Only one Indian Pacific service from April

pm1225 · Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2008 6:31 pm

According to an artice in News Ltd Perth Sunday Times of 30th November on page 36. It is claimed the GSR have advised the Indian Pacific will only run once a week from 1st April 2009 when GSR new operating year comences. I have searched GSR site and can find no mention I have also tried to find artice in Perth Now.com.au but to o avail. Anyone one else heard or seen simular reports wilth the low patronage out of Perth I have been amazed it lasted this year as two trains.

8888 · Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2008 11:34 pm

A long way from the halcyon days of the 1970s, when interstate trains departed Perth every day, some being double consist IP and Trans-Australians.

GSR would find it very difficult to compete with the airlines now. Qantas, Virgin, Jetstar and Tiger all offer services domestically out of Perth with many discounted fares available.

Pressman · Posted: Wed Dec 03, 2008 6:08 am

These rumours seem to crop up every year at this time.
Because GSR reduce the IP and Ghan to a single weekly service over the christmas period, all manner of 'stories' surface.
Last year the rumour was GSR was about to go belly up because they were reducing services!
The IP from Adelaide to Perth is currently running a double Gold consist and usually has 3 fully loaded motorail wagons.

As to the airlines ........ it depends on what you want .....
Packed into cattle class for 3 hours where you pay for a bottle of water,
or
Room to move on a two day Holiday trip in an all included five star hotel on wheels.

Cheers,
Tony
Still drying out the falcoon after the now imfamous creek incident!http://tony33.fotopic.net

E1109 · Posted: Wed Dec 03, 2008 11:25 am

DalyWaters · Posted: Wed Dec 03, 2008 9:57 pm

Have a look at the bargains here. It should be enough to have GSR "battening down the hatches" for a while.

http://vacationstogo.com/ticker.cfm?t=y&u=n&sp=y

8888 · Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2008 12:09 am

nosecone · Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2008 8:07 am

Pressman · Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2008 5:41 pm

pm1225 · Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2008 5:50 pm

PClark · Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2008 11:23 am

A reduction in frequency of the IP and Ghan is hardly surprising given world economic conditions.

These trains are marketed as "experience" or "cruise" journeys rather than as basic transportation between A and B.

As such, it would be normal for a big % of passengers to plan and book a long way ahead. Hence, if numbers are going to be down in '09, this would already be showing up on the books.

While GSR are not a public company and therefore don't publish their financial results, I suspect that they are not massively profitable. To balance the books they rely on a pretty substantial payment from the Federal government to "compensate" them for granting concession fares to pensioners and others (including MPs on Gold Passes)

That the fares actually paid by some of these concession passengers are actually higher than many air fares available to the entire community is not lost on the bureaucrats and pollies who realise that it's "middle-class welfare" but they don't want to be held responsible for GSR shutting down and the loss of two "natioal icons"

dalts 1985 · Posted: Mon Dec 08, 2008 7:12 pm

PClark · Posted: Mon Dec 08, 2008 9:41 pm

To dalts1985 and others:-

Yes, I do remember the Indian Pacific when it was a government run service and my latter day memories are far from pleasant.

I remember one trip from Sydney to Perth where the train left Sydney with only about forty passengers in first class.

We were all summoned into the dining car for dinner at 6.00pm and rushed through a meal in about 45 minutes.

After "dinner" a number of "off-duty"staff proceeded to take over one end of the lounge car to watch footy videos. They were extremely casually dressed (shorts, jeans, T-shirts, thongs or barefooted) and sat around drinking beer out of cans, swearing, burping and farting.

I am sorry that I can't put an exact date to this incident but I do recall that I made a complaint to the "Railways of Australia Committee" about it and that the person who contacted me (and wholeheartedly agreed with me) was a Mr Neville Gazzard.

PClark · Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 2:56 pm

I notice that one of the Google ads at the top of RP2 is offering Gold sleepers on the Ghan for the price of Red, a saving of up to $570.

Apparently all that is required is to purchase two nights accommodation and one day tour in Darwin

M636C · Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 3:39 pm

Just to back up my namesake's recent posts, I travelled in late 1998 on the IP in what was then called "Holiday Class" with a friend who was travelling for less than half the fare because he worked for the Norwegian Rail Track Authority. He chose "Holiday Class" to keep the costs down.

It wasn't that bad, although the sleeping compartment was VERY small. The lounge car was barely distinguishable from the then first class, but the dining car was fairly basic.

On the other hand, the CDF crew were an exchange crew from the (then) associated Anglia Railways in the UK and they were almost embarrassingly helpful compared to my recollections from the old days of CR. There was nothing wrong with the quality of food and I think the service was actually first class.

M636C

PClark · Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 4:29 pm

"Just to back up my namesake's recent posts, I travelled in late 1998 on the IP in what was then called "Holiday Class"

In late 1998 GSR had been running the IP for about a year. The "bad trip" I had was considerably earlier, back when staff were provided by the separate rail systems.

"It wasn't that bad, although the sleeping compartment was VERY small."

The economy, holiday or red class sleeping compartments are almost exactly the same size as Amtrak Superliner or Viewliner "roomettes" which sleep two persons and are the majority of compartments in each car.