Just announced - the state government will use the $330,000 they've saved for the re-introduction of a passenger service to Whyalla, to cope with the booming population there

That steel plant upgrade looked almost too good to be true when I saw it on the news earlier today... but it will be good if it eventuates.

C'mon people,
if you must discuss the price of housing in Sydney and Melbourne then It's the economy, stupid! is the place to go.
https://www.railpage.com.au/f-p2128009.htm#2128009

Back to the real important issue "The Overland"

GSR are still taking bookings for 1st January 2019, so Mike will get to lunch in Stawell.
After that bookings are a very hopeful "SOLD OUT" ha ha.

cheers
John

I wasn't in the slightest bit worried the train wouldn't be operating on 1/1/2019, despite Don's concerns that I may need a Plan B.

Mike.

A good start for the Overland would be to start stopping again in Tailem Bend (SA), Tintinara (SA), Kaniva (VIC) and Murtoa (VIC).

Platforms already exist in these locations so startup costs could be kept low.

A good start for the Overland would be to begin stopping in Tailem Bend (SA), Tintinara (SA), Kaniva (VIC) and Murtoa (VIC).

Platforms already exist in these locations so startup costs could be kept low.

Agree, doesn't hurt. No one there, don't stop. Someone wants to use the train, you stop!

I wasn't in the slightest bit worried the train wouldn't be operating on 1/1/2019, despite Don's concerns that I may need a Plan B.

Mike.

You'll be able to have your tea and biscuits on your jolly tourist excursion with all the other people saying "goodbye" to that slow-moving antique.

A good start for the Overland would be to begin stopping in Tailem Bend (SA), Tintinara (SA), Kaniva (VIC) and Murtoa (VIC).

Platforms already exist in these locations so startup costs could be kept low.

Murtoa is away from the main line so the platform may have to be extended outwards. The same possibly for Kaniva. All of these stations as suggested could be introduced as conditional stops, that is, the train only stops for pre-booked passengers as is the case with the 'Lander trains in Qld.

Mike.

I wasn't in the slightest bit worried the train wouldn't be operating on 1/1/2019, despite Don's concerns that I may need a Plan B.

Mike.

You'll be able to have your tea and biscuits on your jolly tourist excursion with all the other people saying "goodbye" to that slow-moving antique.

Poor Don, scraping the bottom of the barrel now ...

The thing is though even providing the fact that there are platforms in places that could be used how many people will actually use the services from those towns though. Most people today want to get somewhere get what ever needs to be done and get home again quickly not wait a day or so for the next train. If you have to do a trip like this from one place to another it would probably work out cheaper and quicker to drive rather than wait for the next train and have to pay for accomodation etc while you wait.

It is no use spending thousands of dollars when at best you might make a couple of hundred dollars. And also places that now have no train service at all, the station may still be there but the train does not stop, people have already got another way to get where they want to go or need to go that is convenient to them and if that is driving or taking the bus they are not going to change the way they use it already. More so if the journey is slower than the car or bus.

Also adding more places it stops at will slow up the train even more as while it is stopped at a station it might then have to wait for a freight coming along that it would normally run in front of to overtake or pass the stopped train, rather than simply run along that section in the slot provided. ARTC want to keep all trains moving not just the Overland. A typical station stop could take 10 minutes say as first you have to run into the platform if not on the mainline, and stop to allow other trains to pass you. Then you might have to wait some more to get back out on the mainline again doing this at a few more stops does not take long to add another hour or maybe more to the trip. if each stop just for arguments sake takes 10 minutes then eight stops will take 80 minutes and so you have already lost over  hour that you have to add to the total time for the trip so if it now takes 11 hours it would then take 12 hours 20 minutes for the same trip. That is slowing it down not speeding it up. The ideal situation would be no stops just Adelaide to Melbourne express that might make the journey a little faster but it would lose the use it gets now though.

It is one of those trains really that no matter what you do you cannot really improve the service much at all.

https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/stepping-in-to-save-the-overland-for-western-victoria/
The train will operate in its current form for 2019 with a total subsidy from the Victorian Government of $3.78 million.

Discuss.

https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/stepping-in-to-save-the-overland-for-western-victoria/
The train will operate in its current form for 2019 with a total subsidy from the Victorian Government of $3.78 million.

Discuss.

Do we have to?

Lock the thread and re-open in a year's time

We've had how many pages so far, and not one person has come up with any sane idea to revive it's fortunes that actually stands up under scrutiny.

Time to change the name of the thread to "Victoria to keep The Overland running".

I wasn't in the slightest bit worried the train wouldn't be operating on 1/1/2019, despite Don's concerns that I may need a Plan B.

Mike.

You'll be able to have your tea and biscuits on your jolly tourist excursion with all the other people saying "goodbye" to that slow-moving antique.

Poor Don, scraping the bottom of the barrel now ...

I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel? Two years ago when this was last going on you sent me an expletive-laden PM just because I was saying the same thing I'm saying now: It's not a good use of taxpayer money. You did that and yet you don't even use the damn thing.

And yeah just on Nine News was the story that the Victorian government are going to pay almost $3.87 million to keep it running for another twelve months; rather sensibly my own Premier Steve Marshall said (to paraphrase) "We aren't stumping up, people who want it to stay should use it or lose it". Lucky it's not scarce SA taxpayer money being used this time.

Rough calculations are that the Vic government has decided to pay a direct subsidy of $250 or so for each and every passenger.

And you're still not going to use it; and I'm still not going to use it.

https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/stepping-in-to-save-the-overland-for-western-victoria/
The train will operate in its current form for 2019 with a total subsidy from the Victorian Government of $3.78 million.

Discuss.

All this will do is pospone the inevitable what happens after that. The Victorian Govt then find that paying that is all a waste of money and then they too pull the plug on it, what then. But one thing if that happened the SA Govt and taxpayers would be smiling as it is all a Victorian doing SA was not then involved in it.

Remember Victoria stole the Grand Prix from South Australia and look at how that turned out, Victoria actually did SA a favour stealing it as they had to pour more and more money into it till eventually they even wanted to get rid of it, but good luck with the train I can see the same as the Grand Prix happening with the train, each year they will have to pour more taxpayers money into it for very little return if any on the investment.

If your SA then your all smiles. The service continues and Victoria picks up the bill.

https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/stepping-in-to-save-the-overland-for-western-victoria/
The train will operate in its current form for 2019 with a total subsidy from the Victorian Government of $3.78 million.

Discuss.

All this will do is pospone the inevitable what happens after that. The Victorian Govt then find that paying that is all a waste of money and then they too pull the plug on it, what then. But one thing if that happened the SA Govt and taxpayers would be smiling as it is all a Victorian doing SA was not then involved in it.

This was my initial thought too - that the Victorians would just try and make it disappear quietly after another 12 months - but on further reflection I don't think that's a likely outcome.

I think this idea significantly underestimates the political symbolism carried by passenger rail in Victoria. I doubt Steve Bracks knew what he was starting in 1999, but the reality is that every election campaign since has seen country trains become a major issue, culminating in this year's rather extraordinary $19 billion thought bubble from the Coalition. Speaking of, not a peep from them on The Overland issue. Add all that together and you realise that neither major party in Victoria can afford to be seen wielding an axe within a hundred metres of a train line. The revenue situation in Victoria may deteriorate badly over the next 4 years, but public sentiment will not change so rapidly. I am not at all familiar with the SA political scene, but I suspect that the long absence of long-distance passenger rail has all but erased it from the consciousness of the electorate.

A second, related point is that the "can do Premier" will know his government is doomed if it stalls on its promises. Anything that looks remotely like a backdown will be avoided at all costs in this term, even if it causes severe budgetary pain. In fact, letting the Overland continue is probably a much cheaper option than being "forced" to come up with some other solution for Western Victoria. Note that the title of the press release hints at this fact.

A third factor is that SA dropped its $300,000 contribution and Victoria is now providing a total subsidy of $3.78m. That means Victoria has been wearing the vast bulk of the payment for a long time anyway, probably 90%+, and so if it had been making noises about the thing, it would have started doing so a long time to go. SA was paying peppercorn rent all along and who knows, with only one government in the picture, Victoria might be in a better negotiating position with GSR. Time will tell.

To cut my long ramblings short, I think the political motivation for Victoria to go it alone after 2019 will be stronger than the few million lost to the Budget.

Someone reported my post about the extension of the Overland (above) by the Victorian government. Sooky bub.

Someone reported my post about the extension of the Overland (above) by the Victorian government. Sooky bub.

If you don't want to be quoted; don't write.

PIMM...it's plainly obvious that our friends in SA have no regional rail culture in their thinking as there are no regional railways in SA to have a culture about and there haven't been for around 2 generations or 40+ years, apart from a few scant tourist railways.

Consequently, instead of suggestions to improve the only regional train that vaguely resembles a SA regional train from the past, it's easier to suggest it be cancelled so the posters can concentrate on the buses, cars and aeroplanes that are promoted as an alternative to the Overland.

Victoria does NOT close railways, or truncate services since the bad old days of Jeff Kennett around 25 years ago.

As I wrote in these pages recently, I hope our new Minister for Public Transport...(does SA even have a Minister for Public Transport ) and in the next 12 months, especially as the train is effectively now Victorian by default, that Public Transport Victoria, or whatever it morphs to after 1/1/2019 has a root and branch review of which I'll be more than pleased to be a part of.

Meanwhile, my group of 10 are Stawell bound on 1/1/2019 on the Overland, as opposed to last year when we were Melbourne bound on the Overland AFTER our particularly boozy lunch in Stawell.

Mike.

https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/stepping-in-to-save-the-overland-for-western-victoria/
The train will operate in its current form for 2019 with a total subsidy from the Victorian Government of $3.78 million.

Discuss.

Do we have to?

Lock the thread and re-open in a year's time

We've had how many pages so far, and not one person has come up with any sane idea to revive it's fortunes that actually stands up under scrutiny.

I have...

Someone reported my post about the extension of the Overland (above) by the Victorian government. Sooky bub.

If you don't want to be quoted; don't write.

What are you talking about - it's got nothing to do with that.

Meanwhile, my group of 10 are Stawell bound on 1/1/2019 on the Overland, as opposed to last year when we were Melbourne bound on the Overland AFTER our particularly boozy lunch in Stawell.

Mike.

...@ $250 each. What a larf at the Victorian taxpayer's expense! Have an extra drink on me because I'M NOT PAYING for that antique choo-choo ride. Kudos to Steven Marshall for standing firm (for once).

FFS you blokes, Victoria has stumped up the cash, almost certainly wholely and solely for the benefit of Western Vic Pax.

Who cares how much per pax it is or if Steve Marshall was right or wrong, it is done.

I am sure we will find out in 12 months time or sooner what the future holds for pax services from SC to Western Victoria and beyond, until then let it go.

Conduct unbecoming is I think the best description of a few in this thread.

BG

A rail service is either providing a substantive benefit to the community it purports to serve or it isn't. The days of running trains - just because - are long gone. We don't have the population base in this country to justify something like Amtrak, the Commowealth abdicated its responsibility for rail services like that under Keating and the South Australian government a lot earlier than that under my namesake. Victoria has discovered a home-counties model and that's good - we don't have the critical mass or population here. Long-distance services don't fit that home-counties model; they either need to have a market with intermediate towns or they generally die, that's been the pattern since rationalisation 50's-60's on-wards. The only one that really works well is Sydney-Melbourne and only because the whole corridor is reasonably densely populated - and the exception of WA and QLD who have both decided to heavily subsidise long-distance rail. It simply doesn't work anywhere else in Australia, no other potential long-distance service is really worth providing (so we've decided).

I love a good train as much as anyone, but it's got to pay its way, provide substantial benefits for the $$$ invested AND be competitive with the alternatives, otherwise it's purely a boondoogle, something that should be provided by a purely heritage or tourist operation, not by a modern loco hauling six old refurbished carriages on a really long slog across a mostly flat plain with nothing much to see. Dragging it out will not lead to an improved service, simply because the cost of improving it will be astronomical and nobody, not the states, not the Commonwealth - will stump up for that huge cost.

This is the real world, not some foamy gunzel fantasy world where the governmint can afford anything and everything.

We all know the real reason that labor is pouring money into the overland is for, Public image, they don't want to be the ones known for killing passenger rail.

The "Overland" died when it was no longer and overnight train with sleeping accommodation. From its inception in the 1880s it included Mann Boudoir cars, the first interstate sleeper train in Australia.

A twice weekly daylight service is a joke. The service only suited rail access pathing and the availability of rolling stock (only one set)

If Victoria are silly enough to waste money keeping it running then bully for them.

If on the other hand Victoria morph it in to a daily both ways high speed (relatively) DMU then they will deserve applause; with overnight sleeping accommodation even better.