Discovering new travel experiences

Press, 22 September 1987, Page 33

Discovering new travel experiences

An increasing number of New Zealanders are discovering the exciting travel experiences that can be had on Australia’s extensive railways. Unlike New Zealand, Australia is a country of great distances. The major cities of Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide or Perth are up to 1000 kilometres, or more, apart.

Long-distance road journeys can be an unattractive proposition, especially In summer when temperatures can be very high. Air travel is fine for those with limited time. The train, however, provides a high level of comfort and enables passengers to see more of the real Australia.

Australian railways are Ideally suited for tourist travel. Dining cars are attached to all inter-state services and there are also provisions to purchase on-board refreshments on most shorter inter-city runs.

All trains are airconditioned and Australians expect to have showers available on their overnight services. In recent years rail travel has become a fashionable form of recreational travel through-

out the world. Some of the famous old trains have been recreated and names such as the Flying Scotsman and Orient Express in Europe, or the Indian Pacific in Australia, are still as enticing as ever.

Most rolling stock on Australia’s railways has been built in recent years. The trains ride well and are maintained to a very high standard.

A more recent innovation was the introduction of the high-speed XPTs (Express Passenger Trains) which were built for the New South Wales system. Travelling at speeds of up to 160km/h, these trains were designed for the 1980 s and they will soon be used on interstate daylight journeys between Sydney and Brisbane, and Sydney and Melbourne.

Australia’s railways consist Of some 40,000 kilometres of track and they are operated by five separate state systems using three different track gauges. It all started in 1854 when Australia’s first steam-hauled train travelled the short distance, about four kilometres, between Port Melbourne and the city.

Australian ingenuity was such that they not only built the railway; they also constructed the steam locomotive to run on it.

Their ingenuity may have got a little out of hand, however, when they decided on track gauges. That is the distance between the rails. Victoria and South Australia set out with a broad-gauge system of 1600 mm which was based on the Irish railway system. New South Wales was all set to follow, but at the last minute a newly-appointed engineer decided that the state would have a railway built around a British standard gauge of 1435 mm.

To complicate the situation further, Western Australia, Queensland and Tasmania settled for a narrower gauge of 1067 mm, the same as New Zealand’s railways. Different gauges on different systems have caused more than a few headaches over the years, especially when Sydney to Melbourne passengers had to change trains at Albury, the border town, in the middle of the night. Much has been done to

ease the situation in recent years. In 1962, a standard gauge track of 1435 mm was constructed about 300 kilometres between Albury and Melbourne enabling through services to operate on one gauge from Sydney. Then in 1970, a standard gauge track was completed between Sydney and Perth, via Broken Hill, and the world-fam-ous Indian Pacific service was introduced to the 3961 kilometre trans-con-tinental run.

The Sydney to Perth journey takes about 65 hours and the train now takes in Adelaide on the way. The most recent standard gauge track was completed to Alice Springs in. 1980 and two new trains, The Gahn and The Alice were introduced. The Ghan travels to Alice Springs from Adelaide, and The Alice makes the journey from Sydney, a distance of 2857 kilometres.

The Gahn and The Alice provide an ideal way to see Australia’s outback landscapes which are totally different from anything seen in New Zealand. The Gahn was named after the hardy Afghans

and their camel trains which once provided the only form of transport to Central Australia.

Today’s train has First Class and Economy sleepers, and Economy sitting cars. In addition there are, dining cars, and a lounge’car. A Motoßail service, a special waggon attached to carry motor vehicles, is provided for those wanting to take their cars to Central Australia. The Alice is an all First Class sleeping berth train with dining and lounge cars similar to those on The Gahn.

It is now possible to travel between all main cities on the same gauge. In some areas two gauges form a dual-gauge track on the one track bed while in others, different gauges run side by side.

The five separate Australian railways systems are co-ordinated by the Railways of Australia Committee which is based in Melbourne. The committee comprises the chief executives from the major systems, and activities include promoting railway travel in overseas markets as well as promoting an integrated network within Australia.