Re: Wonderful, Customer-Responsive GSR

["Barry" <one@microsoft.com>]

Crookesp wrote in message <19980116200601.PAA21551@ladder01.news.aol.com>...
>I would very much like to use trains for most of this travel. I dislike
>driving. The driver never sees the scenery, only the road, which is boring.
>
>You ignore one enormous advantage of the overnight train for the visitor:
that
>it avoids the cost of a hotel overnight stay and delivers the traveller
>painlessly, well-slept and refreshed, right into the heart of town, so also
>avoiding the traditionally expensive airport to downtown cost.
>
>For instance, we can go on the Melbourne Sydney overnight express with a
>sleeper leaving at midnight. That allows us to get back from Bendigo in the
>afternoon, find dinner and a show in Melbourne, join our train and ber
>delivered to Sydney overnight. No hotel, no boring driving, no sleazy bus
>station, no expensive trek out to the airport in taxis where the meter is
>worked by a foot-pedal,  no worries.
>
>Which other mode of transport offers that advantage?
>
>There is a market for long-haul passenger travel in Australia. It's not
>promoted here in Europe as well as it could be, which may account for lower
>revenue figures on the passenger side. But it's there...
>
>*Philip*
>
>
I agree train travel is very pleasant but that is not the point. Air travel
is cheaper than travelling by sleeper and it doesn't have to be subsidised
by the rest of us. You don't see much on an overnight trip by train and for
most of the trips I make Tullamarine airport in Melbourne is more convenient
than Spencer St which is stuck in the middle of the bloody city.

BTW, I didn't realise the Mel-Syd XPT left at midnite.


Barry Campbell