Re: SRA/Countrylink Outback Explorer

[Greg Rudd <grudd@mail.usyd.edu.au>]

Dave Proctor wrote:

> "Glenn J-B" <grjb@ihug.com.au> wrote in message
> 3917DF7A.17A205A1@ihug.com.au">news:3917DF7A.17A205A1@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.
>

And also, they told full fare paying passengers to go and get nuffed. (ie people
who are prepared to use the sleepers and the motorail carriage).  I remember
then then premier saying that these customers should fly and then hire a car at
their destination. And the poorer people should catch the bus.

>
> A bit more than this - you also had the North Coast Overnight Express (The
> North Coast Mail re-equipped with air-conditioned cars) which also had some
> reasonable patronage. (If they had done this with the other mail trains -
> air-conditioned, buffet, decent sleepers) who knows what might have
> happened.
>

Are you calling the TAM sleepers with their wonderful french polished cedar
interiors and ride inferior to a stainless steel sleeper.  IMHO the TAM is a far
better sleeping car that the XAM.

>
> > You can always encourage patronage by running trains to suit operations or
> > advertise attractive arrival/connection times like 3:20am at Casino.
>
> Makes a point for swapping the BNE and MWH services around - a night train
> to MWH and a day train to BNE. You would then have to change from bus to
> train at CSI at around 0030 but since you have just had a relatively short
> journey on a bus, it is not the same as waking someone up after a night on a
> train. Passengers would also have the advantage of a long sleep ahead of
> them once they get on.
>
> Although the tradeoff would be the early departure time from BNE of the
> coach connections at MWH, although I am sure this could be changed to CSI or
> Kyogle (to make it later) if they tried.
>
> Dave