Coming home to the Express Passenger Train

Emily Graetz reflects on her beloved train trip home.

I’ve been catching the XPT for years now. Its rickety carriages transport me from Sydney to home and back again for midsemester breaks, Christmas holidays and family birthdays. I’ve become familiar and attached to its journey through inland NSW. It isn’t just a means for me to get home though, but a gentle reminder of the importance of the country communities that I thought I’d left behind when I relocated for university, a reminder to keep returning home.

Countrylink’s Express Passenger Train (XPT)  makes its way from Sydney to Melbourne (or vice versa) twice a day. Whilst the trip is bookended by Australia’s two largest cities, it’s a train for the people of regional NSW and Victoria. Stopping in at Goulburn, Cootamundra, Culcairn, Wangaratta and towns of all sizes in between, it’s an essential service connecting country folks to families, tourism, work, study and home.

Held back by speed restrictions and poor railway infrastructure, my ‘Express’ train from Sydney to Albury takes 8 hours. The 6-hour drive and 1-hour flight pale in comparison to the XPT’s stubborn slowness. Still, it isn’t cheap and the student discount is practically non-existent. But with flights only heading to major regional centres and the drive difficult when travelling on your own (or if you know, you don’t have a car) the train is the only option for many of us.

Despite all of this, the XPT is a thriving service and it has surprised me with its charm and ability to cater to country communities on many occasions. My first trip to Sydney took place leading up to my first year of university. I was seated next to a kind gentleman who, probably suspecting my nerves and the fact that I held back tears for the entire trip, told me about his time having lived and worked in Sydney, reassuring me that I would be okay. Once I was seated next to a person who was travelling home to Young, NSW from the International Superman Convention in the US. It was a 30+ hour trip. I’ve been seated amongst fellow students with their laptops and headphones in hand, pensioners crocheting and kids on school excursions. Though we are all travelling for different reasons and with different stories, the XPT brings us together – for 12 hours or maybe just 1 – momentarily linking us as country people travelling to and fro.

Meanwhile, media reports and country folks themselves worry incessantly about the rural outmigration of young people, that towns that are ‘dying’ and that country areas desperately need more resources. These concerns are genuine, and much of regional and rural Australia is left behind the capital cities. The fact that an old pile of metal parts seemingly blu tacked together is the best option we’ve got is a testament to the need for more regional funding and resources.

But the XPT is also a reminder that country towns aren’t dying and that they are full of bustling communities and people with unique stories and experiences of the world. When I travel on the train I am reminded time and time again of the resourcefulness and beauty of country towns, the tenacity of country folks and my pride in returning home. I am greeted with a classic country smile and a familiar conversation about growing up and living in a regional area. It feels like home.  

Considering I write this as I return for a family event, there’s a good chance I’ve got my country-nostalgia-tinted glasses on. Maybe I’m being too optimistic about the beauty to be found on a train trip. Realistically, the XPT is old, ugly, expensive, slow and impractical. But the people I meet onboard give me so much hope for the future of country towns. They are reminders of community and belonging and even though I won’t ever get to know most of them, they make me feel proud to come from the country.