I really don’t think you’e going to persuade any substantial number of people on to a long distance train these days without at least being able to get a coffee and something decent to eat. The level of service available on the Westlander is not something I would support putting more money into to continue.
Also, if new long distance powered trains are ordered, either multiple unit or locomotive, I think it’s essential that they be bi-mode so they can make use of the fairly extensive electrification we have in Queensland for some part of their journey.
For the three locomotive hauled services, only Spirit of the Outback runs under what I would call ‘extensive’ electrification, from Roma Street to Blackwater (Blackwater to Emerald has the struts but has been de-sparked since the track from Gladstone to Blackwater was sold/leased off). The Westlander only has Roma Street to Rosewood. The Inlander has none.
But for fleet consistency, I have no objection to bi-mode operation. But the benefit really only exists for one of the three inland services.
Edit: the Diesel Tilt Train should definitely have been able to take advantage of wires all the way to Rockhampton, but alas it was not the case.
Stadler and their Valencia factory (formerly Vossloh) has manufactured multiple narrow gauge locos for South Africa and they also produce dual-mode traction for the UK, which shares our tight loading gauge as well.
Shouldn’t be too difficult to ask them for something similar.
Just looking at the data for the Spirit of Queensland - it seems the service is very well utilised?
Approximately 100,000 passengers per year in 2022-23. There are 8 services per week (4 in each direction). That means an average of 100,000/52/8 =240 passengers per service. But the train only has 131 seats (35 Railbeds + 96 Economy seats).
So each seat gets turned over on average almost twice per trip (e.g. someone sits in it Brisbane→Rocky, then someone else sits in it Rocky→Cairns)? That seems way busier than I thought it would be.
Having been on SoQ multiple times, I’ve seen Cairns-Townsville and Townsville-Brisbane (and vice versa) is a pretty common way to sell two tickets for the same seat. An economy seat might even be sold 3 (or more) times if it lines up. Railbeds have restrictions around minimum distances making them harder to multi-sell.
My reading of the carriage layouts is the seat counts are 134 economy (E32 + F51 + G51) plus the 35 railbeds (but excluding the 3 accessible spaces in Car E). But that’s largely inconsequential because as you say, the reported actual numbers require a level of full capacity plus an extent of multi-sale in any event to be achieved.
But I think it’s the level of subsidy per passenger that alarms the bean counters more than the number of sold or unsold seats (but one could argue about the merits in maintaining a long distance rail service that has 10-20 passengers per service). For Spirit of QLD, the subsidy amount per passenger is about a third of the Spirit of the Outback, or about a 5th of the other two loco hauled services.
I would be curious to see details about the nature of the subsidies being paid and where pensioner concession entitlements fit into that - is that part of the reported figures or is the money foregone by accepting a concession entitlement accounted for separately I wonder?
I do think that the SoQ should be operated daily or at least 6x weekly (Su/Mo/Tu/We/Th/Fr), but once again… fleet availability. Hell, the ETT should at least be twice daily every single day.
SoO can stay as is, but the Westlander… That’s a harder one to justify.
