Re: SRA/Countrylink Outback Explorer

[Glenn J-B <grjb@ihug.com.au>]

> Just like in the early 90s when Countrylink scrapped the popular
> sleeper trains to Brisbane/Murwillmbah and replaced Melbourne-Sydney
> Express with XPT.
>

I seem to remember Countrylink telling us that they were getting rid of 40
year old carriages and replacing them with something "modern". And the
whole idea of getting rid of two 14 car overnight trains and one daily XPT
service and replacing all of this with two XPTs was to "increase the
patronage by 200 seats a day!" They forgot the small print that said north
of Grafton City.

> Country link comments on people who use Pacific Coast motorail from
> Coffs Harbour/Grafton to Byron bay: They just taking advantage of spare
> seats!!
>
> If the aim of running a train service is not letting passengers use the
> seats what is the purpose of train service then???
>

You can always encourage patronage by running trains to suit operations or
advertise attractive arrival/connection times like 3:20am at Casino.

Glenn