[VIS] Interstate Trains at Adelaide Railway Station

[mattwinter]

It'd be great to see an underground link for suburban trains. I agree that a loop is not really what we should be thinking about - the simple option would be to connect the Gawler line to the Seaford line and then connect the Outer Harbour line to the Belair line, and make journeys through the CBD nice and quick and efficient.

I'm sure that'd free up space for regional / interstate trains to be able to use ARS if they wanted, but there's no point doing it for the Indian Pacific / Great Southern / Ghan which are really tourist trains... the Overland would make sense but that's only twice a week and who knows how long that will last. All this would get interesting if the governement wanted to reopen a few regional rail lines or put on a faster daily train to Melbourne or something but we're just dreaming aat that point...

[dbl96]

Does anyone know what the reasons are for the speed restrictions in the Adelaide Yard? Trains always seem to go extremely slow until they exit the yard.

[1NEEDS2POST]

Does anyone know what the reasons are for the speed restrictions in the Adelaide Yard? Trains always seem to go extremely slow until they exit the yard.

Is this a recent thing?

[claybro]

Does anyone know what the reasons are for the speed restrictions in the Adelaide Yard? Trains always seem to go extremely slow until they exit the yard.

Is this a recent thing?

Depends on your definition of "restriction". Even normal speed in Adelaide yard and indeed the whole system would be considered snails pace elsewhere.

[Brucetiki]

I took the Overland to Melbourne last Friday. This was the first trip by rail (long distance) i has done in and out of Keswick for years.

To say the station is under used is being nice.

The line within the station are shocking and need to be re-done, (if you head down there when a train is in, you’ll see what I mean).

A few things that has me puzzled about the service, why do you need to be there 1hr to 30mins before departing. In Europe you show up, 5 min before departing and you are on.

Sitting around down there before boarding is silly and a waste of staff resources.

Overall the trip was great, and I arrived in Melbs refreshed and ready to roll. Normally after a day of driving I am flat and tried.

Here’s my video of the day! Comments, feedback would be great.

https://youtu.be/vE01V0vfHls

Cheers.

I took the Overland on Monday, and I can now completely understand why the State Government cut funding for the service.

Check in was a farce, where I presented my booking and was told that the booking was showing as unpaid on their system. Luckily I paid by credit card so was able to show the transaction on my statement, so I was issued a boarding card. Then there was the 30 minute wait for coffee in the cafe, which ended up being drank very quickly as by the time we got it, it was time to board.

As you mentioned, the line leaving the terminal is horrific.

Get to Murray Bridge, and oops, they forgot to stock up the cafe car, so supplies were brought up from Adelaide and loaded on, resulting in a 20 minute delay. The staff plugged the morning/afternoon trolley service, but the afternoon service didn't happen until we were in Footscray (it was supposed to happen on the Ararat-North Shore leg), which was kinda pointless given we were so close to the destination. The cafe car is just depressing. A tiny amount of seats, and not the place to head to for a change of scenery every now and then.

The train also has no USB ports, and minimal powerpoints at the end of each carriage by the doors (lucky I stocked up on powerbanks). The train is also painfully slow (especially the Ararat-North Shore leg), with an average speed of just 85km/h. Tuesday I had to take a couple of V/Line V'Locities, with comfier seats, easy access to drinking water on board, and peak speed of 160 km/h.

No wonder the State Government stopped funding the service.

[how good is he]

How much was the fare? I'm pretty sure flights are cheaper [as well as far quicker] also, right?

[Norman]

I have seen prices from $69 one way in Economy and $169 in First Class.

[Spotto]

How much was the fare? I'm pretty sure flights are cheaper [as well as far quicker] also, right?

The JBR website has the regular "Everyday" fare for economy at $164. "Ready Rail" for bookings 6 months in advance are listed at $114.

Browsing Webjet, a Virgin Australia flight from Adelaide to Melbourne on next Friday (same departure day as The Overland) at an equivalent departure time to the train is $170. That's not taking into consideration the flexibility of choosing a different flight time which might have a cheaper ticket price, a shorter journey time, not being restricted to Monday and Friday travel, or flying with a budget airline with carry-on luggage only for an even cheaper fare, etc.

I hope that The Overland can be saved in some form (give it to V/Line hopefully), but it needs serious rethinking and investment to be a more competitive and convenient travel option.

[OlympusAnt]

I took the Overland to Melbourne last Friday. This was the first trip by rail (long distance) i has done in and out of Keswick for years.

To say the station is under used is being nice.

The line within the station are shocking and need to be re-done, (if you head down there when a train is in, you’ll see what I mean).

A few things that has me puzzled about the service, why do you need to be there 1hr to 30mins before departing. In Europe you show up, 5 min before departing and you are on.

Sitting around down there before boarding is silly and a waste of staff resources.

Overall the trip was great, and I arrived in Melbs refreshed and ready to roll. Normally after a day of driving I am flat and tried.

Here’s my video of the day! Comments, feedback would be great.

https://youtu.be/vE01V0vfHls

Cheers.

I took the Overland on Monday, and I can now completely understand why the State Government cut funding for the service.

Check in was a farce, where I presented my booking and was told that the booking was showing as unpaid on their system. Luckily I paid by credit card so was able to show the transaction on my statement, so I was issued a boarding card. Then there was the 30 minute wait for coffee in the cafe, which ended up being drank very quickly as by the time we got it, it was time to board.

As you mentioned, the line leaving the terminal is horrific.

Get to Murray Bridge, and oops, they forgot to stock up the cafe car, so supplies were brought up from Adelaide and loaded on, resulting in a 20 minute delay. The staff plugged the morning/afternoon trolley service, but the afternoon service didn't happen until we were in Footscray (it was supposed to happen on the Ararat-North Shore leg), which was kinda pointless given we were so close to the destination. The cafe car is just depressing. A tiny amount of seats, and not the place to head to for a change of scenery every now and then.

The train also has no USB ports, and minimal powerpoints at the end of each carriage by the doors (lucky I stocked up on powerbanks). The train is also painfully slow (especially the Ararat-North Shore leg), with an average speed of just 85km/h. Tuesday I had to take a couple of V/Line V'Locities, with comfier seats, easy access to drinking water on board, and peak speed of 160 km/h.

No wonder the State Government stopped funding the service.

yeah it's a shadow of its former self

either bring back the sleeper, use a vlocity train or get rid of it

if Mulligan, Tommy K and Pete M are so desperate to see it stay, why don't they actually look at the facilities first

[1NEEDS2POST]

The train also has no USB ports, and minimal powerpoints at the end of each carriage by the doors (lucky I stocked up on powerbanks). The train is also painfully slow (especially the Ararat-North Shore leg), with an average speed of just 85km/h. Tuesday I had to take a couple of V/Line V'Locities, with comfier seats, easy access to drinking water on board, and peak speed of 160 km/h.

It's slightly faster to take two trains to Adelaide and the services are timed so that you can do this:
Take VLocity from Melbourne to Ararat and then the Overland from Ararat to Adelaide.

It seems pointless, but the (direct) Ararat line is still broad gauge and the Overland takes the circuitous standard gauge route. Hopefully one day the Ararat line will be converted to standard gauge!

[Patrick_27]

I agree that the Overland is not working, but it's typical of our state government to be so short sighted and cut funding rather than invest a little to make a better service out of it.

I think moving it to ARS is a necessary move, to remind travellers that the service exists; stop pretending that it's a tourist service like the Ghan or India Pacific and start using it for what it is, a mode of getting from A to B; as it has been mentioned, pass management over to V-Line (who seem to be good with making these things profitable); and lastly track upgrades and replacement of trains, If they put the kind of four/five carriage Bombardier trains that V-Line use for intrastate Victorian services on this line and the track was altered somewhat to handle them, there is no reason why you couldn't turn an 80km/ph train into a 130km/ph train. Now, sure enough we're talking a $100m investment (or gamble, rather) here at the least but people clearly want the service to remain, even if it's not well patronised at the present time (which it might be if they improve the service!

[Spotto]

I think moving it to ARS is a necessary move, to remind travellers that the service exists; stop pretending that it's a tourist service like the Ghan or India Pacific and start using it for what it is, a mode of getting from A to B; as it has been mentioned, pass management over to V-Line

As I’ve said before it’s pointless talking about moving The Overland to ARS while it’s still owned by Journey Beyond. As long as its a Journey Beyond service it will remain at the Parklands Terminal it’s their base of operations: their staff are already there, they have free movement of locos and carriages, servicing, etc.

Only once it moves to V/Line (I can’t see it going to anyone else) then it’s more possible to nudge a move to ARS.

[Brucetiki]

The train also has no USB ports, and minimal powerpoints at the end of each carriage by the doors (lucky I stocked up on powerbanks). The train is also painfully slow (especially the Ararat-North Shore leg), with an average speed of just 85km/h. Tuesday I had to take a couple of V/Line V'Locities, with comfier seats, easy access to drinking water on board, and peak speed of 160 km/h.

It's slightly faster two take two trains to Adelaide and the services are timed so that you can do this:
Take VLocity from Melbourne to Ararat and then the Overland from Ararat to Adelaide.

It seems pointless, but the (direct) Ararat line is still broad gauge and the Overland takes the circuitous standard gauge route. Hopefully one day the Ararat line will be converted to standard gauge!

I did think about transferring at Ararat...after I bought my ticket.

The main problem with transferring at Ararat is delays. If the Overland is late into Ararat and the Ararat-Melbourne service has already left, you run the risk of being stranded in Ararat, offsetting any time savings. Also, the time saving isn't that significant, so for me, the risk outweighed the reward.

[SRW]

There was an opinion piece published by InDaily last week in which the writer outlined ways to save the service, the most interesting being replacing the rolling stock with Spanish tilting trains: https://indaily.com.au/opinion/2020/03/ ... long-term/

[1NEEDS2POST]

There was an opinion piece published by InDaily last week in which the writer outlined ways to save the service, the most interesting being replacing the rolling stock with Spanish tilting trains: https://indaily.com.au/opinion/2020/03/ ... long-term/

It's like the author read my post in the Regional Transport thread. I suggested this in 2018:

This is what we need for a better Overland:

• Variable gauge, so that it can drive into ARS and use the Ararat Line
• Tilt train, so that it can run at greater cant deficiency through the hills
• Diesel power

Spain has similar requirements to the above, so let's look there. They have the Talgo 250, which looks like the perfect candidate for a better Overland.

https://www.talgo.com/en/rolling-stock/ ... /250-dual/