Hi everyone, been away for a few weeks and as part of my time I spent a week or so in Sydney, NSW. All the newspapers and TV^▸ (Thames Valley, or TeleVision, depending on context) news forever hammering the poor state of the trains but as an outsider I couldnt help but make the followig observations.

NSW trains consist of a city and suburban network which merges fairly seamlessly into the country and interstate network.

1. Trains departing on time to the second over most of the suburban network.
2. typical fares to the suburbs of A$6 return (^3) for a 30min/30km journey, uncrowded off peak, crowded during the 5-6pm peak, all trains AC^▸ (Air Conditioning, or Alternating Current (electricity), depending on context) seemed to work. Whilst trains not particually fast much faster then driving.
3, Some fantastic sunday walkup fares, A$2.50 per person for a family fun day ticket to include al buses, ferries and trains in the network....we did a bus/ferry and 2 hour train up into the Blue mountains for a day trip. Regular trains well into the evening despite being a sunday.
4. In the inner city part of the nework trains every 10min or better, in the suburbs every 30min or better offpeak, every 15min or better during peak.
5. Simple highly visible fare structure which works well with very efficient ticket machines.
6. All electric and very quiet. Additional lines stil being opened.

8. MUCH higher subsidies   

That is a very low bridge. I have a roof box on my car at the moment, standard car plus roofbox I measured it at 2m02.

Done some more research seems bridge was 3 m high and bus 3.8 m but still a big difference.

Thought 2 m sounded very low.

Report www.heraldsun.com.au/...crash/.../503ef535e27b638b71c1d674554739dd

But still no mention i can see of rail disruption.

The Ghan - from Adeaide via Alice Springs to Darwin - is a train of extremes. How does it sit in each of these?

* Least frequent (realistic) commercial passenger service ?

* Longest journey ?

* and, it would seem, longest train - see The Telegraph

I am not a huge fan of overseas travel, but that *is* one train I would like to experience.

I was lucky enough to spend some of my redundancy payment back in November 2009 on Gold Class trips on both the Ghan and Indian Pacific trains. Operated by the same company, the on-train experience on both is pretty much the same, but naturally the geography of each trip is very different. Either trip definitely comes very highly recommended, but if I had to choose one over the other, I would go for the Indian Pacific rather than the Ghan.

Bnm try container ships.

One way would be.

Ship  UK^▸ (United Kingdom) to USA East Coast:  train to West Coast: ship Japan/China: ship Australia Darwin the start of the Ghan.

You may even get one direct to Australia from UK.