anything. Ironically, Bell became renown most for building a railway through the very heart of the flattest, driest contin