I asked Queensland Rail.
Response:
X: Hi Robert, that’s correct. The Exhibition shuttle is being provided to give customers an alternative travel option into Bowen Hills and Fortitude Valley during the inner‑city closure.
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Exhibtion Line timetable can be found here:
https://jp.translink.com.au/plan-your-journey/timetables/train/t/exhibition-line
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Interesting the last service is midnight!
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Well that lasted for a while…
Roma Street to Exhibition - trains cancelled | Translink
Not running Tues/Wed
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Copying the text as TL service notices are not accessible once the issue is resolved.
Roma Street to Exhibition - trains cancelled
Last reviewed: Monday 22 Dec 2025 at 4.25pm
On Tuesday 23 and Wednesday 24 December, trains will not run between Roma Street and Exhibition stations due to an operational issue.
A bus will run approximately every 30 minutes between Roma Street busway station and the Exhibition building on Gregory Terrace. These services will not be in journey planner.
These services are running due a major weekday track closure.
Staffing issues?
@Pionsix posted that they are running with 2 x driver and gaurd to achieve the 4 minute turnaround time.
Well, that’s a shame. Maybe they decided 2 drivers, 2 guards for small numbers of passengers wasn’t worth it.
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The could’ve timed things better to achieve more efficient operations, but this is QR we’re talking about.
Here’s the New Year’s Eve preparations, as delineated by Translink:
It looks to be pretty solid with a lot of train and bus services receiving upgraded frequencies, past 12am. Expect a lot of FSLs’ at South Bank 
Interestingly, BUZs’ such as 340 Carseldine and 444 Moggill won’t see upgraded frequencies after 12am.
M1 will be running every 5 minutes and less from 6pm to 9pm (both inbound and outbound).
*every second M1 Eight Mile Plains past 8pm will be leaving at Cultural until 9:30pm.
*past 9:30pm, M1 Eight Mile Plains will be running ~7.5 minute headways until 12:50am.
*anything from 1am to 1:30am is strictly 15 minute headways.
M2 will be running every ~15 minutes in both directions until around 12am.
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Additional train services dedicated for 7:45pm Family Fireworks:
Midnight fireworks (12am till 2:30am):
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A Chrissy gift from Translink? Is the Exhibition Line service back on? Says normal on the Translink website
The live line timetables are all over the place right now. The only trains on the Airport line today are Cleveland line inbound to Roma Street. Doomben says there are no services today but are shown on the Caboolture timetable.
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So in other words, there’ll be a train when there’s a train but not before?
… However, the Brisbane City Council, which is the key organiser of Brisbane’s two New Year’s Eve fireworks shows, said it did not expect a repeat of Riverfire.
The council pointed primarily to much smaller anticipated numbers, with crowds predicted to be about one-fifth of those at Riverfire.
A council spokesperson said attendance was also expected to vary across Wednesday night, leading to staggered arrival and departure times, and therefore smaller surges on key travel infrastructure. …
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I was travelling northbound on Southern Cross Way approx 10:20am on Boxing Day and observed from a distance the absolute insanity that unfolds at Skygate/DFO on the day.
By this time the overflow car parks were already full, the exit queue on Southern Cross Way northbound was 75% of the way back to Kingsford Smith Drive and all other approaches incluiding Lomadra Dr seemed just as bad. I got a Google Maps traffic layer screenshot but it doesn’t seem to fully represent the extent of the issue (and I missed Lomadra Dr side out).
From what I could see online there was no service updates this year but from AnyTrip nouthbound route 590 trips were losing up to 30min and many southbound trips just weren’t operating (drivers out of hours?).
Sadly it’s still an improvement over 2021 where they put out an advanced service update saying due to expected traffic Skygate will be completely skipped by route 590. I managed to find the link in a chat history (Skygate, Brisbane Airport - temporary stop closure | Translink) but sadly didn’t archive or screenshot the actual page. This was a screenshot from the time also in chat history with the walk from the alternative stop:
Either way, this is not a new problem and with the traffic impacts stretching out kilometres from the site some proper action is clearly warranted.
It’s a hard site to work with but my current thoughts would be:
- Convert Lakeside Dr eastbound to bus only for the day as well as Lomandra Dr northbound left lane between Qantas Drive and Lakeside Dr. Any through traffic can be via Airport Drive enterance. Southbound 590 would also use this, however, this requires getting across 2 highspeed lanes in 300m or skippping the East West Aterial Rd/Nudgee Rd stop.
- Introduce timetabled Skygate shuttle services for the day:
a. Cannon Hill interchange express Cannon Hill station express Kingsford Smith Dr then normal 590 route to Skygate only (every 15min)
b. Kedron Brook express Eagle Junction express Toombul express Skygate (every 15min)
c. Northgate - Skygate express (Stronger case if Northgate inbound track closures are in efffect - Every 30min) - Operate route 590 as Garden City to Metroplex only but with frequency increased to every 15min given the traffic/demand around Westfield Mt Gravatt, Carindale and Cannon Hill even this segment is going to be a struggle to operate reliably.
I had a bit of a play and have come up with the attached 2025-12 Skygate 26Dec Sample Shuttle TT.xlsx (15.6 KB) mock timetable which would see an extra 13 buses in-use. Given opening hours are 7am-9pm on Boxing Day (14 hours) this would see approx 26 drivers (ignoring overlap for meals) which wouldn’t be cheap on a public holiday but the status quo isn’t acceptable (and can’t be operationally delivered) and the high demand to a single location is where public transport is going to be most effective.
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Seems they have put up extra closures this morning for Feb (17th for Buranda, 18th for INB).
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New years public transport worked pretty well last night, but for some reason none of the extra trips were loaded into GTFS/the Translink journey planner. Had a few friends catch ubers home purely because even though the website said there’d be trains and buses, they didn’t trust the lack of routes in the journey planner. I decided to risk it and sure enough there were trains running, but not ideal!
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Happens on Anzac Day as well from 1 pm.
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Currently at Roma St. Apparently, there’s some kind of track fault on the subs through Central. All southbound services departing platform 8 (along with the usual westbound ones). 10-15 minute delays. Northbound seems to be working normally.
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Is there a reason why QR isn’t running trains through the Tennyson loop as of late? It would be very handy for the entire month of closures the Gold Coast will face AGAIN.