Does Countrylink consider that the refurbished carriages used on the Broken
Hill and Griffith services provide an acceptable standard of accommodation?
If not, why do they insist on using them? (Everyone will say that it is
beacuase of a directive from a politician, i.e. the Minister for Transport,
but Countrylink cannot say that!)
If they consider that these cars DO provide an acceptable standard of
accommodation, why dont they refurbish a few moree of them, lock them away
for most of the year, then drag them out for peak period services? I know
that I would prefer to travel in one of these carriages than an XPT - the
'DayNiter' seats are far superior to the seats on offer in the XPT's and
XPLORER's.
But there is another issue here - why are Countrylink providing coach
services on these runs anyway? If a passenger wished to travel by coach,
they would have rung McCafferty's, Greyhound-Pioneer, or one of the other
coach operators. A person ringing Countrylink does so because they wish to
travel by train! If a person repeatedly travels by coach when travelling
with Countrylink, sooner or later they will go directly to the coach
companies, even if travelling during off-peak periods when seats on the
train are available - hence more business lost to Countrylink!
On another, related matter, when Countrylink withdrew the overnight
Moree/Armidale XPLORER's, Mr Kim Finnimore, the General Manager of
Countrylink at the time, stated that the services would run during holiday
periods. Does anybody know if these holiday only services have ever run?
Does anybody know why they do not run, with Countrylink instead preferring
to run daylight hours coaches instead? Does anybody know if Countrylink
actually DOES wish to provide rail services?
Regards
David "The Doctor" Proctor
daproc@bigfoot.com
A copy of this posting will be forwarded to Countrylink Customer Relations -
if they reply with anything meaningful (stop laughing!!!!!!!) I will post it
to this newsgroup!