# Melbourne to Sydney by daylight train - a review



## mcropod (Jun 11, 2020)

With most international travel now greatly curtailed, and much domestic travel likewise, I was pleased to see this article in the Oz edition of the online newspaper The Guardian.

The writer is well-known for her biting commentry, and I was interested to see how she found the trip.

I've taken that trip a few times on the daytime as well as the overnight service, and I prefer the overnighter, but daylight does give you a much better sense of place as she writes. And also how key the train is in getting passengers from the various regional cities in NSW to their state's capital and to the services and shops not available where they live (although that isn't a feature of her article).

Anyway, with the aim of letting forumites who'd like a chance of getting some travel experience in these restricted times, I thought I'd refer you to her story:









Time warps and Thai curry: taking the 11 hour train trip from Melbourne to Sydney | Brigid Delaney


Maybe unfairly, the train has a grim reputation of being slow, uncomfortable and dull. Covid-19 means I’ll get to find out first-hand




www.theguardian.com





There's a lovely bit of that line going north which loops over itself as a way of reducing what was otherwise too steep a grade for the locos of that era. It is not used on the southern journey as the train just barrels down the grade. You miss seeing both on the overnighter.


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## trainman74 (Jun 12, 2020)

Thanks for the link! I took the overnight train from Sydney to Melbourne in 2009, and do kind of wish I'd seen the route during the day. (It was winter, so the train left Sydney in the dark and arrived Melbourne at the first light of dawn.)


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## flitcraft (Jun 12, 2020)

I almost took this train this summer, but my lecture in Sydney got cancelled, so I flew back to the US without getting to experience this train. Seems like maybe it wasn't as much of a loss as I had imagined.


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## caravanman (Jun 12, 2020)

The social distancing on the train and in the waiting room sounded pretty well organised. I guess that is why Australia has such low rates of infection? I though the photos belied the rather harsh description of the scenery.


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## mcropod (Jun 12, 2020)

caravanman said:


> The social distancing on the train and in the waiting room sounded pretty well organised. I guess that is why Australia has such low rates of infection? I though the photos belied the rather harsh description of the scenery.



Oz has low rates of infection so far, mostly because we've been properly served by our Governments' actions to provide appropriate medical advice and care, as well as increase financial assistance to those who'd find things difficult otherwise to apply the advice to social distance and reduce our mixing. It's also likely the case that we've been better served than many countries by competent government and public organisations, so we've a bit more confidence that their advice is worth heeding.

So there are far fewer people on the move, even in places where the restrictions have not been mandated. I have looked into that Travellers' Rest room on one of my trips from Melbourne, and it is pretty grim and unappealing.

Thanks for posting on your India trip - it was a great read on this cold Saturday morning!


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