Planes, Trains and Automobiles

[Daver6]

I get back on after dinner, go to my cabin and it's a disaster. Even warmer! Bed has been made too, so the staff who made the beds would have known it was a sauna. Now I'm pretty annoyed. I go to the bar and ask to speak to the journey manager (she'd been making PAs along the way so I ask for her by name too). I'm told they'll get the person who is in charge of my section of the train.

He turns up after 10 minutes. It seems he's only been aware of the cooling issue in our carriage for the last 15 minutes. I find that hard to believe or they have a major breakdown in process. There are several other annoyed folks from my carriage there too. We give him a chance to go investigate. Eventually he comes back and says it can't be fixed until we get to Perth and they'll make other sleeping arrangements for us.

Two issues. This is now 9 hours after the problem was initially reported and people just want to go to bed. This could have been done long ago. Secondly, the train is broken into sections. Each section has some sleeper carriages a lounge car and a dining car. You can't move to the next section as you'd need to traverse non-public carriages (power, kitchen etc). Therefore, for folks like me who were travelling with other people, we needed to remain in the same section. Those who were solo were moved to a different section.

About five of us landed up in the staff quarters which was one carriage ahead of my original carriage. The room was very similar but not as well maintained. The bed was narrower and no where near as comfortable. We could leave our belongings in the original cabin and move between. It was two hours after going to the bar to raise this issue that I finally got to bed and has a rather poor sleep.

 

[Daver6]

Waking up the next morning around Merriden in the WA wheat belt it was a later brunch and a meander to East Perth station.

My carriage was still warm in the morning but had cooled down a bit. Mainly because the outside air temperature was more reasonable, but still clearly no cooling. Too warm to hang out in, so once again, spent the day in the lounge carriage.

Just before arriving in Perth, we were talking to another German lady who was also in my carriage. She was furious! When they moved us to cooler cabins, they did knock very lightly on her door. However, over the noise of the train she didn't hear it. So she was in the sauna the entire night. I don't blame her for being livid. One of the other passengers also asked about compensation. It become clear quickly that this was above the pay grade of the manager on our section of the train.

Ironically, they must have figured out the problem as it seems our carriage finally started to cool as we got into Perth. Oh the irony!

 

[Daver6]

In the following days I sent a detailed timeline of events of what happened with the cooling in the carriage. Basically my cabin was unusable from leaving Cook until arriving in Perth. Roughly 1/3 of the journey. Therefore I requested a refund of 1/3 of the cost.

I kept in contact with some other passengers from my carriage. I had heard they were offered a refund of $400 or a $600 credit to use with Journey Beyond. This seemed on the low side to me and about 40% of the refund amount I was after.

Someone from Journey Beyond called me and made the same offer. I said I don't think that's reasonable. What really irked me though is he started with excuses like the carriages can get a little warm on the Nullabor etc. I explained that I can live with that, but our carriage was significantly hotter than any others. He basically went on to doubt my version of events.

I requested he put the offer in writing and I'll respond. Unfortunately payment wasn't made by credit card so a partial charge back wasn't an option. The offer in writing failed to materialise but the next day he called back. He said they would also throw in two ferry tickets to Rottnest. I landed up accepting this and the $400 refund. I decided I wasn't going to invest more time in this. I've got the ferry tickets but still waiting for the money.

 

[Daver6]

Despite the carriage issue, I love this journey! I thoroughly enjoyed the train experience. The off train experiences in Broken Hill and Adelaide weren't the strong points of the journey and some of that comes down to the selections we made.

The food on board was of an excellent standard. Free flowing drinks made for an enjoyable experience too. Staff were really friendly and other than the cooling issue, helpful.

I liked the fact that during the day you're on the train rather than just travelling at night. It was great have the option to hang in one's cabin if you wanted solitude of be social in the lounge carriage.

I feel the Sydney to Lithgow section on the train was really quite special too. I'm glad we didn't miss that.

Finally, it's interesting the costs. A single cabin per person cost was about $300 less than the per person cost sharing a double cabin with an ensuite. There are nine double cabins in a carriage, making for 18 pax and 16 single cabins per carriage. So being less expensive was a surprise with a much better bathroom IMHO.

While I didn't see the platinum cabins or carriages, I got the impression that a lot of people who were there had no option because they were old and no way that one of the people would be able to climb a ladder to a top bunk! Talking to someone though, the ensuite sounded much more spacious.

So in short, brilliant trip depsire the cooling and I would love to do it again. Perhaps the reverse direction, but I do think heading west and winding your clock back gives you longer days and easier on the body clock.

Any questions, I'd be happy to answer. Thanks for following along.

 

[Dmac59]

Thanks for the detailed TR with pictures @Daver6
I did The Ghan northbound in 2012, so it was good to get an insight to the Indian Pacific journey.

 

[Daver6]

Thanks for the detailed TR with pictures @Daver6
I did The Ghan northbound in 2012, so it was good to get an insight to the Indian Pacific journey.

@JohnM had done both so I had a pretty good idea of what to expect.

The other things I forgot to mention. The east bound Indian Pacific journey is now four nights instead of three.