An American tourist has survived a terrifying late night train ride, clinging to the side of a train as it hurtled through the South Australian Outback at speeds of up to 70 mph (110 km/h).

Chad Vance, 19, from Alaska was travelling on the legendary Ghan train from Adelaide to Alice Springs when a late return to the station during a scheduled stop threatened to leave him stranded hundreds of miles from his destination.

He chased the train as it pulled away then clambered up the side of the tain and squeezed into a tiny stairwell between carriages.

The train had gone over 120 miles before a Ghan crew member heard the Alaskan student's cries for help and brought the train to an emergency halt, rescuing Mr Vance from almost certain death.

"Chad is a very lucky guy - when we rescued him his skin was white and his lips were blue," said his rescuer Chad Wells, a technician with The Ghan's operator, Great Southern Railway.

"We were still about three hours away from our next scheduled stop and in that time, he could have easily died of hypothermia or lost his grip and fallen to his death if he hadn't been rescued," Mr Wells told the Sunday Mail newspaper

As the desert temperatures plummeted and the train hit top speeds, the young tourist began to lose heart.

"I was worried I wasn't going to survive," Mr Vance said. "If I'd fallen off at that speed and hit the nasty-looking rocks below, I don't think I would have made it."

Mr Vance, from the hamlet of North Pole in Alaska, had boarded the Ghan - Australia's iconic trans-continental train, in Adelaide in South Australia on Thursday looking forward to a thrilling two day journey to Alice Springs, in the centre of Australia.

But he was about to experience more chill than thrill when, after disembarking with the other passengers to stretch his legs when the train made a rest stop in Port Augusta, he misjudged the time and got back to the platform just as the Ghan was pulling out.

On board the train was his luggage and valuables, including his passport. Wtih only $10 and a digital camera on him, Mr Vance chased the train, banging on the windows of the first class dining carriage and crying for help. The passengers ignored him - they "probably thought I was some crazy kid" , he said later.

Desperate not to be left behind, he grabbed onto the stairwell near the rear of the train and swung himself up, then settled in for a freezing, high speed ride.

Squeezed into the stairwell, he filmed himself on his mobile phone, on which he said his "desperate attempts" to make it to Alice Springs in time had left him "on the bloody steps of the train with no way to get in."

He added: "I wanted an adventure and I've got one."

But as the wind-chill factor sent the tempratures plummeting below freezing, it became less of an adventure and more of a potentially lethal ordeal.

By the time his increasingly desperate cries for help were heard, he was shaking and numb from the cold.

"He was shaking uncontrollably for several hours and complained of numbness to the left side of his body and arms and said his face was also stinging," Mr Wells said. "I've never seen anything like this before and I sure hope I don't ever see it happen again."

Mr Vance was given a mug of soup and an upgrade to a sleeper cabin for a hot shower and a warm night's sleep and left the train in Alice Springs to go sight-seeing.

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