I’n on my way!
Surprisingly, the train left on time- praise the Jeebus!- and I’m on my way down to the ‘Bool by Vline- a train similar to the one in the picture above!
What is noticable- and to be fair it’s been a while since I’ve done a long distance train trip pretty much anywhere!- is that with the declassification of First Class on the loco hauled services, how much fuller the carriage is. Now maybe I’m just imagining it, but in the past the first class carriage wasn’t too bad; it was a small haven to avoid the bogans and from the looks of some of the passengers on the platform at Southern Cross there’s a quite a few bogans on this service! Now to be fair this carriage is mostly bogan free- mostly old people and one or two “unique: characters”, but it’s proper full. At this stage I have my little two seat bay to myself and I’m hoping it stays that way!
The “buffett” opens after our departure from Geelong- I’m writing this between Tarneit and Wyndham Vale but before rejoining thet main line through to Geelong- so hopefully I can the meat pie combo- for a public transport service the meat pie is very yummy even if they charge for condiments! Talk about irony considering I’ve done the XPT MElbourne<> Sydney a few times and they’re catered for by Gate Gourmet!
Read into that what you will!