Sleeper trains are making a comeback. Why are ours being axed?
Sleeper trains are enjoying a resurgence in Europe, but the sleeper service between Sydney and Melbourne is set to be scrapped.
I make the trip to Melbourne and back once a year on the sleeper and I have mixed feelings. I love the idea of going to sleep at night and waking up in Melbourne. The trip is perfectly timed, ie. you get off work, home / shower and back to Central for the evening departure, then in Melbourne before the day starts. That is all of the good bits. The not so good bits, the train is old so trying to go to sleep on it is near impossible, it creaks, it rattles continuously in ways you cant fix, the blinds hardly ever shut completely, the toilet/shower between the two cabins has never been upgraded since 1983 and the cabin service seems poor value.
The complimentary meal is a packet of 3 crackers with tomato relish, a small pack of savory sticks and a small cup of water. Breakfast since COVID is cereal and a cup of tea/coffee (before COVID you could choose toast). While I am sure the sleeper service is more comfy than sitting up, it is generally just sad / old train that will probably be in service for another 20 years.
Also, you aren't meant to use the power sockets in the sleeper carriage for anything other than a shaver. Once again, hasn't been upgraded since 1983 so the power is not very stable for electronic devices.
I am not sad they are stopping the sleeper, but I will just fly from now on.
The xpt is kinda crap, and it's at the point where flying is cheaper. This is only through throwing all the damage planes do into "externalities" though.
Flying is hell, emissions wise and for those who live near airport. It's a practice we need to move away from.
Trains aren't perfect, but with outlay to improve them and the lines they can become more attractive, and if flying's cost reflects its harm the use of them will inevitably rise. Trains also service the communities they pass by, allowing them access to metro centres. Planes do nothing for the people they fly over.
All good points. I don't think I could sleep sitting up overnight, so that is why I would opt to fly. The only attractive thing about the train is I can try sleep laying down. I guess I will give the new train a try when it comes along but it isn't sounding great considering the length of the journey
I do like the start of the article where he talks about the dream train sleeper journey.. it sounds magical
Your review can be summarized in short: Waggons have not been updated since 40 years. Maybe they should update their waggons. Oh, they axed that plan. Again. See you here next year. And the year after.
Personally, I don’t think upgrading locomotive-hauled stock is worth investing that money into anymore. They absolutely should have a decade ago, but trying to do that now to delay an inevitable upgrade to a more efficient D/EMU design seems like a waste of money.
What I’m more frustrated about is the missed opportunity here for state cooperation. If the government’s of Qld, NSW, Vic & SA (with federal funding support) all collaborated on a long-distance train-set, then it would benefit a lot more people for a lot less money. You could replace the useless Overland service from Melbourne-Adelaide, and bring public services back to routes like Sydney-Adelaide (currently $795+ on the Indian-Pacific). It could be built with gauge-changing bogies so state regional train authorities can use it too.
But there just doesn’t seem to be any political will for that on a federal level, and the state’s certainly aren’t going to suddenly cooperate on rail standards after 150yrs of bickering.
I booked a trip from Sydney to Melbourne on the sleeper service a couple of months ago. There morning before my departure, I got a text message informing me that the sleeper carriage I was due to be on was replaced with a seated carriage, due to “maintenance”, and I would be refunded the difference. This sort of thing would not be accepted in Europe.
The old SEx/MEx sleeper service was better than the XPT ever was. You had the full deluxe cabins if you wanted it with families, a proper dining car, and the slower travel time actually made more sense for overnight.
The problem with the XPT is that it's always been a weird middle ground. It's not a high speed train or anything close, it's just a bit faster, and the road these days is in a state where it's a reasonably ok one day drive if you've reason not to fly.
The train itself isn't really the slow part for the XPT, it's supposed to be able to run up to 160km/h. Knowing that only made it more annoying though when sitting in one chugging along at ~80k (or even slower when hot) up and down the north coast line - like most of our lines that track just wasn't good enough for it to go faster.
Also, the Melbourne-Sydney and Sydney-Brisbane lines are slow. They were built for feeble Victorian-era steam traction, and wind around hills to avoid gradients. Straighten some of the curves out, and you’d shave a few hours off the journey.
Not enough to justify scrapping sleeper trains, though: it’d still take a good 8+ hours to do Melbourne-Sydney. Though a hypothetical high-speed rail line could do the journey in 3 hours, and while it would take several generations to realistically build one in Australia, one could incrementally upgrade the existing lines, picking off the low-hanging fruit of slow curves and then replacing entire segments with high-speed ones and running classic-compatible trains along the network.
I wish we had more trains here in the US. I would love to take a train from my location (major city in SE) to basically anywhere, but it isn’t possible because we had no train service…at all.
Even in places there is train service, the prices are often worse than driving as is the speed, and flights are so much quicker and more affordable it's absolutely astonishing.
I got a bus + sleeper from the Gold Coast to Sydney last year, loved it. Bed was fine, was cool having my own little cabin. The shower was adequate, kinda cramped but the temperature was good. Breakfast was proper food, unlike someone else's description of the Syd-Mel. The electricity was a bit weak as I recall, just made my laptop drain a bit slower.
Going in the other direction during the day was absolutely lovely, a much nicer experience than flying. Got to see so much scenery and felt very relaxed...until the bus ride.
It was not much cheaper than flying and I only did it because I care about carbon emissions. Would be nice for the environment if they could bring the cost down - when NSW did free trips they included the XPTs and they were booked out, so people are obviously willing to use them if the price is low enough.
Or just carbon tax the fuck out of air travel 😈
I suspect part of the rationale is that if you’re doing the 11-hour journey propped up in a seat, you can pretend you’re flying to Dubai or somewhere glamorous like that.
Where are sleeper. Trains Making a comeback and how to find them? (in Europe? )
Maybe England? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_usage
The other places where trains are doing well they are fast enough you don't need a sleeper. Even Poland has fast trains now.