On The Right Track
Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday November 16, 1989
THE unsettling moment of uncertainty when a jet thunders down the tarmac until the wheels leave the ground and the plane struggles for altitude is, for me, one of the most terrifying of experiences.
It is during this delicate period, when my palms turn to raging rapids of sweat, that my thoughts return to the soothing rhythms of train travel. When a train leaves a platform, the gentle acceleration of the locomotive sanely edges towards its modest top speed as you squeeze through the carriages to reach the sanctuary of the lounge car.
Since the advent of empty skies due to the pilots' dispute, thousands of travellers have become increasingly down-to-earth. These refugees of the clouds have been forced to seek alternative modes of conveyance and many have rediscovered the joys of rail. On the Sydney to Melbourne route, one of the most heavily booked lines during the strike, hundreds of passengers have been surprised by the civility of an overnight train. A few converts might never fly between here and there again.
The Sydney to Melbourne Express leaves at 8pm - which gives you enough time to organise yourself after work - from Central Station and delivers you to Spencer Street the next morning just after breakfast in the dining car. The food on Ansett and Australian flights at the moment is even worse than in less troubled times - the other day on a Melbourne to Sydney flight I received a frigid bun crudely disguised as a ham and cheese croissant with two chunky strips of cheddar (though passengers probably just receive a will to complete on a Hercules). Indeed, first-class train travellers may be surprised by the edibility of the meals in the dining car, not to mention the affability of the lounge car. One of the attractions of train travel is the variety of company that you will encounter. But be prepared - pack a versatile sense of humour, a gregarious nature and an awareness that the mundane need not always be tedious. The Australian train is, after all, an untethered museum of kitsch.
One of Australia's busiest lines, the Sydney-to-Melbourne journey is plagued by sudden stops and starts and an inordinate number of shunts in the wee hours that can make slumber a challenge. It will soon, however, be even harder to sleep. The train is to be rendered a relic of the past, when the State Rail Authority abandons the sleeping and dining cars in favour of swifter, though bunkless, XPTs. The train-fanciers among us will be praying that by 1991, when the old train is banished to the graveyard for rolling stock, that the planes will be flying again. A special economy fare on the Daylight service, in honour of the airline chaos, can be bought for $55 one way (a discount of $20), while a first-class seat is $108. A scarce first-class sleeper, the availability of which will improve after Christmas, to Melbourne costs $148 one way. The scenery on the Daylight train to Melbourne, incidentally, is surprisingly attractive.
Although train bookings have increased by as much as 20 per cent since the airline dispute, it is still possible to get a seat on the Sydney to Melbourne Express or its counterpart, the Inter-Capital Daylight, though overnight sleeper compartments are as rare as card-carrying members of the Australian Pilots' Federation at 9,000 metres.
The best advice is to book the moment you decide to travel and to do so at one of the State Rail Authority's travel centres at Wynyard, Town Hall, Circular Quay, Parramatta or Newcastle. The staff can also arrange package deals which include accommodation. For example, for $238 per person return on the XPT, the SRA offers two nights at the Opal Cove resort at Coffs Harbour, while for $899 there's a nine-day package tour which includes a cruise down the Murray River and return train tickets from Sydney.
Yet it is the Indian Pacific which remains one of the great Australian travel experiences, though it's so appallingly expensive that most travellers consider it a once-in-a-lifetime experience: a first-class ticket, with a sleeper and shower, costs $1,560 return, $780 one-way, for the epic 65-hour trip (though a 20 per cent discount is available if you buy your ticket at least seven days in advance). For the intrepid, an economy-class seat, with access to showers, costs $185 one-way, which compares favourably with a bus, which, incidentally, is the most horrendous way to travel anywhere, except perhaps on an American airline when the pilot is commencing his descent.
The nation's finest tourist train, the recently refurbished Ghan, runs between Adelaide and Alice Springs, and is the only train in the world fitted with poker-machines. A first-class sleeper with your own shower costs $320 one way, though an advance-purchase fare of $256 is available. One of my most enjoyable nights on a train was spent on the Ghan, and I can now claim to hold the dubious badge of honour of having endured virtually the entire fleet, including the luxurious Queenslander, a 35-hour journey which penetrates the tropics from Brisbane to Cairns. First you must get to Brisbane: the fare between Sydney and Brisbane on the Brisbane Limited is $151 one way with a sleeping berth (the sleepers will be retired from service in the New Year, so hurry). A 30 per cent discount is available subject to availability.
A first-class ticket on the Queenslander costs $287.60 one way. Its less-luxurious counterpart, the Sunlander, offers economy sleepers for$179.10. Queensland remains the only State in the country with high-rise aboard - on the Sunlander there are vertigo-inducing three-tier bunks, so mind your head. The Queensland railway network is the most extensive of all the States, with several branch lines to far-flung outposts like Mount Isa and Longreach. At Cairns, the adventurous can fly to the Gulf of Carpentaria for a trip on one of the great little railways in the world, the Gulflander, which runs between the townships of Normanton and Croydon. In the wet season, if you watch closely out the window of the vintage carriage, you might see a crocodile snorkelling through a billabong.
© 1989 Sydney Morning Herald
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