Countrylink
Travelling In Style and Comfort
Welcome aboard !
Countrylink trains are the counterpart of Sydney ferries. There is no better way to see rural Sydney and beyond than through this train service. It offers a relax and comfortable travel without breaking your budget. Let someone do the driving while you enjoy the great scenery as you travel to your destination. 
Countrylink is a train service that connects over 350 destinations within the Australian states of New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria. The train service is part of Rail Corporation New South Wales, a government owned rail corporation. It transports over 2 million people every year and connects many of the country's key cities, towns and suburbs including Sydney, Broken Hill, Griffith, Tamworth, Orange, Moree, Canberra, Dubbo, Coffs Harbor, Grafton, Casino, Armidale, Melbourne and Brisbane.
As a visitor to Australia, it is unlikely that you will be able to tour the country effectively without taking
a train at least once. Taking a long distance train ride allows you to enjoy the very best that Australia
has to offer-from the urban metropolis Sydney attractions to the outback towns further inland.
And if you discover
that the train service cannot get you to your final destination, no worries, Countrylink has developed multiple
collaboration agreements with the largest coach service providers around the country that allows its passengers
to use the coaches for destinations not covered by rail transport.
Countrlyink provides two types of train services: the Express Passenger Train (XPT) and the Xplorer.
Express Passenger Train (XPT)
The more popular of the two Countrylink train services is the XPT. And this is not surprising when one considers
that it boasts some of the fastest passenger trains available in Australia.
XPT was first introduced in 1982 as
a high speed train and was modeled on the British High Speed Train. Between 1982 and 1999, the XPT were the
fastest trains available in the New South Wales region. Countrylink was formed in 1990 and took over the management
of the XPT train service.
( Photo by Bidgee, CC-BY 3.0 Unported License )
Between 1990 and 1992, Countrylink renovated the trains by placing more emphasis on passenger comfort and painting
the trains with the train service's trademark colors. Within the same period, Countrylink also increased the number
of coaches and the destinations served by the XPT service.
This was all done as part of a broader government driven
initiative to overhaul and improve transport services in New South Wales and Australia as a whole. The initiative was
managed by the New Intercapital Services (NIS). The end of the initiative saw a much improved XPT emerge to become
the main long distance passenger rail service in New South Wales.
XPT trains consist of 4 to 7 comfort passenger carriages with a power car on each end of the train. During one of
its first test trips to Albury in September of 1992, XPT made a new Australia rail record by achieving a top speed
of 183 km/h. Today, the XPT trains can do a maximum of 160km/h but rarely have to attain this speed.
The XPT trains cover three main routes from Sydney. - The Central West route travels westwards from Sydney through the Blue Mountains and Central Tablelands and terminates at Dubbo. This route is on a daily return trip schedule.The train leaves Sydney Central Station early in the morning and arrives in Dubbo in the afternoon. It returns to Sydney from Dubbo by late evening.
- The South XPT route connects Sydney to Melbourne. As you would expect, this is one of the busiest routes since ithandles commuters between two of Australia's most important cities. There is both a day and a night travel trip one way. The day trip leaves Sydney Central Station in the morning and travels southwards stopping at a number of towns before arriving in Melbourne by the evening. The night trip leaves Melbourne late in the evening and travels throughout the night arriving in Sydney by early the next day.
- The third XPT trip from Sydney is the North Coast route. This covers Brisbane, Casino and Grafton. The train trip to Brisbane is a night trip with the train leaving the Central Station in the afternoon, traveling throughout the night before arriving in Brisbane by the following morning. The trips to Casino and Grafton are much shorter and both are day return trips.
The Xplorer
The Xplorer service was introduced in 1992. The trains have three compartments-a middle passenger compartment and
two power cars that are longer and also have passenger seating.
The Xplorer service covers Canberra, Armidale, Moree,
Broken Hill and Griffith. The Xplorer trip from Sydney to Canberra is a 4 hour journey with two trips every day.
(Photo by Jason Antony(Alexanderino), CC-BY 2.5 Generic License )
The trip to Armidale and Moree start out as a single train trip with two Xplorer trains traveling co-joint. The trains are separated at Werris Creek to travel to their respective destinations. All other Xplorer services are weekly. The trip to Broken Hill leaves on Monday morning and returns to Sydney on Tuesday morning. The trip to Griffith leaves on Monday morning attached to the Canberra train. It separates at Goulburn and returns on Sunday morning time in Sydney.
Have A Great Trip Aboard CountryLink Trains?
Have you used the Countrylink train service? Did you have an awesome time?
Why not share your own experience, thoughts and tips so we can try them? And don't forget those photos that captured those magical moments.
We want to see them too!
|
