Re: What to do with XPT?

[stephen@midac.com.au (stephen)]

On Fri, 11 Dec 1998 09:44:03, Matthew Nolan <mnolan@uq.net.au> wrote:

> If a daylight XPT service was to run in ten hours from Sydney to
> Brisbane, with a potential five hour HST in the future, a overnight
> loco-hauled train could then do the trip in 12-14 hours. This could be
> in the style of the Ghan/Queenslander. It would have sleepers and a
> dining and lounge car. Marketed properly, it could capture a sixable
> market of tourist and travellers wanting to catch atrain to Sydney from
> Brisbane. It could even extend to Melbourne.
> 

The last trains I travelled on (apart from suburban trains) were the 
NSW overnight mail trains (I obviously have not travelled by long 
distance trains for a  l o o o o o n g  while!). I have travelled on 
quite a few over night bus trips since the removal of the overnight 
trains, for the self same reason - sleep the travel hours away. 
However buses are far less comfortable than even those old mail 
trains!

For my money, the speed of an overnight train is not nearly as 
significant as for a day train, provided the trip does not start much 
before 7.00 pm and end much later than 7.00 am because most the time 
is spent sleeping anyway. 

It strikes me that the money saved in extracting the extra performance
out of a day train to save an hour or two could be put into passenger 
comforts on an overnight train.


Whilst reminicing:

While living in the NSW country I could travel to Sydney on Friday 
night, and arrive in Sydney around 6.30 am Saturday morning. The 
return trip involved leaving at around 10.00 pm Sunday night and being
back in time for work Monday morning. I have also done it on 
consecutive nights and spent just one day in Sydney. However, my great
frustration was that I could never do the opposite when living in 
Sydney. I could get FROM Sydney on Friday night - but the old mail 
train did not travel TO Sydney on Sunday night. Driving was a much 
greater risk - "drowsy driver".

The other difficulty that I recall encountering a few times was that 
it was an era of a number of 24 hour train strikes. The problem was 
that for the overnight trains that was always a 48 hour absence of 
trains.

Regards,

Stephen