Sydney Day 1

This is the longest post you will read about our Sydney holiday. 

Shortly after Mother died we decided we better get to and book some short holidays. The first was to make our annual Sydney visit and travel by train to get there, with flying home. We booked well in advance and with not much of a price difference between economy and first class, we paid for first class.

We were allocated seats that could have had a better window alignment and the seats could only be changed over the telephone and not the 'Manage my booking' link on the website. I decided to stick with seats 5 and 6 in B carriage. 

Some background here where we were caught out. Because of the way the seats are shown, we assumed we would be on the right hand side of the train, best views and best for my arthritis and at the back.

Now at similar times  XPT trains (eXpress Passenger Train) leave Melbourne bound for Sydney and Sydney bound for Melbourne. The train after reaching Melbourne and unloading goes into the rail yards for some TLC and fuel, and the seats are all reversed. So, when it returns to the platform the next morning to make the Sydney trip, the seats are on the other side and at the opposite end to the diagram. Got that? I am not even sure I have.

Later edit:

Where the map below says Car B First class is the carriage nose coming from Sydney to Melbourne. The seats have their direction reversed in Melbourne and from Melbourne to Sydney the nose of the carriage is at the other end. 

So, we were on the left hand side of the train and second from the front. Our view was quite good but we were under a very noisy air conditioning inlet that kept cutting in and out. I discovered during a roam of train, the temperature was set to the standard 22 degrees (74F). It was very comfortable inside, mostly heating I would imagine, certainly as we departed.  

I am getting ahead of myself though. We left home at about 7.45 and caught the 58 tram to the city and walked down Bourke Street to Melbourne Southern Cross Station. There was an XPT train sitting at platform 2 and train had passengers already seated inside but  I understood we would depart from platform 1. Both tracks are dual gauge as our local trains mostly use broad gauge tracks and NSW uses standard gauge tracks. The service is run by CountryLink, owned by the state government of NSW. 

We were more than half an hour early so bought some coffee and tried to relax R was concerned about the train already being nearly full of passengers. I managed to drink some of my coffee before at R's urging we returned to the platform to see the train had gone! 

I looked around and to our relief, an XPT was on platform 1 with prospective passengers milling around. Oh well, lets board. The other train must have been the just arrived overnight sleeper from Sydney and people on board were waiting for the doors to be unlocked. Whew. 

If the train looks familiar to you English, that's because the design was based on one of your trains. It was built here forty three years old and was adapted for Australia, with a wider body, the appropriate wheel gauge, suspension better able to cope with poorer tracks, better air filters for dustier operating conditions and stronger air conditioning. While the original could travel at 200 km/h, ours were hobbled by gearing changes to 160 km/h (100mph). While our country trains reach that speed at times, I don't think our XPT did once, though it did get up to about 130 km/h at times in Victoria.

There is an engine at each at each end, so I suppose it is a push pull affair. I believe it is a diesel electric train, that is it has electric motors powered by electricity generated by diesel engines. Enough train nerd stuff.

The seats were very comfortable with a great seat back recline, a sturdy fold down table on the seat backs, plenty of leg room. The minus was rock hard arm rests, no power points and no USB charging. Just out of shot at the top was the noisy air con intake. 

The big Ferris wheel no longer operates. Want to buy it? Great views of railway yards and a new road construction project. Perhaps that is its problem. 

Off we go without even noticing the movement but before fully leaving the platform, we came to an abrupt stop. A late stop signal perhaps.

I thought this might be the North Melbourne flyover, but is that dual gauge? I think not. Somewhere else. 

As when we caught the Overland to Adelaide, there are so many containers stacked along our exit from Melbourne. I am talking about thousands, plus the thousands along the Overland route. We entered a long tunnel and I didn't have a clue where we were. I must check that. The dual gauge track is obvious in this photo but I find them impossible to understand when there are points where trains change tracks. I would have to stand and study them with lots of finger pointing and tracing. 

I've put the above photos in order but the rest are not. Is this because of the new photo upload system? 

Somewhere around here there was a change of crew. I guess the crew take a break and then staff the ex Sydney XPT to Melbourne from here. 

A nice looking church somewhere in NSW.

This wind farm photo turned out better than I expected.

Northern Victoria and southern NSW were as green as I have ever seen them.

This must have been on the outskirts of Melbourne.

I wonder what this building is about. Of course Andrew, you will remember the location once home to check. I don't. 

That is it for photos. 

First class is two by two seating, as is economy. The only difference I can guess is first class seating has more leg room and a better seat recline. Aside from the quiet factor that first class might offer, I am not sure it is worth the extra money.

We had a snack for breakfast and coffee. The bar was open for lunch and I had a g&t and then a sandwich, although a hot meal could be ordered. We had a nice afternoon tea and ordered a hot dinner. I can only remember my meal was a curry and R's was not. They weren't what you might envision for first class but both meals were both nice.

As we left Melbourne Southern Cross through rail yards with tracks in all directions, there was a loud rubber on metal grinding noise for a few kilometres. Once we were reached a certain speed on straight track, the noise stopped, thank goodness. 

Even though the train had engines separated from carriages, I could feel the engines struggling as they propelled us up the bank to the Southern Tablelands after Junee. At Junee the train had to reverse into the platform. I am sure that is not normal and added to the journey time. We saw the driver walk past to the rear engine to reverse and walk back again to get on our way. I think after that we were forty minutes late.

At some point I guess over bad track the carriage suspension made some loud and annoying noise as we travelled at a slow speed.

There seemed to never be straight track after that. The train constantly went around curves at slow speeds and even when the curves became less as we approached the outskirts of Sydney the train must have been under speed restrictions because of track conditions. R was getting armrest banging frustrated as we were so late. This is amusing because before we became so late, R was saying we were silly to not book a sleeper back home from Sydney. I had to text our meet and greet person at our accommodation as we just became later and later. No way would I get travel overnight on an XPT sleeper. 

While I was pleased to travel on this old train, Sydney train yards are full of brand new replacement trains but as they were wholly imported, are not right for Australian service. Tunnels had to be modified as the trains wouldn't fit, and all sorts of issues with the trains. It has been a disgrace, under the former state conservative party. The current Labor government has promised to build trains here, from local and imported ingredients. 

We arrived at Sydney Central the very predictable hour late, managed to walk quite some distance through the mega station to catch a suburban train one stop to Sydney Museum, where we walked uphill towing our suitcases to our accommodation. We waited ten minutes in the hotel foyer for our meet and greet person. In the past she has well overstayed her welcome in our apartment as she told us about her Mardi Gras experience, other personal stuff but this time I got up from my seat and started pacing around as I was tired of hearing about how she met her second husband, a stunning and hunky South American guy who she pays to do maintenance on her the apartments she looks after. I think we saw him in the lift, and he is rather nice for a fifty year old. She soon took the hint and left. 

Never again am I catching a train like this, R told me. Fortunately we had brought with us a bottle of the Scottish Doctor and his nerves, and mine, were soothed.

I have lodged a complaint to TrainLink about the hour late arrival time, not because it happened, but because it was known about and we should have been told. The published timetable needs to reflect what has been happening for who knows how long, months I should think, as 'new tracks are embedded'.

Note, the train doesn't have Wifi and the phone service is very patchy along the way.