The rebirth of luxury train travel has stocked fresh elegance, polish and nostalgia into the most harried part of any journey, getting from boring here to exciting there. It’s been a whistling success.
Today you can ride the Royal Scotsman into the heart of the Highlands, the ever-expanding and incomparable Orient Express across Europe, Rovos Rail to Victoria Falls in Africa, or the sleek Seven Stars line in Kyushu.
It’s all thanks to a growing demographic with cash and time to spare who have once again made a cabin on rails a privileged and competitive position, best booked a year in advance.
But black-tie dinners and arsenals of Champagne that taste of brioche and butter aren’t entirely what made first-class train travel in the gas-lamp past worth resuscitating. Whether you notice it or not through your rosè-colored lenses, the ingredient that gave the golden age of train travel its capital-R Romance is, in our opinion, mostly missing. But this just in: We might have found it … aboard an odd and adventurous old train destined for the middle of nowhere.
All aboard
The northern territorial capital of Darwin is the most Australian part of Australia. Come for beachfront amenities like blazing wet heat, man-eating crocodiles, Biblical flies and citizens that seem somewhat steamed in the cerebellum. It’s a compact community, where a 15-minute drive can take you outside of town. Do just that to reach your station, the Ghan Passenger Terminal: the departure point for luxury rail’s most authentic journey into the bush.
For 97 years, the Ghan has cut an 1,851-mile transcontinental trail between tropical Darwin and the steeples and bluestone suburbs of Adelaide, with stops in places like Katherine, Alice Springs and the wild, subterranean mining town of Coober Pedy over four days. It’s a journey, and name, that pays homage to the Afghan cameleers that crossed the Aussie Outback in the 1930s.
And to this day, it’s still the only coaching stock railway that attempts their storied desert journeys.
Of course, the Ghan is no work-week commuter. It’s a true pleasure flyer operated by Adelaide-based Journey Beyond, with all voluptuous meals and plush intoxicants included, private cars with private bathroom facilities and even sprawling suites.
In April, the line launched its new top tier Aurora Australis Suites designed with award-winning studio Woods Bagot and crafted in South Australia. Like the legendary private cars of yesteryear, they stretch out with private bedrooms, custom beds, generous en suites and ornate interiors. Butler service, a personalized bar and picture windows that frame rarely seen Australian landscapes keep these cabins sold out, starting around $13,350 per person. (At press time, they are sold out until March).
It’s still moving ahead. Next year, the Ghan will debut a new Adelaide-to-Darwin northbound itinerary (which had traditionally been an abbreviated version of the journey) allowing passengers to explore over four days the rugged, fossil-strewn Flinders Ranges, Marla, Alice Springs and Katherine for off-train experiences.
But what’s new about the Ghan is less interesting than what’s old about it, and what’s missing from so many other luxury lines around the world: extraordinary, eclectic and eccentric passengers.
For Australians, Brits and those Americans lucky enough to have some exposure to Australia, the Ghan is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that attracts all sorts. In my bar car, I met a lawyer, well-remunerated Canberra lobbyists and even a San Francisco techie. I also met a farmer, a corrections officer, a mechanical fitter and school teachers.
Yes, it’s a sea of white hair and being in my late 30s, I was one of the youngest passengers aboard; it was my superpower.
A lovely, generous woman cried on my shoulder while remembering her late husband during dinner. A wily old coot regaled me with the story of how she lost her finger while trying to pull a venomous puffer fish from the jaws of her 100-year-old friend’s dog (the resulting $1 million lawsuit against the insurance company went nowhere, sadly).
I watched as those naughty schoolteachers nicked a special spoon during an al fresco dinner at an historic telegraph station to bring to the onsite ye olde blacksmith. He heated and hammered it into a unique Ghan keepsake. We only had to stop once for an ambulance.
More authenticity: It’s not a gentle ride. These rural rails are shared by heavy freight trains that cause unexpected delays and beat up the tracks. The smooth chugga-chugga sway of purely passenger rail is here, in the blazing sun far from cell or internet signals, mutated to a highball herk and jerk. But remember what we said about romance and adventure? This is it.
So your Champagne sloshes? So you need sea legs, and a toddy to fall asleep? Isn’t this how the well-heeled pioneers of train travel did it more than a century ago, surrounded by a voluble company of characters that wouldn’t assemble anywhere else? Take it from us, you’re on the right track.
Visit JourneyBeyondRail.com.au for more info.
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