 | |
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Service type | Tourist train |
| Status | Ceased |
| First service | April 1999 |
| Last service | June 2003 |
| Former operator(s) | Queensland Rail Venice-Simplon Orient Express |
| Technical | |
| Track gauge | 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in) 1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) standard gauge |
The Great South Pacific Express was a luxury Australian train service, run in by Queensland Rail and Venice-Simplon Orient Express.
In December 1996, Queensland Rail announced it would enter a joint venture with Venice-Simplon Orient Express to operate a luxury tourist train between Kuranda (near Cairns) and Sydney. [1] It commenced operating in April 1999. [2] The train accommodated 100 passengers in up to 21 carriages, at a cost of $3,500 to $5,500 depending on type of accommodation. [3] The train also made occasional excursions to Canberra, the Blue Mountains and the Hunter Region.
The service ceased in June 2003, having run up losses of around $12 million over four years. [4] [5]
After the demise of the service the carriages were sold to Orient-Express Hotels for an undisclosed price in 2005, for use on their trains overseas. [4] 20 of the carriages remained in storage at the North Ipswich Railway Workshops, with Queensland Rail stating an Orient Express holding company owned them, while an Orient Express Hotels manager in London said they were still owned by Queensland Rail. [6]
In 2013, the Queensland Government approached the Venice-Simplon Orient Express for permission to operate the remaining carriages on tours in Queensland. [7]
In February 2016, the carriages were moved from the Workshops Rail Museum at Ipswich to the Port of Brisbane for shipment to Peru where they will be used by the Orient Express Hotels' successor, Belmond, and its partly-owned railroad company PeruRail. [8] The train entered service in May 2017 as Belmond Andean Explorer, carrying passengers from Cusco to Puno (at the Lake Titicaca) and to Arequipa. [9]
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The 21 carriages were built at the Queensland Rail workshops in Townsville for $35 million. They were built to operate on both the narrow 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in) gauge in Queensland and 1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) standard gauge in New South Wales with the train undergoing a bogie exchange en route at Acacia Ridge.
The train consisted of sleeping cars in three different comfort levels (Pullman, State and Commissioner Suites), two dining cars, two bar cars (one of them with an open-air observation deck), a power car and staff sleepers. The entire train layout was designed similar to the Eastern and Oriental Express, but with a different interior style.
The Orient Express was a long-distance passenger train service created in 1883 by the Belgian company Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (CIWL) that operated until 2009. The train traveled the length of continental Europe and into western Asia, with terminal stations in Paris and London in the northwest and Athens or Istanbul in the southeast.
Queensland Rail (QR) is a railway operator in Queensland, Australia. Owned by the Queensland Government, it operates local and long-distance passenger services, as well as owning and maintaining approximately 6,600 kilometres of track and related infrastructure.
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The Venice Simplon-Orient-Express (VSOE) is a private luxury train service from London to Venice and other European cities. It is currently owned by Belmond, which operates 45 luxury hotels, restaurants, tourist trains and river cruises in 24 countries. It was agreed in December 2018 for the service to be acquired by LVMH in a transaction initially expected to close in the first half of 2019.
A railtour is a special train which is run in order to allow people to experience rail travel which is not available using timetabled passenger services. The 'unusual' aspect may be the route of the train, the destination, the occasion, specific sections of railway track, the locomotive hauling the train, the rolling stock, or any combination of these. Organisers may own or hire locomotives or rolling stock, or tours may be organised by railway management or other bodies outside the railway fraternity. Perhaps the most famous railtour in England was the Fifteen Guinea Special, the last steam hauled main line train run by British Rail. Railtours are often identifiable through the use of a train headboard, often identifying the name of the specific tour or the tour operator. On TOPS, railtours are always given a 1Zxx headcode.
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Belmond Ltd. is a hospitality and leisure company that operates luxury hotels, train services and river cruises worldwide. In 2015, the company had 35 deluxe hotels, 7 tourist trains, 3 river cruises and restaurants in 22 countries.
Luxury trains are designed to offer a very comfortable ride and evoke an association with history and heritage. Operating in several countries, they are a premium travel option. Although some luxury trains promote tourism in destinations across a continent, others take passengers on a long, leisurely ride through a single country.
Belmond British Pullman is a private luxury train that operates day and weekend journeys around Britain and also conveys passengers of the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express (VSOE) between London and Folkestone, as part of their journey to Venice and other European cities.
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Lorenzo Sousa Debarbieri is a businessman and author from Lima, who oversees large privately held tourism and railway companies in Peru.
Belmond Andean Explorer, launched in May 2017, is South America's first luxury sleeper train. It replaces the eponymous Pullman day train, between Cusco and Puno, at Lake Titicaca. By the new train this trip is converted to a one-night journey, and extended from Puno for another overnight ride to Arequipa.