[QLD] Kuranda SX sets (was: [QLD] The last SX tin sets)

[James Brook <ajmbrook@ozemail.com.au>]

Bill Bolton wrote:

> There aren't that many people who holiday in the Cairns area would be
> making "average every day train trips" at all, let alone in anything
> remotely like an SX set, so that point seem fairly moot.

So you're saying that most people don't use suburban trains? This is exactly what a
tin set is.

> From talking to the tourist operators we came into contact while in
> Cairns, many of the tourists who go to Kuranda have little epxerience
> of train travel at all, and the train is as novel for them as the
> cableway.

So you are saying that everyone in the world apart from railfans never use a train?
The cable way is a lot less common that railways.

> So what, many of the tourists doen't come from Australia.

And many of them do. When I was in Cairns there were plenty of Australians going on
the regular tourist service to Kuranda.

> To a railfan perhaps, but to an non-railfan, they simply wouldn't know
> or care.

How do you know? As I said in my previous post one of my non-railfan friends, who
hardly ever uses a train, travelled up that line and was fascinated with the old
wooden carriages. Even to someone who is completely brainless it is obvious that a
tin set is no where near as different to normal trains as a wooden carriage.

> > How popular do you think Puffing Billy would be if they took away the
> > wooden cars and replaced them with stainless steel cars?
>
> That ceratinly grasping at straws to support an argument!

Puffing Billy is Australia's other famous tourist train, therefore it is a
reasonable comparison. Also why did the Walhalla Goldfield's Railway make old style
carriages for their tourist service if people don't care what they travel in?
According to your arguments WGR could have put them in steel boxes on wheels and it
wouldn't have mattered. All I am saying is that using suburban trains in Cairns
takes away some of the atmosphere and interest out of going up that line. You're
right that most people probably wouldn't know or care, but some people would. It
also means that the trip isn't as memorable as if they had a train consisting of the
old wooden cars that are totally different to modern trains. Even if someone doesn't
know what its like to travel in a wooden carriage they certainly know about it after
they go up the line. This is something that will be lost if QR replaces these trains
with the tin sets. I have nothing against the tin sets, all I am saying is that they
would be out of place on the Kuranda line. They should stay in Brisbane where they
belong.


--
- James Brook -

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