Re: high speed tours (was: [VIC] R766 and R711 Ballarat tour.)

["Stuart Thyer" <s.thyer@anatomy.unimelb.edu.au>]

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In article <385EF9CD.7E93669@ozemail.com.au>, James Brook
<ajmbrook@ozemail.com.au> wrote:


>James Brook wrote:

>I just remembered one other thing. On the recent Oaklands tour there was a K car on
>the overnight train. Did Steamrail actually book people into that car? If I had
>booked on a tour that was advertised as a train consisting of wooden cars I 
>wouldn't
>be too happy about being shoved into one of those, especially after paying for the
>overnight option. It also seems a bit odd as there were four extra wooden cars with
>nobody in them that were left at Benalla.
>

If you had got upset at being in that car, we could have shifted you. The
reason the car was taken, and the reason 4 cars were left behind, was for a
charter that ran from Benalla to Devenish for a bush dance on the friday
night. The cars were only needed for capacity on the friday, so didn't run
on saturday. The dreaded K car was taken for its ground loading ability,
very handy for 400 people who have just had too much of a  good time at a
bush dance!

As for Craigs post re pathing, unfortunately he is correct, pathing is
becoming more of a problem as more and more facilities vanish, and
passengers don't appreciate having to spend an hour in a crossing loop
because the 50mph train falls short of the next station by often only a few
minutes. Quite often, Sunbury to Bendigo is the section, with nothing open
in between. If it was ATC territory, beautiful, but it ain't and it sucks.

Stuart Thyer
Photographer
University of Melbourne