Bikes on trains between Australian Cities

In the last 6 months of 2023, we have had occasion to try the trains between most of Australia’s capital cities. We haven’t needed to take our bikes on any of these trips, but with each trip the seed has been planted for future bike tours from other cities, and we have observed with interest the ease or otherwise of taking a bike on each train.

Here is a league table of Australia’s intercity trains from the perspective of bike tourers with a penchant for taking it easy.

  1. The Spirit of Queensland: Brisbane to Cairns (and towns in between, 3 days per week)

The railbed carriages on this relatively new tilt train are great. Like first class seats in a plane that turn into comfortable beds at night. No wifi, but phone coverage is pretty good for much of the trip, and each seat has USB ports for charging and a screen with a selection of movies and TV shows to watch. The staff are very attentive and friendly, and the service and food is excellent. Per kilometre, railbed seats cost less than sleepers on NSW trains (see below), but the experience was heaps better.

It was a very comfortable 16-hour journey from Brisbane to Townsville (and return) for us (20 hours to Cairns), so the beds were a welcome part of the trip. Cheaper economy seats are also available on the train. And you can just wheel your bike on to the train (as a fellow we met on Magnetic Island had done from Ayr on his way back to Brisbane). The Spirit of Queensland sits high atop of the league table of Australian inter-city trains.

  1. The Overland: Melbourne to Adelaide (and towns in between, 2 days per week)

Only a day service, so no sleeper option. Premium seats are very spacious and the service and food were great all the way to Adelaide. The economy seats are a bit less spacious without food service. The train is getting old (no wifi, no in-seat charging options, but some power points in the cafe carriage).

We observed a fellow wheeling his bike into the luggage carriage in Spencer Street. All in all a good experience, which we will revisit for future bike tours out of Adelaide.

  1. The Indian Pacific: Sydney to Adelaide to Perth (Once a week)

It’s one of those once (or at most few times) in a lifetime experiences, but it has become more of a ‘cruise’-like experience than a means of transport from one city to another. Just Gold and Platinum class, with the expected excellent service, comfortable sleeper cabins and all-inclusive food and drinks. It seems they have done away with the closer-to-economy red class that was an option a decade ago. It costs a lot of money, amounting to 2-3 times the per-kilometre price of the other trains we’ve tried.

We joined the train at Adelaide, and while we didn’t see any evidence of travellers with bikes, we asked if it was possible to take a bike on the train. The answer was that it was not standard like it is on the Overland, but they would reach out to the Operations team and were sure that they could accommodate such a need. It’s not a trip we’ll be likely to do again, but if we were looking at bike tours out of Perth, we might consider retrying the Indian Pacific with bikes.

  1. NSW TrainLink XPT: Melbourne to Sydney to Brisbane (frequently)

The night trains from Melbourne to Sydney and from Sydney to Brisbane are, in theory, very appealing. Boarding from Melbourne’s Southern Cross at 8 PM and arriving at Central Station in the middle of Sydney around 7 AM after a good night’s sleep is just about ideal. The 2:40 PM departure from Sydney for a 5 AM arrival at Roma Street in Brisbane is a little less appealing at first blush. But, it allowed us to grab a Flexicar on arrival in Brisbane and drive North for an 8 am swim at Tea-tree Beach in Noosa Heads National Park, which was pretty magical.

Unfortunately, the timing of the train services is the best news about these services. The 40-year old trains are definitely showing their age: a single power point in each sleeper cabin that the staff recommend you don’t use to charge devices, and it’s a lottery as to whether it will work at all; also a lottery as to whether the cabin temperature will remain within human tolerance limits; and the food available on the train is, attempting to remain polite, not great. But, as long as you win the lotteries, the sleeper cabins are comfortable enough with a bathroom shared with one other cabin.

The return trip from Brisbane at night requires a bus from Roma Street to Casino before joining the XPT. This is apparently because there is only a single line into Roma Street that the XPT can take and it cannot compete with the metro trains. (This is probably also the reason for the 5 AM arrival into Brisbane). You’d think this is a transport limitation that might be exercising the minds of the NSW and Queensland Rail Services, but we have not heard of any pending solutions.

Sadly, NSW TrainLink could not make it more difficult to transport your bike on their inter-city trains. You have to dismantle and box up your bike, as you would on a plane (even on short regional train journeys in NSW). Their website says that they will accept folding bicycles as checked-in luggage for free, but the memo doesn’t seem to have penetrated throughout the business. Our American friend arrived at Southern Cross Station bound for Sydney with his Brompton packaged up (having brought it without a problem by plane from the US). First he was told he would have to pay $15 to check the Brompton in (an argument that was only won by insisting that the attendant look up the NSW TrainLink website to check the policy). He then directed us to the luggage department where the attendant refused to accept the cased-up Brompton because it didn’t have a handle. After much intransigence, in desperation he asked if he could just take it on board as carry-on. “Sure, no problems” was the reply. So folding bikes - Yes (with some degree of difficulty), and conventional bikes - Yes, but only with (to us, at least) an unacceptable level of difficulty.

The really bad news about the 40-year-old XPT trains is that they are about to be replaced by a new fleet that will not include sleeper cabins. And it would seem that NSW TrainLink’s antipathy toward travel with bikes will continue (failing some community agitation).

New South Wales TrainLink trains sit solidly at the bottom of the league table of Australian inter-city trains. The costs are reasonable: comparable per km to the Spirit of Queensland, but with quality of trains and of service a long way behind. The difficulty of taking bikes on NSW regional trains makes it much more difficult to plan the bike tours we would love to do in NSW, and the pending lack of a sleeper service makes such an eventuality even less likely.