Don't Sleep on Our Sleepers! 

I think sleeper services should be focus on the maketing the social and communal aspect of the experience. Like you wouldn't able to go to the dining car and get a beer with mates on a flight... the social atmosphere of a train like back in the olden days is still one of the strongest differentiators compared to economy class on a flight. the egalitarian nature with the whole train have access to the train's bar is a strength.

So much truth here. Australia has needed more spent on rail infrastructure for the last hundred years. Not only with big projects, but with gradually extending dual line along all main routes.

It’s quite sad and removing sleepers removes yet another niche market for train use. It’s not just the sleepers that are lost, but the use of the sleeper compartment to carry four people in privacy and without disturbing others, eg groups of four more rowdy friends or families with small children travelling in day services. Excellent video Zac.

When I worked for NSW Gov for a while I had to do regular one day meetings with interstate equivalents, usually in Melbourne. I used to park at Revesby, get a train to Central, catch the XPT sleeper to Melbourne, breakfast and a shower on board and walk tot he venue on arrival. They often finished late so I'd get Skybus and a later flight (off peak) back to Sydney and train back to Revesby. It was a good arrangement. Apart from missing most of the Airport strees, it cost less than peak air travel plus cabs or hire cars or parking, or going early and staying in a. hotel in Melbourne before the meeting. I wasn't high enough for first class airline travel and it was all too confusing for our travel section, until confronted with the regulations that permitted first class travel / sleeper in trains. It became part of the fun watching all the different ways they could fxxx up the booking. Did it about 20 times and only had a few people share the cabin. One was a music producer with some major rockstars (hated flying), one was an expert in a field I was just starting to study and the others were all normal and friendly. It wasn't a bad experience at all. Some suggestions. From memory the old Southern Aurora was a first class sleeper train, while the 'Spirit of Progress' was sitting economy class. It suggests you could use the CAF multi-power-mode trains for economy services and a more upmarket train as an all sleeper service, perhaps incorporating a section of (cheaper) business class lay flat airline style beds, like in QLD Railways.

This is so sensible. I’ve been waiting for this, also the option should include vehicular transport, a sleeper train with say 4 sleeping coaches, a buffet and restaurant (with seating - seating could be booked for intermediate evening stops to cater for those jumping on early morning in peripheral towns), and 4-5 carriages to transport vehicles similar to the Eurotunnel. This doesn’t necessarily need to be all from Centrsl to Roma Street. I.e. have a vehicle drop off at Eveleigh for loading (catch a suburban from Macdonaldtown to central, vehicular carriages get joined to the rear of the sleeping coaches. This way you could book your vehicle from Sydney, Newcastle to Casino and Brisbane (having car loaded carriages at the peripheral city locations). Creating variety for the traveller is paramount. This could also be rolled out in a smaller fashion to Adelaide. There really are a lot of options, the first thing that should be done is the securing of new corridor alignments in the country locations where it is cheap to build new sections of track, have straight alignments to act as high speed passing loops that ultimately can be joined in a piecemeal way up and down the coast to build on our high speed rail skill and capacity in all fields over the coming years. Standard track design and powering components (develop a high speed rail standardisation booklet for example, then build in progressive track improvements with sections of electrified lines the new Civitys are bi mode and new loco’s for freight could also have bi mode capacity to take advantage of a progressively aligned and straightened alignment between the capitals!

I think a VLocity based model could work. There is a standard gauge variant, let’s just called it an ISV (Inter-state VLocity) the modifications that could be made are; thicker floor to dampen engine vibrations/sounds (although I have never really noticed), longer range, & 6 cars long rather than 3. They would also be built somewhat locally in Australia (Dandenong or could be a consortium using skills from let’s say EDI & built in NSW) I would love to see V/Line run a Melbourne to Sydney route they could use the mentioned modified ISVs or use their standard gauge N-Class locomotives & modify some N-Set carriages. V/Line would be great to operate additional services as they know how to run longish distance services & I have never personally had a bad experience with their quality of service.

Indirectly related theory: Journey Beyond should buy up the XPT fleet as the NSW government puts them out of service. Journey Beyond's fleet is way, way older than the XPTs! They'd need to do a full refit and refurbish, but JB needs to do a full refit and refurbish of its fleet anyway, and it's usually cheaper to do that with newer trains. Plus they could keep the XPT locomotives and save money on locomotive hire.

God, could you imagine a standard gauge Diesel Tilt train?

These train types could also be used on the overland and maybe even other similar long distance services

Good point about sleepers and use of time. It's not possible to do a full day's work in an interstate capital without losing a lot of sleep on a late night or early morning flight, or a sizable chunk of office time the day before or after.

They definitely need to keep the sleeper cabins.. I also think the idea of a dining car with seating booths etc would make the experience more attractive for travellers. It would definitely encourage more people to travel interstate as well. They also need high-speed rail between Sydney and Bathurst/dubbo, Newcastle and Wollongong. I think that could potentially take the housing pressure off Sydney as more people could live regionally and travel high speed into Sydney for work.

I also don't believe that enough Civities were ordered. From what I understand, they only got enough for 1:1 replacements for day services. If the government decides to order sleepers, they should also order day carriages, and use them on XPT routes, which would allow the Civities to increase services on Xplorer routes, and replace some coach-operated routes that parallel rail lines.

Speaking of politically impossible things, the oldest Diesel Tilt Trains will be almost 30 by the early 2030s, and there will be a major event in Queensland that some schmick, new long-distance trains would look good at. Just saying that there could be a good opportunity for some trans-Tweed cooperation

caf, more like cheap as fuck 🤣

This is exactly what I’ve been advocating for! Thanks for this great video!

Why don't they refurbished the xpt and have the new and the old trains run side by side

I enjoyed your video and agree that sleepers should be kept. One option you seem to have overlooked is the option of buying an international design and building a sleeper version locally. It is likely that the manufacturer (probably UGL or EDI) would have to pay for licenses to build the cars in Australia though.

Australia has some great train stations but no good trains 💀

And, not to mention the Bed Bugs 🪲

There was never any plans for the hunters to become long distance trains. There were plans to build more of them so that endeavours could be converted in to Xplorers which would have allowed the Dubbo service to go fully explorer and allowed more frequent griffith and broken hill services and in return give breathing space for the XPT's.

Open access may be the answer why not ( as others have suggested) a revived Southern Aurora provided by the Indian Pacific/Ghan lot. We might even be able to talk QR or Vline to have a crack at it.

If we ordered more sleepers, we could have some overnight departures from Sydney to Broken HIll and Casino. The overnight Sydney casino service could depart at 8:11pm arriving Casino around 7:40am, have it run Daily. The new overnight Broken HIll service could depart on Sydney on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays at about 5pm, arriving Borken hill around 6am the next morning - this could allow a quick transfer for those wanting to continue their journey on the Coach service to Adelaide or Mildura. (or even potentially running a through service to Adelaide if SA could be convinced to reopen some regional stations.) Thoughts?

The hard part is there is a lot of nuance here. Yes we want sleepers. No we don't want DMU sleepers. And then explaining why DMU sleepers won't work not only to those in power, but to the public servants in procurement who are detached from the end user. While I'm yet to use the Mariyung Fleet seats, I doubt any one from the procurement team has sat in the seat for a trip duration (plus delay, Let's say 4 hours) and provided a report back to government about the seat quality. The procurement team won't necessarily do extensive testing that you or I would as passengers. On the Civity's, the Civity's were bought for two main reasons. 1. Fleet uniformity. Both XPT and Endeavour/Xplorer replacements would have a single fleet meaning common spares, simpler supply chain and simpler maintenance and it's thought from that efficiency, cheaper running costs over time. 2. The bi-modal motive power. This means any government can both look like they might extend the existing Overhead Wire (OHW) network, while simultaneously doing absolutely nothing about expanding the OHW network and slightly extend the range of the Civity train, which may or may not have the range for a Melbourne to Sydney, or Brisbane to Sydney round trip. While I agree with a lot of what you have said here, I don't think lashing a head end power locomotive to a bunch of XPT cars is a great idea. NSW traditionally used a power car, often because Head End Power locomotive have lower power output than a dedicated generator car and are more complicated with both a motive power and head end power plants. I know these are just possibilities in how we maintain capability for the time being. Thanks for the video!

Hello from Austria (no Al in the middle), the country of nightjets (among other things). It seems to me that in Australia long distance night trains such as the Indian Pacific or the Ghan are treated as high-price tourist attractions, not really as a way to get from one place to another. Is that right? The rolling stock on those trains reminds me of classic North American Budd cars, as they are still operated by VIA Canada. Their Cháteau and Manor series are actually built 1954 (originally for Canadian Pacific) which makes them 70 years old this year, might be some of the oldest rolling stock still in regular service worldwide. (Some sleeping-cars derived from a Budd design, originally CIWL type P, are now found in European holiday/sleeper trains, including the new "european sleeper" service, a startup beginning with ancient secondhand rolling stock.) When you talk about a new limited series of sleeping-cars I'm reminded of the cars built by Stadler for Azerbaijan. But I see your point about the importance of building rolling stock within Australia. It's of strategic importance to have domestic rolling stock industry, otherwise the country might in future become dependent on countries like China to supply new rolling stock. (By the way, is there any Chinese-built railway rolling stock in Australia at this point? Geographically it seems like an obvious market.) Track quality can indeed be a problem (and a really comfortable sleep on rough track is hardly imaginable even with sophisticated suspension). Now for operation you have to take into account that an overnight sleeping train has several disadvantages: Its capacity is typically lower (unless you really build dormitory bunks on three levels), it requires more staff (and extra work to prepare the beds with bedsheets, wash them etc), it's technically more complex (especially when you take things like ensuite bathrooms into account), dedicated overnight rolling stock isn't useful on day trains so it usually stands around until it departs again next evening. All that results in higher cost per passenger and not everyone is willing to pay the equivalent of a three-star hotel room as a surcharge when their compartment is, by necessity, much smaller than such a hotel room. Offering several different levels of accomodation is important. When "CityNightLine" operated as a German/Austrian/Swiss joint venture in the 1990s they initially made the mistake of only offering 2-berth rooms with or without private bathroom or an open interior, reclining seat coach. There was no "middle market" offer like the 4 or 6 berth couchette cars that are actually the most popular choice among European night travellers, especially as a family. Since there are a lot of single travellers who aren't willing to pay a steep surcharge for a full sleeping compartment, ÖBB came up with the "mini cabin" concept now introduced in the newest nightjet trains (but older trains aren't refurbished accordingly because the arrangement requires structural changes to the carbody that make it hard to convert older rolling stock). It's important to look at examples all around the world. Japan only has few night trains but also seems to have a dormitory class worth looking at. Amtrak offers "roomettes" that look like an affordable option for two. The new nightjets have a number of new solutions that could be considered. And Sweden has another type of sleeping compartment with private bathroom for the upper market.

I can attest to these passes

Honestly, I always use a sleeper trains because I’m saving money in comparison to flying and doing a hotel

The reason the XPT gets to Roma Street in the Middle of the nights is because the Merivale Bridge is a massive chokepoint on the SEQ Rail network when Cross River Rail opens in 2026 it should be possible to have more service from Sydney to Brisbane

About the motors in a sleeping car, this has been tried before and didn't work. An interurban in Ohio tried to offer sleeper services on longer distance routes, but didn't work because the traction motors kept people awake at night.

Beautiful video❤ I'm hoping they can keep the sleeper service in some way

I mean I ain’t Australian but you can probably get something similar to Austrian rail jet or any analog.

What I don't quite get, trains do not have capacity constraints like planes do. The only disadvantage to adding an extra 9 cars onto a long distance train is that you have to buy and maintain those extra cars. It really shouldn't require any additional staff or infrastructure, and while you might think platforms have to be lengthened, if you just put the extra cars on the front and back of the train, always stop them in the middle of the platform you basically don't even need to have doors on the extra cars. Just always tell passengers to move toward the centre cars of the train if they want to get off at any intermediate stations. In other words, there is really no good reason I can think of why the XPT replacement can't be a 16 car train designed for the same number of passengers as the 6 car variants. This way you can essentially fill the train with luxury suites but sell them for the price of a regular seat and you have a huge draw card for taking the train as opposed to driving or a plane. If there is any advantage trains have it is the ability to go longer for very little additional cost. Suddenly passengers would line up to get on your trains, allowing you to increase the price and start making a profit.

the XPT line itself can't justify the communal needs well, the civity just make it worse as it's overall an DMU which will never be comfortable acoustically and 11 hour is a weird number for both overday and overnight service, as you waste too much time for both commuters and traveler while a airplane flight could already save you tons of time even some crappy red eye cheap flights by paying 30-40 more bucks it needs to be fast enough but not too fast to provide short accommodation and more off-train free time, not just having low security or luggage restrictions(catering also needed but optional), and that's already improves its competitiveness a lot, more commuters love it if you get in the train at 9/10/11 am/pm and arrive at 6am/pm not the currently 7:30 am/pm to 6:30 am/pm schedule, and those spared time could provide a lot more service flexibility like more throughout cleaning and maintainance process, sourcing a backup train if something happen or even making some extra services to itself or other lines! but consider the track quality in regional NSW, speeding up is kind of a impossible idea, unless straighten up and provide boom gate protection to most part of it to gain a bit more average speed, otherwise even introducing new sleeper railcar or franchising to private operator(yeah journey f**king beyond) won't help

Yeh but the aus government hates train they love cars. Every one should have at least 4 cars per house because australian government sooo smart

Here in California, Dreamstar has announced that it will start a privately-operated overnight train between LA and NorCal (either SF or OAK), over the same route as the daytime Coast Starlight (LA-SEA), but 12 hours later, as soon as next year. Australia should not overlook the potential for overnight trains to divert passengers from flying and driving.

Autotrain has connected the Northeast U.S. with Florida for about 50 years. However, "moto-rail services" are capital-intensive and only suitable for journeys of about 1000 miles. Merely loading the cars takes hours. Packaging a rental car at the destination is much more sensible.

A bad batch does not mean that CAF can't make trains..

Can an Aus resident buy this pass? I’ve looked at Th is and most are restricted to overseas visitors???

Possibly a controversial opinion, but giving the sleeper operations to a private company could work. If setup correctly it should be a mode which acts in the best interests of the customers (cheap, comfortable, reliable, etc.) I don't think we really have anything to loose given we may not see the sleeper service renewed by the government anyway. What trains are bought/refurbished and how the service is run should probably be up to them as well. However I will admit that similar operations in the UK are struggling to maintain the best interests of the customers, and a similar situation could unfold here (journey beyond and the overland, I'm looking at you.)

Funny. I am of an age (74) that I find your « expensive » flights very cheap. True, passengers were not treated like canned sardines. Whenever possible, I take (sleeper) trains. In the last 10 years, this has become a lot easier from Switzerland. What I do miss is that on 10 or more hours rides, the trains do still not offer a dining car or café like carriage. You are confined to your cabin and the beds are comfortable, but not for sitting on them.

In the U.S. we say Rail Against Sleepers!

So much bulldust. QR tilt train, loco hauled or buy the n class from vline. What are you smoking. So long as the new trains are reliable, they will be perfectly fine. Get CAF to build up the long distance versions to 8 car trains with the addition of 2 sleeper cars. The sleeper cars can be the trailers in the set.

😂😂 We made it to 10 minutes before a mispronunciation. Couchette is a French word i.e. koo-shet. Great video though!

Whatever the result, I hope they have the same squeaky bogie noise as the XPTs and XPLs. It's strangely comforting.

This may change

Im still pretty amezed that a train that even consider by the manufacter CAF in this case as REGIONAL is gona be used for 13 hours LD trips 😦. Why didi't the Goverment idk buy a trains that are actually suted for LD trafic ._. .

I love the idea of buying N Classes off V/Line, they can only go 113kmh but Id love to see one in the wrong livery. Imo a Vlocity would be a safer bet because they are pretty much proven at this point but I very much think they should be Endeavour replacements not XPT/Xplorer replacements.

Why not convert some of the HSets to sleeping cars

Unfortunately CAF sleepers would be the most logical choice. Same trains means same maintenance and no retraining for drivers and crews on a completely different train type.

Rare I’m this early!

I have electric car. When I have to take a jourmey over 500km, from my point of view, is to have a cariage to put your car and have a sleeper wagon for the family. Imagine high speed rail with many EVs onboard, uncloging motorway and making the trip safer.

In short, 1. title is clickbait. 2. Just build new carriages that are sleepers and throw the CAF order in the bin because they are crap themselves with cracks. 3. This needs to be loco hauled because this can meet demand on the go if additional carriages is required. If no locomotive is available then just you got no choice but to build new ones. You got no other choice. 4. Fire whoever made the decision to order the CAF trains and repeat 2. Because they probably don’t know how to run a railway.

so what get over mate