60kph in the lead-up heading south through Cotton Vale/Thulimbah/The Summit and through the level crossing (there’s a blind 300m radius curve between The Summit station siding and the level crossing). It was 80kph on the straight afterwards through Glen Niven (towards Stanthorpe). But QR has lowered the speed limits on most unprotected level crossings in the area to 25kph (noting the one across the New England Highway is not unprotected).
The track is almost dead straight through the 60kph zone, but is maintained to a low standard (bad ballast, 50% timber sleepers etc.), so even in the absence of level crossings, there are definite limitations. In the context of track that is effectively only used once or twice a month by a steam/diesel operated tourist service, the level of maintenance is reasonable (no freight operates on the line past Warwick; all freight goes south-west to Goondiwindi/Thallon).
But it highlights the risk averse attitude of the organisation. There was no clear rationale to lower the speed limits on quiet unprotected crossings at Cotton Vale, Thulimbah or in The Summit township. They just added those because they could as well.
Question on Notice No. 629
QUESTION:
Will the Minister specify the nature and scope of the ‘supplementary assessments’ currently being undertaken to refine and finalise the Long Distance Passenger Rail business case?
I don’t think they want to do it because, let’s be honest, the BCR will be very poor if the current per passenger subsidy is anything to go by.
They will likely be dragged kicking and screaming to it because of the politics.
That doesn’t mean I personally don’t want this to happen - I really do, and hope it does. And soon. Last time I travelled on the Westy (during COVID), the rolling stock definitely had literal holes in the frame (just not anywhere important luckily).
If I remember correctly, locomotives are out of scope. We had the recent 2900 series remodel, so that’s what we’re going to get haulage-wise. A couple of them live at Toowoomba in the bay platform usually, and they are perfectly serviceable (albeit not an AC connection in sight).
I personally like the ‘accessibility to the common man’ of the Spirit of the Outback; I’d hate to see to go so high class it becomes unaffordable and/or inaccessible to most people. Make it very comfortable and a little classy, sure - but I think it represents the best value you can get out of a rail journey in Australia, and I’d hate to lose that. (It’s like my circa 2008-2013 journeys on Japan’s Hokutosei (Sapporo - Ueno) and Twilight Express (Sapporo - Osaka) in the order of $500-700 for two people in a twin room - now gone and replaced by $10,000+ cruise trains )
With respect to the western line, the track is good quality as far as Miles (where the coal mines end, essentially), so I’d consider that a possible logical truncation point if we had to farewell the overnighter going further west.
But if we must bid farewell to the longer distance run by rail, I’d be lobbying for Warwick (which is bigger than Dalby) to be included in a more regional-type rail system. Stanthorpe is probably not feasible because the average speed on the ascent from Warwick to there is about 30kph.
…And maybe Townsville to Charters Towers (and an extra daily Townsville - Cairns service if we can bring the travel time up to something respectable - 5.5hrs at present is frankly unacceptable).
Would it be too insane to run shuttle services to Maryborough Central from Beerwah once DSCL is in operation?
You could take a few IMU16x and 12x and retrofit them with batteries for the final stretch from Mary West to the city centre, and use those as well to run last mile services to Gympie Central.
Obviously tracks would have to be renewed but it wouldn’t be extremely complex.
About the Spirit of the Outback: get new carriages for it (with an extra order for the Inlander) and throw the old stock for the Westlander for the time being. If we’re gonna build rolling stock in Torbanlea might as well use the plant for more than just the QTMP.
Saw via Facebook earlier in the week that the Electric Tilt Train trip Q994 (AM Bundaberg to Roma St service) made an additional stop at Exibition station for the Ekka Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday (12, 14, 15, 16 August). Seems like a great initiative.
While trying to find the link again I found this video of it: Redirecting...
So QRTravel is developing a new website for their onboard infotainment (qrtv.com.au, only access on QRTravel wifi), and is available to the public in prerelease.
I only used the live journey tracker, and I have a few pieces of feedback:
Why does the live journey tracker list down all the passing loops (e.g. Gladstone, IV7, IVG (Iveragh), BRR (Bororen), Miriam Vale). It would be more sensible to list down the stations only.
The speed trading on the live map is woefully inaccurate. One time the speed of the train was shown as 25kph shortly after leaving Maryborough West. The train was travelling at around 130kph.
With the movies now going on people’s personal devices, would the onboard monitors revert back to showing the live journey tracking once the new infotainment is in stable release?/
These are just two pieces of feedback I have for the new infotainment system for QRTravel.
Queensland Rail Travel has announced that from 1 April 2026 long-distance rail fares will increase by 3.4%, with additional increase to premium travel options of RailBeds and Sleeper cabins.
Pensioner entitlement travel bookings in economy seats will remain at $25.
With the arrival of the QTMP and at the same time, ageing loco hauled stock on the spirit of the outback and other long distance services, do you think we should take advantage of the QTMP and make a DMU variant for Long Distance services, as well as actually improving regional services?.
Something like what Perth did with its C series and the Australind.
If you wanted to upgrade the long distance services, I would still look at push pull options to keep the motors away from the passenger cabins. The vibrations in the VLocity DMU get a bit much over long distances.
See this video from Taitset about the Overlander (from 14.10). The Overland - How can we fix it? It talks about potential fleet replacements, and looks at why the DMU may not be as good as a Push Pull.
The only long distance location that I think a DMU would be appropriate is Brisbane to Toowoomba. For any other location south of Rockhampton, we’d be better off with bimode train given the network is already sparked. Unless you wanted to run local-ish network around Townsville or Cairns?
I do think a rolling stock refresh is overdue for long-distance trains, but I wonder if rather than a QTMP modification it would be worth doing a full new design for long distance trains considering they have such different requirements both in terms of internal layout & propulsion. The push-pull comment makes a lot of sense as well, I’ve only travelled on a vlocity once but I do recall they’re a bit loud.
Some sort of bi-mode push-pull set is probably a good base for a fleet refresh (complete with sleepers, dining car, & showers) for the SOTO, the Inlander, and either a cut-down or full-size variant for the Westlander. For the tilts I think you’d probably need a different design (considering the tilting mechanism), but once again they could share bi-mode rollingstock and hopefully run a more frequent service
The Spirit of Queensland diesel units also have a tilting mechanism. Having tilt is pretty much required to run with increased speeds on our narrow gauge. Alstom, who manufactured the new Acela trains in the US, sell tilt trains, so it’s not much of an issue these days to acquire them.
Agree with the comment above that whether they are locos or multiple units they should definitely be bi-mode. Crazy not to use the electrification all the way to Rosewood, Rockhampton, and Blackwater.
The electric tilts use an off-the-shelf passive tilting mechanism that also features in the JR Shikoku 8000 series, which were manufactured in a similar era. They didn’t design a bespoke solution for them then either, so I would imagine during the design phase for anything new they would design around a product that can meet their needs rather than re-invent the wheel.
Multiple Japanese manufacturers also do various forms of active tilt mechanisms rather than the passive type that exist on the current electric tilts; but I’m only aware of them being used widely on first class/premium (“Green Car”) carriages because the increment of additional passenger comfort isn’t that great vs the additional expense (and they provide no additional speed).
Somehow, I can’t see the 2900 class diesels being retired anytime soon (putting aside any arguments as to whether they should be, or relegated to shunting duties or sold off to other operators). They may be rebuilds from earlier models, but for almost all intents and purposes are effectively new, so I expect these to be workhorses for the Spirit of the Outback and Westlander for quite a while, whatever form their new carriages take. The Inlander is already under a hook-and-pull contract with Aurizon, so not sure what the future looks like there. But it does suggest QR already has very little presence in North QLD.
The reason I say do a DMU variant though is because you can than have something like the new nsw regional trains where it runs under electric power when ever it’s under overhead wires and then when it’s on unelectrified railways, it can run under its own power. This will especially be beneficial for the Spirit of the Outback which runs under electrification between Brisbane and somewhere between Gracemere (little town near rocky) and Emerald.
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