Re: Tasrail, gardens and tourism

[ben_scaro@my-deja.com]

The Tasman Limited was actually promoted when it operated, probably by
the state government tourism department.  (I am not sure how well.) I
don't think it helped much, despite the fact that it was a comfortable
train with an OK food and liquor service.  The train took about 9 hours
to do a trip which can be done comfortably in 4 hours by car.  Tasmania
has never had rail lines suitable for fast trains.

The economics of the train were pretty dreadful, around $250k earnt for
an outlay of $850k in one year in the 70s.  More importantly, the train
just wasn't used, the only busy times being school holidays and when
tour parties travelled from the mainland. I'm not a great fan of AN,
but I can see why they cut this train, even though as a ten year old
railfan at the time, I was sad to see it go.

I am not sure how many rail passengers Tasmania has, but the current
schedule of steam and diesel tours probably caters quite well for the
demand.  It would be interesting to know how many rail trips are taken
in Tasmania now, compared to 1977-78- the last year of the Tasman
Limited. Given how packed the Derwent Valley and Don River trips are,
there may well be more passenger trips made now than then !

It wouldn't be a question of upgrading stations- in most cases new ones
would have to be built.  Many reasonably large towns in Tasmania now
have no rail infrastructure at all, other than the railway track itself
and a few level crossings.  Most stations were demolished in the 80s.

I don't think it would be fair to expect the cash-strapped Tasmanian
government to fork out money to support a passenger train.  If there is
indeed a viable market in running one, I suspect Tasrail would have
made noises about getting a service going.

Cheers

Ben Scaro

> > They send their locos, why not their rolling stock from NZ as well?
> Tranzrail purchased some ex-BR Intercity MarkII carriages (61 of
them).
> They will be replacing all the long distance services in New Zealand
in
> the next 2 years. That means Tranzrail will phase out all its
> impressive panorama carriages(with end obervation lounge!!).They are
> ideal for tourist service.
>
> These carriages are reasonably comfortable and well refurbished but
> much older then most of the Australian passenger rolling stocks as
most
> of them were made during 1st world war! I think Tranzrail have more
> then 200 of them around, some are small window carriages haven't
> refurbish .
>
> I think the rail tracks in Tassy no longer suitable for fast passenger
> service, it would have to be slower tourist service. I wish Tasmanian
> government can provide some fund for upgrade rail tracks and stations,
> provide rolling stocks and subsidise passenger service and run by ATN.
>
> One other thing....Tranzrail usually won't provide any facilities
> unless they have potential to make money, you won't even expect they
> provide a station. There are lots of railway stations in New Zealand
> are just a platform with small shelter, some are container!! New
> Zealand biggest city, Auckland's railway station is 2 dirty looking
> platform with ugly looking concrete shelter and small booking office
> converted from 2 containers, they used to have a good station but were
> sold to private developer years ago. Some town council fund to rebuild
> staion building(Greymouth for example) to keep services attractive to
> customers. I hope Tasmanian government can get involve with bringing
> back passenger service.
>
> --
> Cheers
> James
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
>


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Before you buy.