Re: Southern Aurora

[Paul Hogan <pghogan@spam_nyet_bigpond.com>]

"David Proctor" <daproc@spam_this.umpires.com> writes, and I selectively 
quote :

> 
> That is not what I said - the comment that I was responding to said that the
> corporate market is not interested in price, rather in flexibility, etc. The
> corporate market would LOVE to be able to take advantage of the cheap
> airfares that are available to tourists.

For once, I agree with many of David's points.The Corporate market
*does* try and take advantage of cheaper fares - I work for a 
major company (one that just announced a rather unseemly half 
yearly profit - <g> !),and we fly "best available fare" interstate. 


> Not really - we ARE talking about an overnight sleeping-car train here.
> Frequency is not an issue - you do not want too many trains running the same
> route overnight, do you? As regards speed, why is that an issue? 1900 is a
> good departure time, and 0700 is a good arrival time.
> 
Correct weight - the one thing which aggravated regular users of
the old Aurora / SEX-MEX was the 9am arrival at both ends, particularly
when you got to Footscray early, and crawled in a 5kmh for an on-time
arrival!  
> 
> Maybe you should speak to a wider range of corporate travellers. Sydney
> airport is a joke, and will only get worse. Business people are faced with
> two options: Fly the night before and pay for a hotel; or get up at 3am to
> get to the airport for the first flight. Both are unsatisfactory.
> 
Before we were discouraged from pointless same day Sydney-Melbourne
trips, and encouraged to use technology like videoconferencing instead,
I regularly travelled between Sydney and Melb. If I could, I would get
the train overnight down , allowing me to arrive reasonably refreshed,
and still make a 10am meeting.  An earlier arrival at Spencer St could
have made 9am more feasible.  In any case, most interstate colleagues
who caught the early flight usually got stuck on the Tulla freeway
,and I beat them to the venue. :)

If I caught the train down. I'd  then fly back that night.My boss at the
time regarded me as an eccentric for travelling by train, then tried it 
once himself and was "sold" on the accomodation and dining, but not so
keen on the rough ride.

I got away with train commuting interstate as long as the first class 
sleeper fare was cheaper than combined airfare / overnight hotel costs, 
which it was.
 
> You are only concentrating on parts of what I said. A properly maintained
> train, running at a decent schedule (the old 2000 - 0900 was a joke) with
> properly trained and motivated staff, priced correctly and properly
> marketted, can work.

Previous administrations to Countrylink never marketed the SA/ MEX
to the business community - they didn't know how. There may still
be a niche there for a good private operator who can provide 
a reliable and comfortable product, but, as noted above, the 
volume of interstate overnight/one day trips in the corporate sector
has been significantly reduced.

Most companies these days believe that sending someone 
interstate for a day to attend one or two meetings is an overhead they
can well do without. The pilot's strike a few years back severely dented t
this market, and many organisations learned a trick or two to cut their
corporate travel costs.

Cheers,

Paul Hogan