Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. an Afghan. A term that is extended to cover Turks and Arabs; thus Ghan Town, an area primarily populated by ‘’Ghans’; also attrib.

1907		Sun. Times (Perth) 28 July 4/7: Gimme the blastiferous tinned dorg or I’ll patronise the ’ghans!
1907		Sun. Times (Perth) 4 Aug. 4/7: I’ve worked sweet racin’ ramps / On Christian, ’Ghan and Jew.
1911		Bulletin (Sydney) 10 Aug. 14/2: Menzies (W.A.) [...] confessed shamefacedly to two Jap laundries and numerous ’Ghan camel-drivers.
1912		Bulletin (Sydney) 31 Oct. 5/2: Across the sands another ’Ghan goes riding with his team; / And of their Kings who never come the Desert maidens dream. [Ibid.] 28 Nov. 48/2: The caravans steered by ’Ghans out from the Naked Hills, / Went sprawlin’ forth towards the north, their hunches bowed with pills.
1923		J. Armour Spell of the Inland 62: The ’Ghans brought their camels in and loaded them one by one.
1933		F.E. Baume Tragedy Track 28: I have just been across to the Afghan town—here it is called Ghan town.
1938		F. Blakeley Hard Liberty 137: Afghan, Turk, or Arab, they were all ‘Ghans’.
1946		K.S. Prichard Roaring Nineties 184: He saw a ’Ghan takin’ a couple of camels down to the Cattle Swamp.
1950		G.M. Farwell Land of Mirage 14: Our buggy jolted over the railway line, past ‘Ghan Town’ with its lovely mosque.
1957		Aus. Letters (Adelaide) Nov. 21: Mohammed Hassen was another Ghan that bred good camels [AND].
1963		A.E. Farrell Vengeance 54: The old ’Ghan drifted back again into the contemplative mood.
1968		R.D. Magoffin We Bushies 70: He’s a business-like man is this Galloping Ghan.
1979		G. Stewart Leveller 236: As the Ghan said, All things must be paid for.

2. as the Ghan, a train running between Port Augusta and Oodnadatta on the Central Australian Railway, its main passengers being Afghan camel teamsters, heading for their jobs; suspended in 1984, it was relaunched on an extended track in 2004, joining the cities of Darwin and Adelaide.

1933		F.E. Baume Tragedy Track 21: This train, once known as the Ghan, because it was largely patronised by Afghans going to the then railhead of Oodnadatta.
1955		in N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 173: I guess I’ll never love a man, / As much as I have loved the Ghan.
1969		P. Adam-Smith Folklore of the Aus. Railwaymen 250: The Ghan [...] was named back when the line ran only as far as Oodnadatta. Railway literature gives two explanations for the name, one that it was named Ghan because of the many Afghan camel men using it, the other that it was because of the number of Afghans and their families living at Oodnadatta, the railhead.
1974		P. Adam-Smith Barcoo Salute 166: The Ghan is no longer the rough and ready, colourful old bone-shaker of the days when stockmen used to boil their billies [...] on fires they lit in the corridors.
1984		Australian (Sydney) 16 Jan. 1/3: The Ghan, which operates between Adelaide and Alice Springs, has been cancelled until further notice [AND].
2004		Guardian 2 Feb. 14/1: The Ghan, Australia’s longest train, began its 1,851-mile trip through the red desert to Darwin.
2018		Guardian 15 Jan. 🌐 [pic. caption] The Ghan enters a part of the Northern Territory known as the Never Never.

3. Afghanistan.

2019

P. Temple ‘High Art’ in The Red Hand 21: ‘Bit like the Ghan [...] Only the sheepshaggers here don’t try to take you out with old SAM-7’s’’.