Re: Journey to Griffith last weekend

["David Proctor" <daproc@spam_this.umpires.com>]

Craig Haber wrote in message <36C2C419.5DDEC6BB@harnessnet.com.au>...

>A few things of note:
>I've now ridden 4 XPT's, all have had wheel flats.....does EVERY XPT
>have flats?


They use them so intensively, it is to be expected - each seven-car set
makes 2 trips to Melbourne, one each to Brisbane, Murwillumbah and Grafton -
that is over 9,000 revenue kilometres - per week - not including non-revenue
kilometres. They really do run them into the ground!

>We were travelling in car A (sleeper), rode OK until you realised how
>much better car B was (must've been on the older type bogies).

They have 9 XL class carriages - 5 are new build (on newer bogies) 4 are
refurbished (on the old bogies).

>On the
>Griffith, I thought the seats in the old cars were very good (not as
>good as an ACZ, but better than an ACN, and much better than XPT),

This has been said for years - I much prefer the seats in those cars to the
XPT cars - the problem with the XPT seats is they try and be everything -
good seats for overnight travel AND daylight travel - this is impossible -
you need different seating for overnight travel (where people are trying to
sleep) compared with daylight travel (where people are awake and need a
different type of support) - I believe (and this is opinion - no flames
please) that it is impossible to cater for BOTH in the one seat.

>although would be better if the middle arm-rest folded up (so you can
>stretch out when there's nobody booked in the seat next to you).

This has been a source of complaint since those seats were introduced in the
70's.

>The partly openable windows is a good idea
>for when aircon fails (or for when railfans want to take in the GM chant
>from the 422).

Air-conditioning was EXCEPTIONALLY unreliable when the upper hopper windows
was introduced - that is WHY they were introduced. I agree it is handy to
have the key (particularly when noone else is in the carriage!)

DaveP