Reminiscing about Sydney - Broken Hill - Adelaide, the first time I did it was in Christmas 1953 with my parents when I had just turned 13. My father worked for the SAR so he had passes which cut the cost. Adelaide - Terowie behind a 520, then T to Peterborough and Broken Hill. Walk carrying luggage from Sulphide Street station to Crystal Street station to catch the Comet to Parkes. Then the Forbes Mail behind a C36 to Orange where the cars from Dubbo were attached, then on to Sydney.
Then when I was in the Army in Sydney from 1959 to 1965, I found that going via Broken Hill or Melbourne to Adelaide took about the same time, except that you had a day in Melbourne instead of travelling all day on the Comet, unless you used the Daylight from Sydney to Melbourne. Going on the night trains, you left Sydney either at 8.10 pm on the Spirit of Protest or 9.40 pm on the Forbes Mail, arriving in Adelaide at 9 am via Melbourne or 9.18 am via Broken Hill. I preferred going via Broken Hill because there was enough room under the washbasins in an FS carriage to roll out a sleeping bag on the first night and you could usually find and empty seat on the narrow gauge for the second night, otherwise an empty luggage rack. Going via Melbourne you never got a seat to sleep on, you had to change trains at Albury at 6 am - great in winter - and the luggage racks on the Overland only had a small lip to stop you falling off!
Food was generally pretty good - the dash for a railway pie at Moss Vale when doing the journey in reverse, the dash for breakfast at Murray Bridge (leaping off before the train stopped and skidding on the gravel platform), the rock and roll of the Comet. Even had a 400 Garratt from Broken Hill to Peterborough once.
I won't mention about the sight of a rising and falling blanket on the seat opposite one night on the Forbes Mail!
The good old days of train travel.
