It defies logic, but here’s why Australia is a nation of train travellers​on January 21, 2025 at 4:31 am

You’ll then have 11 hours to luxuriate in your seat (which reclines 28 degrees and 40 in first class), visit the restaurant car, read a book, stare out the window.

Of course, you won’t be able to charge devices because there are no electrical outlets or USB ports, and you’ll barely be able to use your phone anyway, because the tinting on the windows of the XPT trains blocks not just the sun, but also mobile phone signals.

You will also travel painfully slowly at some points, and find yourself daydreaming pointlessly about Japanese shinkansen and the French TGV as you sit stationary in a siding waiting for a coal train to pass.

The Sydney to Melbourne train service, let’s face it, is terrible. On a global scale, in comparison to the likes of Japan, South Korea, China, Switzerland, Austria, Spain, France and so many more, we’re an absolute joke.

Loading

Yet plenty of people in Australia still want to ride the train, and more people are doing it. They’re doing this because it’s cheaper, of course. But I imagine there are other reasons.

Trains are, after all, the ultimate way to travel. You can’t convince me otherwise. Carbon emissions are far lower, the comfort and convenience levels are far higher (in most countries at least), and there’s just something so wholesome and enjoyable about seeing the world from the window of a train.

You get to see that world, for starters. You get to watch the way landscapes connect, the way mountains become plains, forests become meadows, rivers rush into the sea. You get to sleep, if you’re really lucky, to the gentle click-clack of carriages and occasional platform announcements in foreign languages.

There’s romance to train travel that you will never get in a plane. There’s comfort and conviviality that you will never find in an airport security queue or when you’re crammed into a car or bus.

For these and many other reasons, there’s a thirst in Australia to become a nation of train travellers. I firmly believe that.

Loading

It’s happening now, in a small way, even with such dire rail options, even though you have to spend three times as long getting from A to B, even though you can’t even charge your devices, let alone hope for Wi-Fi or a decent phone signal.

The necessity of air travel has become so deeply ingrained into the Australian psyche, entrenched by powerful airline lobby groups and politicians unwilling to commit to large-scale rail projects, that there are still people who argue that Australia just isn’t suitable for long-distance train travel.

That’s despite a large and ever-growing population base clustered in a relatively small area between two major centres (Sydney to Melbourne is roughly the same distance as Tokyo to Hiroshima – and you can do that in under four hours on the shinkansen).

Despite all the obvious issues with our system, the popularity of long-distance train travel in Australia is increasing, beyond our capacity to handle it.

Australia could be a nation of train travellers. We love it in other countries. We even put up with the inconveniences here. Maybe one day we will have a rail system to match the enthusiasm.