Lifehacker has spent much of the last week travelling on XPT trains, so it seems natural to point out that the Sydney-Melbourne XPT service, which has been effectively non-existent in Victoria because of track maintenance issues, has started running again this week. You won’t necessarily get great mobile signal and it takes a while, but being on a train beats being on a coach hands-down. [Countrylink]
Ripley McStoner
Monday, September 13, 2010 at 3:10 PMhavent you lot heard of those flying birds in the sky??
MrOdd
Monday, September 13, 2010 at 4:27 PMHave you tried to make phone call on plane? They really really don’t like it when you do ;)
Also the ‘birds’ don’t fly to as many places as XPT stops. I last used the XPT over 10 yrs ago, and stopped too much.
Cancer
Monday, September 13, 2010 at 6:46 PMQuote:Ripley McStoner
September 13, 2010 at 3:10 PM
havent you lot heard of those flying birds in the sky??Unquote:
Not much use when plane is delayed because of fog and you miss your appointment.Overnight stay makes it a bit expensive ……………
olearymo
Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 8:50 AMgot the xpt is awful… i’d almost rather a bus after the last experience on it.
squeaking tracks, ALL NIGHT, deafening. I don’t know what was up (apart from me)
Dave
Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 2:30 PMGlad to hear that it’s back and running as an option, but for $110 for an overnight Melb->Syd trip, I’d rather fly.
Anthony
Wednesday, September 15, 2010 at 12:01 AMAgreed Dave. What is the market for this? The travel time is extraordinarily slow (slower even than driving!), the cost is 2-4x even a last minute economy class fare, and the environment is…less than salubrious. I guess there is some level of convenience (disembarking in the middle of the city instead of Tullamarine or Avalon), but in most cases hiring a car and flying would still be much cheaper, with a total travel time of less than 2 hrs as against 11.