Indian Pacific car transport

Thank you, been a bad day!

Should be car transport.

O.K. - I see the confusion problem. They state they will take campers and camper trailers on Motorail.
I was under the impression the T Van would classed as a caravan - although the manufacturer calls it a camper trailer.

Regardless, there's one simple reason GSR would decline to carry the T Van.
The specifications for the T Van state an unladen height of 2050mm.

The maximum height allowance for Adelaide-Perth on the IP is 1940mm.

Thanks Ron for your info.

My 200 would also not fit as it has a 50mm lift, let alone the roof rack.

The T Van came down from Brisbane on the top level of the car carry truck with no problems, so looks like it may go by truck to Perth as they have no problem carrying the 200 or the T Van together.

kind regards

Both answers are correct, I took the Jeep Commander on the train.
The height relates to the underpasses and bridge clearances.
But with regard the speed, I woke up in the middle of the night on the nullabor section. The first thing that struck me was the speed we were doing, I thought $hit we are in the air as much as on the rail, we were really barreling and swaying along.
When morning came, we were meandering along at normal speed again.

pling - google automove.com.au, movingcars.com.au, and freightseek.com.au.

Give all your details about the preferred move date, the load, the dimensions, and anything else of relevance.

These people will all come back to you rapidly with quotes from interested carriers.

The 200 and T Van is going to be a problem even to road-based car transporters. This is due to the dimensions. Most car transporter trailers are pretty tight on dimension allowances.
You will most likely get an offer to transport on a flat deck, or on a cradle mounted on a flat deck above other flat freight.
In this case, they forklift the car and van up onto the cradle.

Be aware that most car carriers carry no insurance for vehicles carried - so clarify this point and get transit insurance from a broker who deals in that type of business if you do send your 'Cruiser and van by road.

Be aware also, that road freight from Adelaide to Perth is full price - there's no specials or backload prices, because all the trucks heading West are full.
If you send a vehicle Perth-Adelaide you can usually get a good backload deal.
Good luck,

Cheers, Ron.

O.K. - I see you posted while I had the page open and I missed your comment about the 'Cruiser and van being O.K. on the top deck of car transporters. That's good, the transporters must be getting more flexible.

Another company that gave me a good quote recently on vehicle transport East to West, was ACR Australia Transport.

You can see the 4WDs on the top level. The front one's windscreen get tons of unburnt diesel on it if the carrier is up the front like ours was for the Darwin trip. You can see the camper near the front. As long as the overall dimensions are withing clearances then you shouldn't have a problem. Don't forget to do the Kalgoolie tour.

I hope this info is not too l;ate. I have been in and out of hospital ever since I got home from the CSR drive.

Freshstart - The West-bound IP Kalgoorlie Tour is under threat.
A timetable change from April 2015 will see the West-bound IP service go through Kalgoorlie without stopping, so the Tour will be no longer possible.

This change is causing some angst amongst Kalgoorlie tour operators and there's pressure being brought to bear to try and change GSR's decision.
However, I think they might be whistling in the wind.

West-bound Indian Pacific to cease Kalgoorlie stops from April 2015

Funny how you can sit in Port Augusta for hours and not see a single freight train on the Perth line. Hmmmm

Catchya

Maximum height and width restrictions are different for Darwin to Adelaide, Adelaide to Perth, Adelaide to Sydney. They wouldn't carry our Colorado from Sydney to Adelaide but were quite happy from Adelaide to Perth. Also trip down on Ghan from Darwin to Adelaide with offload at Alice for week touring in centre was quite OK
Regards
Ian

Thank you all for the advice, but they have rejected carrying both car and camper.

We can travel by truck, just we miss out on the train trip. (take that off the bucket list)

Hope we meet on the road or a nice camp site one day.

Safe travel.

kind regards

I'm not 100% sure if it's true, but I have heard that the restrictions on the train leaving Sydney is because of the tunnels that the trains need to go through when crossing the Blue Mountains. Obviously not an issue once you get passed Lithgow.

I am told there is one tunnel going into Perth.

Hey Pling. Try again as I said. Get the measurements and call.

If camper trailers are allowed then all they have to be is within the measurements. If you don't try again you will never know.

Our trip was a Vietnam reunion and we basically had the train booked out. But I do not believe that Vietnam had anything to do with it.

Nope - No tunnels at all between Adelaide and East Perth station, where the IP terminates.
There is a very deep cutting through the Avon Valley just East of Perth, but there's no dimensions restrictions through the cutting.

Where the height restrictions come into play, is with the several road overpasses once into the Perth metro area.

These overpasses are quite old, dating back to the late 1800's and they have never been lifted or widened.

There were three main restriction points - the Meltham overpass, the 7th Avenue bridge at Maylands, and the 2nd Avenue overpass at Mt Lawley.
The ancient 7th Avenue bridge has just been demolished and is being replaced with a new structure.
Even though the new 7th Avenue bridge will have increased rail line clearance, the Meltham overpass and the 2nd Avenue overpass will still remain, and provide the choke point for the stated height
restrictions.

If GSR could drop the vehicle-carrying railcars in say, Midland, at the terminus of the metro services, then they could carry substantially increased height of vehicles - because the only other road overpasses between Adelaide and Perth, are ones that have been built in recent decades - and they all provide generous clearance to the railcars.

However, the problem is, of course, that the IP terminates at East Perth, and if the vehicles were dropped off in Midland, this would create extra shunting work, and the passengers would have to be bussed the 18 kms back to the vehicles in Midland.

Not quite true Ron.... there is one but it hasnt been used for a very looong time its at the western end of John Forrest NP ... :)

getoutmore - Yep, been a long time since the Swan View tunnel has seen a train ... or even any rail lines!
We used to play in it when I first started going to high school in the early 1960's!
Not a lot of people know it was the site of W.A.'s second-worst train wreck, during WW2 when the driver was asphyxiated, and the extremely-heavily-loaded train ran back down the grade, and derailed in a huge pileup at the foot of the Darling Range.
We used to still find pieces of wreckage from the pileup in the 1960's.

W.A's worst train disaster was the Morning Mills (SE of Wokalup) Millars timber train wreck on a Saturday night, 6 November, 1920, when a fully laden timber train ran away down the escarpment to the mill, and wrecked in a massive pileup at the bottom of the hill.

The train was carrying 4000 sleepers and had a total weight of 600 tons.
There were a number of millhands riding the train down to the mill to go home, thus the death toll was increased a lot more than it would have been.
The engine driver didn't even know millhands were riding on the train.

The fireman and guard were killed but the engine driver survived despite major injuries.
The father of the fireman and another jumped off as the train gained speed, and the father claimed he yelled to the others to jump - but they either didn't hear him over the noise, or they thought it was better to ride her out.

The total death toll came to 9 men, although it was initially thought 11 had been killed.
One lucky millhand told how he tried to jump on the train as it left, but he missed it, it was moving too fast.

The loco was running tender first down the hill and it's possible this assisted in the derailment.
However, the primary blame was placed on inadequate braking at the top of the hill.
Normally all the rail waggon hand brakes were screwed down at the top of the hill to slow the train down, as it went down the hill.
It was reported later, during the inquiry, that only 6 of rail waggons brakes were found screwed down, out of the 51 waggons in the train.
The engine driver stated he signalled with the train horn to the guard to apply the brakes as he approached the edge of the escarpment, but it appears the guard did not get enough brakes screwed down in time.

There were only 3 waggons in the consist that were fitted with vacuum brakes, and the engine driver regarded them as next to useless anyway, because of vacuum losses over the length of the train.
The surprising finding of the coronial inquest was that the coroner found there were no regulations in place for running the train (as it was a private wood line belonging to Millars) - and recommendations were put forward that regulations for running the trains, be put in place!

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/tag?name=Wokalup

That should be "Mornington Mills". Darn the lack of editing on here.

Here's two pages of photos from the "Western Mail" of 11th November 1920, showing the carnage from the Mornington Mills train disaster.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/page/3508512?zoomLevel=3

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/37472989

1. its heaps cheaper for vehicles on train heading East - check their prices
2. they have limited spaces - I wanted to travel Perth to Adelaide in '12 & needed top deck (Patrol & Jayco Swan) they couldn't fit me in till 6 weeks after my dates, & I was booking 4 months prior.
3. I drove - family flew - I enjoyed it ;)

It's harder for sedans and family cars. We had to book 6 months ahead.