Australia is a big country – stretching roughly 2,500 miles across and 2,000 miles from top to bottom. Most people there, quite sensibly, take the plane to get from A to B.
That’s unless they’re hopping on one of the enormous country’s luxury trains – which include the much-loved Ghan through Australia’s ‘Red Centre’ between Adelaide and Darwin or The Indian Pacific, a sumptuous journey sweeping between Perth in Western Australia and Sydney on the east coast.
There are other long-distance, less ‘fancy’ (less expensive), rides, too. And one of them is the superb, extremely good-value Spirit of Queensland between Cairns in the far north of the state of Queensland and Brisbane, its capital. Even in the poshest berths it costs from just £205 (AUS$403/US$263), which works out at 19p a mile.
This is a journey of 1,045 miles (1,681km), taking about 25 hours. The flight time between the two interesting cities? A mere 2h 25m. But for a rail enthusiast (such as me) ‘making time’ is not the point… it’s all about the ride.
On a muggy morning at Cairns Station, I join the silver-hued train, taking my berth in one of its two RailBed carriages.
MailOnline Travel’s Tom Chesshyre rode the Spirit of Queensland sleeper train between Cairns in the far north of the state of Queensland and Brisbane, its capital. His berth was an innovative RailBed (above) pod, which comes with an entertainment screen
Tom’s journey was 1,045 miles (1,681km), taking about 25 hours. The train expert reveals: ‘You depart at 9.35am from Cairns arriving at 10.20am, all being well, the next day’
As there are no couchettes or private cabins on the Spirit of Queensland, RailBeds – large leather seating booths that fold into flatbeds at night – are the best available option.
You depart at 9.35am from Cairns arriving at 10.20am, all being well, the next day. From Brisbane to Cairns, you leave at 1.45pm, reaching your destination just over 24 hours later at 2.30pm.
In total, there are 35 RailBeds in the two carriages – 16 in Carriage B (where I am) and 19 in the adjoining Carriage C. The reason for fewer seats in Carriage B is that it’s home to a shower room for RailBed passengers only.
The other way to travel is in one of three economy carriages beyond a Spirit of Queensland Café carriage. These offer up to 51 much more cramped berths.
My RailBed is across the way from Don and Noelene, retired real estate agents from Springwood in New South Wales, on a holiday with friends seated in the row behind. All soon to become my pals.
The Spirit of Queensland offers 35 RailBeds, economy seating and a cafe carriage
Tom (left) explains that the RailBeds feel ‘reasonably private’. The food onboard (right) is ‘decent’ if ‘far from gourmet’
A still from Tom’s fascinating video of the journey
The seats come with a handy reading light, headphones for the entertainment system (with Hollywood films, music albums, and podcasts on the history of the Cairns-Brisbane line, first opened in 1924), an inflatable head support, and a pouch of Bubbles Organic toiletries containing soap, moisturiser and lip balm.
RailBeds have a pod-like feel with curving sides, so although you are sharing a space with others you feel reasonably private. That said, you may (as I did) hear snoring at night and sometimes catch loudly-told conversations in nearby rows – not from Don and Noelene, I hasten to add – about romances that went tragically wrong and tales of ‘mates’ who got mixed up in nefarious dreadful crimes.
Which is all part of the experience – and quite fun – really.
You get served three meals (lunch, dinner and breakfast), plus tea/coffee and biscuits on arrival. As I get to know Don and Noelene, the Spirit of Queensland winds its way steadily south, passing an unusual triangular-shaped hill known as Walshs Pyramid, which pokes up through low-hanging clouds.
The cafe carriage where, explains Tom, sandwiches (£2.90) and hot meals (£5 for beef and rice) are available, plus Great Northern Super Crisp lagers (£3.42 a can) and glasses of Australian shiraz/sauvignon blanc (£4.21 for 187ml)
Above is one of the economy carriages on Spirit of Queensland, where the seating is far less spacious. Each economy carriage offers 51 berths
Carriage B is home to a shower room for RailBed passengers only (above)
The landscape alternates between wild jungle-y shrubland and vast sugarcane estates through which mini railway tracks run with metal cage-like wagons for transporting cane to mills. As we pass by, we watch great plumes of steam arise from chimneys.
In the café carriage – where sandwiches (£2.90) and hot meals (£5 for beef and rice) are available, plus Great Northern Super Crisp lagers (£3.42 a can) and glasses of Australian shiraz/sauvignon blanc (£4.21 for 187ml) – there are comfy leather low-level seats in a zig-zag formation by the windows. Here, I meet Kerry, the friendly passenger services supervisor.
As rain begins to pelt down – sadly obscuring the window views – she tells me 176 passengers are on board and that the top speed is 100mph, though in the sugarcane regions of the northern stretch it’s slower (as the sugarcane railway lines often cross the mainline tracks, making it bumpy). There are five services in each direction every week, with three sets of trains. The crew changes three times on every journey.
Do any Brits take the ride? ‘Some,’ she says. ‘We’ve had that Michael Portillo on board once.’
We call into Tully, a remote station with a sign that says this is the wettest area in Australia (with a record rainfall of 7.9 metres/25ft one incredible year, 1950). There are 29 delightfully sleepy small-town stops in all, and passengers are advised over speakers whether they can disembark to stretch legs and for how long, although ‘we take no responsibility for anyone left behind’.
At Tully, a pretty station with hanging baskets of ferns and flowers, the driver Alan is picking up his lunch – he’d called ahead for a takeaway. He stops for a chat and fills me in on the locomotives used on the narrow-gauge track (3ft 6in), one at each end of the train. They are ‘diesel hydraulic, V12’ with a total horsepower of 7,200.
Tom reveals that he ‘slept like a log’ after having his bed turned down for him
Colliding with creatures on the track, including kangaroos, is common. ‘If you hit a cow at 120kph [75mph], you’ll know it,’ he says. ‘It can make a hole a metre wide. It happened to another driver the other day. He said he was terrified.’
Hardly surprising, but the trains have well-designed noses to make derailments nigh on impossible.
Meals on board are decent, if far from gourmet: chicken and rice for lunch (could have done with a bit more seasoning), and roast pork with potatoes and vegetables for dinner (not bad, in my view, though Don and Noelene are not impressed).
I sleep like a log, after having the bed turned down for me – staff do this for all passengers. And in the morning the lights come on at 6.30am for cooked breakfast and muesli-and-yoghurt: again fine, nothing fancy.
The landscape becomes hillier and then suburbs arise followed by the shiny skyscrapers of Brisbane’s CBD (Central Business District).
The first services back in the early days of the line were called the Sunshine Express, later becoming the Sunlander, offering the world’s first carriages with a/c. Those were glamorous days when the great and the good flocked to the line, plus tens of thousands of holidaymakers each year.
It may not be quite like that now – but for value for money, and a wonderful adventure, the Spirit of Queensland is hard to beat.
Tom Chesshyre is author of Slow Trains to Istanbul… And Back: A 4,570-Mile Adventure on 55 Rides, which was published by Summerdale last month.