Gday and welcome to the Official & Original account Victorian Transport Videos! Here I upload videos of Trains, Planes, Trams, Busses, Road Projects Updates & Trips
Melbourne to Albury - V/LINE Vlocity & return on TRANSPORT NSW XPT
V/Line from Melbourne to Albury by First Class N Set & return
3801 Albury to Georgery & return (THNSW)
Melbourne to Warrnambool - V/LINE First Class N Set
Melbourne to Ararat - OVERLAND Train Red Standard Service
Melbourne to Gold Coast - JETSTAR Flight
Melbourne to Sydney - TRANSPORT NSW XPT First Class
Sydney to Melbourne - TRANSPORT NSW XPT First Class
Melbourne to Mildura - BONZA Flight
Mildura to Swan Hill - V/LINE Coach
Swan Hill to Melbourne - V/LINE First Class N set
Melbourne to South Geelong - V/LINE Vlocity + N Set Melbourne to Adelaide - OVERLAND Train Red Standard Service
its almost like your mocking the city dwelling, Soy boy Labor party. i love it! you should make it a Daily service, mirroring the Swan hill line; just to really spell out how out of touch they are.
1979, l left my dad with friends on the side of the Murray and returned to Melb to work via the Vinelander. Having a sleeping cabin, l remember the early morning cup of tea along with a fresh copy of the The Sun as we rolled into Spencer Street. To this day, a very fond and longing memory of times lost and wanting. Thanks for the memories
Nice to see the standard gauge to Mildura finally in. Logically and strategically the next bit to standardise is Ouyen to Pinaroo. Do you now if that has made any progress?
I had a few round trips from Spencer Street to Mildura and I loved it. Far better, and safer, than driving or riding a motorcycle, which I also did a few times. ❤❤❤❤
Exactly. The Vinelander had AZ and BZ sitting cars, and even old BE sitters, and ex Overland sleepers and older air conditoned VR sleepers sometimes as well. The guard travelled in his van up front, and the rear sleeping car conductor, (who was guard qualified), helped with the right aways along the way.
In Easter 1978, with Young National Trust members, we had a trip from Melbourne to Wilpena Pound. On Maundy Thursday evening, we loaded 4 cars and left Melbourne on The Vinelander for an overnight trip to Mildura via Geelong, in comfortable sleeping cars that seemed to be from the old Spirit of Progress. Arriving at 7 on Good Friday, we off-loaded the cars and crammed-in for a drive to Renmark, then across to Port Augusta before arriving at Wilpena Poind that evening and unpacking our tents. Saturday was a memorable hike around the Pound, before a beer at the Parachilna Pub. Sunday saw a drive to William Creek, then back to the Pound. On Monday we drove back to Mildura, had a memorable Murray Cod dinner, then. rejoined The Vinelandet for an overnight trip back to Melbourne - before arriving at work a bit late on Tuesday morning. A great trip ! (Kym in Palmerston, near Darwin).
The sleeping cars on the Vinelander were from the Overland not Spirit of Progress. They were introduced to the original overnight Vinelander in early 70'swhich ran in both directions each night, except Saturdays. Victorian Railways secured the sleeping cars when there was an upgrade of some of the Overland sleepers, which were jointly owned by both the Vic. and S.A. Railways. Yes they were very comfortable carriages, arguably better than even the Southern Aurora. Back in the day the Vinelander ran on broad gauge track as did the Overland, and the comfortable ride was partly due to the wider gauge of the bogies.
Well if Qantas and Rex both fly into and out of Mildura (Bonza also until recently) and some smaller airlines too And make $$ money as they wouldn’t be flying there if it was unprofitable I can tell you! I think the slack government just can’t be bothered spending some coin as there isn’t enough extra votes in it
Mildura is almost as big as Albury However many people who fly in and out of regional airports have their fares paid for by employers. Rex is not going that great either. Qantaslink is a rip off. Flights to Albury as well as Mildura are excessively expensive, frequent flyer program members can hardly ever use points on Albury or Mildura flights, just like to most regional airports including Wagga.. It is greed. Full fare paying passengers or their employers who pay for them will always be given first choice, and in a lot of these places that actually have a train, the train is simply too slow, so out come the cars.
I got really excited because I mistakenly thought that this service would be ongoing. Oh well, never mind. Really would like that to happen. Edited to add that with maximum fares of $10, Vline is never going to be a financial success. So for goodness sake, the government should stop complaining about uneconomic train routes and just supply people with what they need. On a slightly different topic, they should also slash public transport costs in Melbourne and for town travel. If it were cheaper, there would be less fare evasion on buses etc.
OK As an ex rail person in a management position, not a bean counter, but a passenger services person who worked on many country and interstate trains. I'll let you into a little secret. Most passenger trains are provided due to what is called "The Customer Service Charter", which is a long winded way of saying that railways must provide passenger services for the community under the various Railway Acts. We all know that railways make their money from freight, and if they could get out of providing passenger services they would, but the Charter does not permit that and it is a legally binding agreement. And passenger trains, in general, that are owned by state governments, are not expected to make huge profits, some will always run at a loss, but propped up by government subsidies so they can keep operating and providing a service. Indirectly, some of the freight profits from government owned freight rail, and the revenue from private operators using the infrastructure, go towards maintaining passenger services. The Victorian government, for example even gets a cut of what Metro makes, even though Metro Trains is privatised. V/Line, even though being a government corporation, still supplies the government with extra money. That is a bit of a simplistic way of describing it, it is bit more complicated than that, but that is the general idea.The Overland, (which is nothing like the one before it), is privately run, however it is also subsidised by the government to take passengers to intermediate stations on the way to Adelaide.
The liveries these private operators use looks terrible. just like the terrible tangerine rolling stock of V/Line in the past. Bloody awful. Personal opinion. haha
Fantastic video I have very fond memories of travelling on the Vinelander back In the early 90s I was In my early days of radio & TV & I went up to Mildura to look around the studio of 3MA & STV 8, I got on the train at 9.30PM & arrived In Mildura at 7.00AM & I had a sleeping berth. I saw the train at Ouyen station on Friday afternoon & when It departed myself & some friends raced past the level crossing & waved her goodbye out of town - Jacinta Mildura needs passenger rail so pull your finger out & get It done.
I remember traveling on the train to Mildura throughout the 1980's and early 1990's. I loved it. better than the bus! at least you can eat and drink on the train, you can't eat and drink on the bus!
@@janeventur8919 I used to do the bus down to Melbourne all the time when my mum had cancer I'd do the trip about once a month but after mum passed I just couldn't do it any more as I have Fibromyalgia Syndrome & that condition takes a terrible toll on your body.
Now that it's shown to be capable of doing, then V/Line needs to take a good look at themselves and decide to do it permanently! Instead of stabling at Maryborough perhaps an overnight service like the old days, with the option of sleeper berths, so OK so it's going the long way round, but at least it can be done. All they need to do is put a Standard Gauge stabling yard at Mildura and job's done.
Fair point, but for a regional train to be patronised these days it has to be faster from A to B than the motor car, and sadly Mildura to Melbourne by rail would still be slower, even with VLocity rail cars. They are also prone to breaking down. Very over rated. I have never seen such BS being spruked as to how great these "built in Victoria for Victoria" crap box rail car sets are. They are rubbish and as for comfort, or lack of it, the seats in 1970's trains were more comfortable. And of course Victoria is basically broke so there's that. And now the armchair experts will surface. Sorry about that.
V/line is broke like all government departments and corporations. That said, people will not travel on a train that takes longer than a motor vehicle. I agree with your idea though.
And where would the sleepers come from for this? There is no way any railway, government or privately owned would build or purchase old sleeping cars for any "new" train from Mildura. It would be good to have trains like the good old days, but sadly we will never see it.
What I will never understand is how the government keeps saying returning services to Mildura would be 'uneconomic' when the Swan Hill service literally exists and operates just fine twice a day each way.
The Swan Hill (Piangil) line isn't a major freight line, the Mildura (Yelta) line is. The only reason it's uneconomic is because the government doesn't want to pay to convert the Maryborough - Mildura section to dual gauge, though there was an attempt with the Murray Basin Rail Project which got cancelled.
@@jackalcrackleI’m I’m Kerang and it takes like 1.5hours to get to Swan hill on the train because the rail is not suitable for highspeeds. In 2025 Vline is apparently ripping up the track from Kerang to swan hill so they can put new improved track down for higher speeds.
@@trainbuff1090 OK so with a total of say $400 max for 3 nights accommodation and meals, that leaves 450 for the actual trip per person.. Lets use 100 as total passengers, that leaves $45000. Hire of loco, including fuel, driver, observer and guard 15 000. Probably too much but let's assume. Still a nice profit of around 30 grand. Jesus we all need to start up a business!
@@victoriantransportvideos You are right though. 850 is about the cheapest. We are still getting ripped off in this country for rail tours, compared to places like the UK and Europe.And holidays in general cost way more here than overseas. It is pure greed. So is it any wonder people go overseas when you can get a decent 2 weeks in UK, including airfares for less than a holiday in Queensland. More trains to get about on too, but that's a population thing, although many heritage trains actually provide 7 days a week commuter services on some branch lines also. I have found one of the best trips here are the rail motor ones. They can get to places longer trains can't and usually have no "puffer nutters" counting the puffs because there aren't any. haha
Just fan trips paying the huge full cost recovery fares once a year or so. Just like this one. The welfare mentality of the general public will not pay those fares, especially for such a long journey time.
