The Trains from Longreach to Cairns Nov 2011

Thursday 17 Nov 2011

The train home.

I woke at 4.50am to get ready for the trip home on the train. After a short walk of 300 metres I arrived at the Longreach Railway Station at 6.45am. There didn’t seem to be many folk getting on the train and when I got on board I found there were only 9 people in my carriage that can carry 45 passengers so there was heaps of room to spread out. This is one of the advantages of travelling in the non tourist season. I wonder how many will join the train along the way on the 13 hour trip to Rockhampton.

At 7.30 am I was in the first seating for Brekkie and what a fun filled Brekkie it was, the staff was great and the openness combined with humour of the country folk on board provided a great experience. I had a full Shearers Breakfast of bacon, eggs, tomato, sausages with toast, coffee and juice.

The countryside was so brown and flat as the train snaked its way over the plains heading east towards Rockhampton. I have an economy class seat and to my surprise it would be as good as Business class seats on Amtrak. The folk on board were very interesting and entertaining. One lady was a shearers cook on sheep stations (ranches), boy, could she tell some yarns and this helped the 13 hours pass by very quickly. There was another bloke who was 45 but going on 18 and was going out between the carriages to smoke pot and thought we old folk didn’t know what he was up to.

I also went to the dining car for lunch and dinner, the meals were very good and the red wine to my surprise was from a Queensland Winery at Mt Cotton (South East of Brisbane). I didn’t know there was a winery there however the wine was very good.

We arrived in Rockhampton on time at 8.15pm and the train was to go on to Brisbane after a 20 minute stop over. The train developed a problem and was stuck at the platform for 2 hours longer than its scheduled stop. I along with an old lady are the only 2 waiting in the customer lounge for the North bound Queenslander to arrive in about 3 hours. I hope it will be on time.

The Queenslander was about 30 minutes late so it was nearly 1am by the time I got on and the first thing I did was have a shower and get ready for bed.

Friday 18 November 2011.

I sure had a good nights sleep and woke very refreshed about 6am. I wend down to the lounge car and made myself a cup of green tea. I went to Brekkie at 7.30am and had a great feed of bacon eggs and all the trimmings. After that it was reading the papers catching up on emails and then down to the Club Lounge for the entertainment. The crew are excellent and the passengers are ok also so there were heaps of laughs. Lunchtime was a seafood delight with prawns, oysters, bugs and crab. 

Wow, what a feed washed down with champers and followed by a decadent pudding. I had  a nanna nap after all this and then packed as there is only 4 more hours on the train before arriving in Cairns.