The coninuing discussion about the Overland service and the alleged
conspiracy into its demise (ha ha) and a post about Westrail not having
first class prompted me to recall my trip on the Prospector. It also
reminded me of a recent artciel I saw whereby Westrail was looking to
get new rollingstock to replace the Prospector fleet.
Thsi got me thinking - what will become of the existing fleet. I am sure
that Westrail have kept it reasonably well maintained and it does
provide a first class service at relatively high speeds by Australian
standards. Where could these carriages go?
Well, why not run them as a day service Melbourne to Adelaide and vice
versa? If only as trial? They are standard gauge so they will run on the
standard gauge line and should be able to tack along at a reasonable
speed for at least part of the journey.
I realise the Victorian end of the line is in deplorable conditions but
it would be interesting to ponder what timings might be achievable using
high speed on those parts of the line that will take it. Melbourne to
Geelong North is all new track so this part of the journey should be
quite quick. Geelong North to SA is a crawl and then I understand the
track is much better to Adelaide.
Can any of the aus.rail readers do some basic modelling given track
speeds and the speed capacity of the Prospector for a Melb-Adelaide
service using this rollingstock?
cheers Peter