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| Australia by train |
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| Australia has som fantastic trains and train rides! But if you are a smoker, do not travel by train in Queensland! |
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Queensland has a law that says all trains must be totally smoke free. In addition to that, the stops at the stations are VERY short. If you get out onto the platform to have a few puffs, they come hustling you back in again. They treat you like a criminal, not like a paying guest. Queensland Rail is a little better than Countrylink. The employees are less rude, and sometimes they tell you ahead how long the train is going to stay at a station, which gives you the choice whether to step outside or not.
The way they treat smokers, is moralistic. Smoking is not a habbit or a hobby. Smoking is an addiction, and addiction is a desease. Once you have been stupid enough to start, you are caught. It is not a thing you can choose to do one day, and choose not do do the next. The only thing they achieve by treating people the way they do, is having a lot of agressive customers. I wonder whether they are aware of the fact that one third of the adult population are smokers? Have these people ever heard the word "service"? Do they know that they loose customers by treating people the way they do?
Longer stops at the stations would also benifit the non smokers. Airlines and most railway companies are now aware of the health hazards caused by people sitting in the same position for several hours, on long journeys. Longer stops would allow passangers to get out of the train and stroll along the platform, thus reducing the risk of arterial thrombosis.
The Ghan, Indian Pacific and Overland, all had smoking compartments. They also had a restaurant car and a buffet car for both the "red" and the "gold" passangers. On XPT (Countrylink) and the Tilt Train (Queensland Rail) there was a buffet, but nowhere to sit down to eat, thus you had to bring your food back to your seat. You had to order hot meals ahead. On XPT you were called to come and pick up your meal, and would then wait in a long line to actually get it. On the Tilt, they brought it to your seat. The spirit of Capricorn had the same system as the Tilt for hot food, but no buffet. They came through a couple of times with snacks and coffee. We got on the Spirit of Capricorn in Bundaberg, when they started serving lunch. But WE could not hav any, since we had borded the train AFTER they had taken the orders. :-(
What about informing people about this in advance, to give us the chance to eat before we get on the train, or bring something onboard ourselves? OR perhaps give us the opportunity to order our meal before we board the train?
Generally speaking, one could say that, the older and more bumpy the train, the better service. Of all the lines we tried, the Indian Pacific is the absolute favorite, with the Ghan as a good no. two. There are a lot of lines we did not try, i.e. Spirit of the Outback, the Sunlander etc. (see links below).
We had 15 days ausrail flexpasses, which gave us good value for our money. But there are also all kind of packages, which might include accomodation and experiences in addition to the ride itself. And there are a lot of concessions awailable. What you should NOT DO, is go to a railway station and simply buy a ticket. That way you will probably get the most expencive ticket. Buy them though an agency, organisation or at least check the different opportunities on internet.
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| (27.01.02, kl. 08:33) |
« Tilbake |
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