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  1. J

    JR’s Occasional Worldwide Wanders

    Brisbane to Sydney This was an absolutely epic day upon one of NSW Trainlink’s XPT units. The day started with an extremely early start - a most uncivilised 3.45am alarm call gave me time to drink a couple of cups of coffee before leaving the hotel at 4.20. The reason for the train’s early...
  2. J

    JR’s Occasional Worldwide Wanders

    Just the one photo from yesterday worth uploading - the Gold Coast train.
  3. J

    JR’s Occasional Worldwide Wanders

    Brisbane With a temperature 56C warmer than my final night in Hokkaido, my “gap quarter-year” finds me starting in Queensland this week, making my way from Brisbane to Melbourne over land. I’d cheated to get here - flying to Melbourne from Hong Kong via Singapore on points courtesy of Singapore...
  4. J

    JR’s Occasional Worldwide Wanders

    Day 6 & Round-up My final day consisted of nothing more than an early Airport train to Sapporo’s New Chitose Airport - the airport being about 30 miles to the south of Sapporo. My rail pass had expired, so I needed to buy a ticket, which was fairly steep at JPY1,970 (GBP12.00). It was snowing...
  5. J

    JR’s Occasional Worldwide Wanders

    Thanks for the response - if I ever get a chance to do it, I’m thinking I might pick one of the other smaller islands for a week to do something similar.
  6. J

    JR’s Occasional Worldwide Wanders

    Day 5 - Hakodate to Sapporo I woke up surprisingly early on the Friday in Hakodate, down in Hokkaido’s south western corner, and since I was awake a plan formed in my head to get an extra route in - Hokkaido’s only non-JR main railway route. The rest of Japan has quite a few private railways. I...
  7. J

    JR’s Occasional Worldwide Wanders

    The circular building is the historic “signal box” for the tramway junction in Hakodate.
  8. J

    JR’s Occasional Worldwide Wanders

    Day 4. Day 4 was a bit of a trainfest - Google Maps tells me that it Kushiro (where I started the day) is 335 miles and over seven hours drive away by car. I started the day on the 0819 Super Ozura Express from Kushiro - a six car set similar to the one I took yesterday. There seems to be a...
  9. J

    JR’s Occasional Worldwide Wanders

    Day 3 I love a good geographical extremity, and my main aim on Day 3 was to get to Japan’s most easterly rail station. I would have liked to have gone out to Cape Nosappu, the most easterly point in Japan, but it was still umpteen kilometres off the railway, it is freezing cold, and I don’t...
  10. J

    JR’s Occasional Worldwide Wanders

    Trying to attach them as thumbnails this time!
  11. J

    JR’s Occasional Worldwide Wanders

    Hokkaido Mid January, and I find myself picking the most inopportune part of the year to take a trip to the frozen north of Japan. Several years ago, during the height of the protests in my current home of Hong Kong, I’d made a spur of the moment decision following travel disruption to fly...
  12. J

    Britrail trip - first class loadings - now with trip report

    As a long term IoM resident, I’d often wondered a Britrail Pass was possible but in the days when the only option was risking someone in a booking office saying no, I was never brave enough to plan it!!
  13. J

    First Class on The Underground

    Hong Kong’s East Rail Line also retains a first class carriage, including the new trains introduced earlier this decade. It’s basically the difference between a metro-style interior with metal seats and a more traditional regional carriage layout. The full run up to the border isn’t much short...
  14. J

    Isle of Man Heritage Railway consultation

    As a former long term resident of the island, I’m hugely pleased to see the positive response from this report - it’s quite unusual for the island, where the lack of any system of political parties means issues such as the value of rail infrastructure is continually revisited by an unfocused...
  15. J

    JR’s Occasional Worldwide Wanders

    Shortly before Christmas, my partner and I found some cheap flights to the city of Taichung in Taiwan. Taiwan is a fascinating place both as a place to visit and from a railway perspective. I was enormously surprised when I just googled to discover it’s about 1.75 times the size of Wales -...
  16. J

    V/Line Melbourne Loco Hauled: Remaining Services

    Thanks very much for your detailed response - much appreciated, thanks! This trip includes a long weekend in Apollo Bay with friends, and the XPT journey down from Sydney, and I’ve been up to Bendigo and Kyneton couple of times previously, so I’ll take a look through the other options you’ve...

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