Thanks to the growing popularity of intercity rail, the permanent withdrawal of sleeping cars on Sydney-Melbourne trains could be avoided with the introduction of new rolling stock.
The new Spanish-built trains ordered by the previous Coalition government were originally scheduled to enter service in January 2023, but are not expected to enter service before April 2026. There is no exact arrival date yet.
The new trains have reclining seats but no sleeping cars.
But New South Wales regional transport minister Jenny Aitchison told Guardian Australia the government was keeping an open mind when asked whether existing XPT sleepers could be refurbished and added to trainsets or excess stock could be removed after the new rolling stock arrives. It is used to operate more scheduled services on popular routes.
“We are considering all options for what to do with the existing fleet,” he said, but a decision could be made once the new trains arrive and officials have had a chance to assess the condition of the old sets.
The government will wait to see whether recliners on new trains will be more popular with passengers than sleepers, which have only a handful of beds per service.
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“So it will be a bit more of an agnostic approach until we see what it actually looks like,” Aitchison said.
“Everything is on the table of looking at what the best option is,” he said. “Some of these trains have been well maintained, and is there an opportunity to make them better?”
The new trains will also have wifi and charging points.
The XPT fleet, which has been servicing long-distance journeys such as the twice-daily Melbourne journey from Sydney since the 1980s, which takes around 11 hours, does not have a modern connection.
The windows of old wagons even weaken cell phone signal reception.
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Demand on the Sydney-Melbourne line is so high that the state operator frequently adds additional wagons to the twice-daily service.
Travel patronage of $78 for an adult economy ticket and $234 for sleeper beds when booked five days in advance outside holiday periods is up 47% in 2023 and is now higher than before the pandemic.
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Before December, traditionally one of the busiest months, the average monthly user count was 31,000.
For every 20 air passengers between Sydney and Melbourne in 2023, one person joined train services for at least part of the journey.
When domestic airfares were at a record high early last year, train passengers accounted for 7% of air travel on the world’s fifth busiest airline.
Strong night train passenger numbers have driven much of the growth on the Sydney-Melbourne route; The monthly number of customers of these services increased by around 3,000 on average between 2013 and 2023.
Aitchison, who booked Australian long-distance rail travel in his previous career as a tour planner, said the night train appealed to travelers looking to save on overnight accommodation.
Baby boomers had come to particularly enjoy the service, but there had also been an increase in the number of full-fare passengers, challenging the assumption that the train was mostly providing concessional service.
“For the older demographic, they really like that fact [that] If they want to go to the toilet, they want to get up and go for a walk, [if] They want to go and buy some food [they can]” said Aitchison. “They are not under the driver’s control.”
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An obvious disadvantage of the train is that there are only two trips per day in each direction and the journey takes longer than by car.
Unlike many electric intercity services overseas, Australia’s intercity trains are still diesel-powered, and the lack of significant improvements to lines built more than 100 years ago means services rarely reach the notional top speed of 160km/h. Even the new train fleet will not see a reduction in travel time unless investment is made in improving the line.
Track upgrades and possible diversions to speed up interstate routes will require collaboration with the Australian Railway Rail Company (ARTC), the national organization that operates most of the country’s rail, including the Sydney-Melbourne line.
Aitchison said there was a discussion about the federal government providing more funding for NSW operations, given they service multiple states and territories.
He said NSW also had a responsibility to develop Australia’s long-distance travel culture until the state could deliver the High Speed Rail Project, the first part of which was designated for Sydney-Newcastle, in the coming years.
“If you just went on the… gold-plated high-speed train… and you didn’t actually generate any patronage because people weren’t using… what we had, then [high-speed rail] It becomes a piece of cake in the sky.
Aitchison stressed that the NSW government was open to hearing from rail experts and the public about rail improvements and other ways to improve services in regional areas, and called for submissions as part of the government’s strategic regional integrated transport planning process.
“We’re trying to change that mode of consultation…we need to hear much better the people who are motivated to tell us things,” Aitchison said.