I left you in Cairns, a tropical port and tourism city of north Queensland in Oz on the Pacific coast. As my home lies about 3,500kms south in a southwestern Victorian regional city, I had to find a way to get there.
I could cover about half that distance on a regular scheduled Queensland Rail service, the Spirit of Queensland, which covers Cairns-Brisbane (Queensland's capital city in the SE of that big state) as an overnighter service.
Previous incarnations of the sleeper service used traditional sleeper cabin layouts, but the SoQ has ditched that for the first class to be rail beds instead. These look like long-haul flights' business class seating/lie flat bed arrangements - a seat within a hard shell, able to be turned into a cocoon-like bed.
The size and location of Oz means just about every international flight we take is a long-haul (except for New Zealand which is just a shortie of four hours for us east-coast residents). So my recent OS flights have been up the BC end of the plane. I've happily enjoyed the offerings of Singapore Air and Qatar, and I was due to have a try of Thai before the current unpleasantness arrived so I'm familiar with how well they can work.
But I'm not a fan of QR's, sadly. The seat as a seat was large and well-padded, it had access to a decent-sized screen on which various entertainments could be seen. There was a USB outlet and a 3.5mm sound outlet for those inclined. There was a decent and very stable pull-out table, a footrest, and comfortable armrests. But it didn't have any angle adjustment - the only move it could make was forwards and backwards as a complete unit. The seat back and the seat itself remained in whatever its angle was.
to turn it into lie flat configuration required one of the OBS crew to come along, plug in a device, and then use that device to unlock it, and slowly get it to flat and stretched-out. It seemed very much more complicated than it could have been. But the main criticism is that it has so little adjustment for the occupant.
For me, one of the pleasures of taking a sleeper is the ability to get horizontal whenever you fancy. I've often left the bed down for days on a proper LD journey. I never know when the sleeps will hit, and because getting a decent go at night can never be assured, getting a few Zeds in whenever I fancy, is what best works for me.
There's nothing wrong with the concept, just that this seat does not compare favourably with its Qatar Air equivalent, even though the technology has to be similar. I don't have a problem with the open carriage - that's exactly the same as an airline's BC cabin - just the seatbed.
The layout is in 2-1 formation, each row is properly aligned with a window, the toilets and showers are great, the meals and service was tops and friendly, the scenery was wonderful as the train made its way down the east of the country - sugarcane and fruitgrowing for the first several hours before moving into cattle-grazing around the Tropic, which we crossed around midnight at Rockhampton.
The ride wasn't expensive, and I suspect this partly is because the SoQ is a government service to Queensland taxpayers as it's a vital link between its major regional cities and the capital. First Class was chokka, and Economy also looked very well occupied with people on and off at just about every stop along the two-day journey. It was on-time throughout.
I'd whole-heartedly recommend the train, and QR, but would prefer a more adjustable seat. At least one other LD QR service offers sleepers in traditional cabin form, and I'll look to have a run on that sometime soon.
Pics below of the seat and carriage (the first pic is one of the economy class carriages).
I could cover about half that distance on a regular scheduled Queensland Rail service, the Spirit of Queensland, which covers Cairns-Brisbane (Queensland's capital city in the SE of that big state) as an overnighter service.
Previous incarnations of the sleeper service used traditional sleeper cabin layouts, but the SoQ has ditched that for the first class to be rail beds instead. These look like long-haul flights' business class seating/lie flat bed arrangements - a seat within a hard shell, able to be turned into a cocoon-like bed.
The size and location of Oz means just about every international flight we take is a long-haul (except for New Zealand which is just a shortie of four hours for us east-coast residents). So my recent OS flights have been up the BC end of the plane. I've happily enjoyed the offerings of Singapore Air and Qatar, and I was due to have a try of Thai before the current unpleasantness arrived so I'm familiar with how well they can work.
But I'm not a fan of QR's, sadly. The seat as a seat was large and well-padded, it had access to a decent-sized screen on which various entertainments could be seen. There was a USB outlet and a 3.5mm sound outlet for those inclined. There was a decent and very stable pull-out table, a footrest, and comfortable armrests. But it didn't have any angle adjustment - the only move it could make was forwards and backwards as a complete unit. The seat back and the seat itself remained in whatever its angle was.
to turn it into lie flat configuration required one of the OBS crew to come along, plug in a device, and then use that device to unlock it, and slowly get it to flat and stretched-out. It seemed very much more complicated than it could have been. But the main criticism is that it has so little adjustment for the occupant.
For me, one of the pleasures of taking a sleeper is the ability to get horizontal whenever you fancy. I've often left the bed down for days on a proper LD journey. I never know when the sleeps will hit, and because getting a decent go at night can never be assured, getting a few Zeds in whenever I fancy, is what best works for me.
There's nothing wrong with the concept, just that this seat does not compare favourably with its Qatar Air equivalent, even though the technology has to be similar. I don't have a problem with the open carriage - that's exactly the same as an airline's BC cabin - just the seatbed.
The layout is in 2-1 formation, each row is properly aligned with a window, the toilets and showers are great, the meals and service was tops and friendly, the scenery was wonderful as the train made its way down the east of the country - sugarcane and fruitgrowing for the first several hours before moving into cattle-grazing around the Tropic, which we crossed around midnight at Rockhampton.
The ride wasn't expensive, and I suspect this partly is because the SoQ is a government service to Queensland taxpayers as it's a vital link between its major regional cities and the capital. First Class was chokka, and Economy also looked very well occupied with people on and off at just about every stop along the two-day journey. It was on-time throughout.
I'd whole-heartedly recommend the train, and QR, but would prefer a more adjustable seat. At least one other LD QR service offers sleepers in traditional cabin form, and I'll look to have a run on that sometime soon.
Pics below of the seat and carriage (the first pic is one of the economy class carriages).
