Marree Railway Station is the best place to understand why this small settlement mattered. The railway reached Hergott Springs in the 1880s, later pushed north to Oodnadatta and Alice Springs, and made Marree a working point on the old Ghan route.
The station area still has railway remains, locomotives, and the plain outback scale that gives the story weight. It is not a polished museum in the city sense; it is better as a visible scar of the transport system that once held inland South Australia together.