Xplorers to Griffith

David Proctor (daproc@bigfoot.com)
14 Feb 1998 09:45:10 GMT

Countrylink, and the Minister for Transport, have said that they would like
to provide Xplorers to service Griffith, but cannot, as they don't have
any. A friend, who works in the Ministers office, has informed me that the
Minister has opined that if a way can be found to provide them, without
ordering more cars, and without reducing any other services, it will be
done. I had this article published in Railway Digest a few years ago, but I
will repost the idea here. I would be grateful if readers could post any
potential disadvantages, and possible solutions, so that these can be
worked through before the people at Countrylink who DON'T want to run
trains get into it.

The idea basically involves redirecting the seven-car XPT that currently
works NT25/26 Grafton XPT to operate as an NT23/24 Armidale XPT. This would
free up 2 four-car and 2 two-car Xplorers. The 2 two-car Xplorers would
operate on basically the same service as NT25/26 now, although it may be
curtailed to Coff's Harbour, due to increased running times of the
Xplorers, although it could depart earlier, as it would not need to be
serviced after arriving as ST1 like it does now.

One of the two-car Xplorers would operate as a connecting Werris
Creek-Moree shuttle, the other two-car set would operate as a
Junee-Griffith shuttle. Both of these could operate daily, returning to
Sydney (for the Griffith set) or Broadmeadow (for the Moree set) for
servicing as required. I personally would like to see the sets work a
direct service from Sydney on Sundays, then work a connecting shuttle
(MRZ-WCK-MRZ or GFF-JUE-GFF) on Monday to Friday, then operating as a
direct service back to Sydney on the Saturday.

The proposal to place the XPT on the Armidale run would have anumber of
advantages - it is always difficult to know where to place your "short"
passengers in trains which divide en-route. If you place them in the Moree
portion of the train, then the Armidale portion will run empty, and you
turn away Moree passengers. Similarly if you place them in the Armidale
portion. Running the one train will prevent this, as all passengers will be
able to be dispersed over the whole train.

The XPT, being slightly faster than the Xplorer, would be able to slightly
reduce journey times from Sydney to Armidale, although this may be negated
by the need to offload a number of passengers at Werris Creek.

I would be interested to read what people think of this.

-- 
Regards


David Proctor
daproc@bigfoot.com