Great South Pacific Express
The Great South Pacific Express was a luxury and hotel touristic train that operated in Australia .
history
The 21 carriages of the train were built in the late 1990s in the Townsville workshops of Queensland Rail (QR), which then operated the train, for AU $ 35 million . The train ran from 1999 to 2003 and had a capacity for 100 passengers. In the four years of operation, the train ran a deficit of AU $ 12 million. The operation was then started and the wagons parked. The Belmond Group bought the vehicles and transported them to Peru in 2016, where, redesigned and modernized, they now operate as the Belmond Andean Explorer .
business
The cars were nostalgic , modeled on the Venice Simplon Orient Express , whose operator let the train run together with QR. He drove the connection Sydney - Brisbane - Cairns - Kuranda as well as to Canberra , in the Blue Mountains and the Hunter Valley . Three comfort classes were offered . Since the QR on Cape Gauge , the railroad in New South Wales and the Sydney – Brisbane railway line are built in standard gauge , the vehicles were able to change lanes. The gauge station was the Acacia Ridge depot , west of Brisbane.
literature
- hum: The Peruvian luxury sleeper train “Belmond Andean Explorer” . In: Eisenbahn-Revue International 5/2018, p. 266f.
Web links
- Homepage ; accessed on May 5, 2018.
- David Carroll: QR sells Great South Pacific Express . In: Travel Weekly of September 20, 2005; accessed on May 5, 2018.