[tz] Indian Pacific Train times (not: Another change on Brazilian DST time)

Robert Elz kre at munnari.OZ.AU
Thu Oct 18 09:09:10 UTC 2018


    Date:        Tue, 16 Oct 2018 21:07:02 -0600
    From:        Brian Inglis <Brian.Inglis at SystematicSw.ab.ca>
    Message-ID:  <adca7468-38e6-6744-6069-45a3a1b09fc6 at SystematicSw.ab.ca>

  | On 2018-10-15 08:49, Paul Eggert wrote:
  | > On 10/15/18 4:59 AM, Clive D.W. Feather wrote:
  | >> Should we have a zone for these trains?
  |
  | They should have switched after Kalgoorlie, maybe about Caiguna, to Eucla
  | +8/9:45 zone, before the state border, and stayed on that zone till maybe about
  | Cook, or somewhere else short of Adelaide.

I don't know where you think the train runs, but it is nowhere particularly
close to either Caiguna (at that approx longitude it is close to Rawlinna,
a hundred km or so north) or the Eucla timezone enclave (which is quite
small, and on the coast - somewhere the Indian Pacific nears only in
Sydney and Perth (Port Augusta is too far inland to really be counted,
but you can add that as a third occasion if you like).

I've travelled on it a few times (though once is really enough ... there is 
just so much of looking out windows at vast expanses of scrub land that
one can take in a lifetime ... though it is certainly worth doing that once)
and didn't recall it going near Eucla, so I checked ...   (I have only ever
used the Indian Pacific between Port Augusta and Perth though, as the
eastern end of my trips was Melbourne, not Sydney, so a train change
was needed.)

What times are used depends more on where the train will be in the
middle of the day, and changes in the middle of the night, as (just like
everyone else) having a situation where the train reached the "logical"
place to switch zones just as the 12:00 lunch sitting are about to be seated,
only for them to be told, "sorry your mealtime is over the next sitting is starting
- we just changed time zones and it is 13:00 now) (assuming a Perth->Sydney
train) would not go down too well.   (Nor would people going the other way
being asked to come back and repeat their meal as 12:00 is happening again!)

kre

ps: for those inspired to book an Indian Pacific trip (at least those of you
not from the middle east or north Africa) you should do it in late Jan or
early Feb ... there is something about experiencing 50 degrees (C) (and
more ... measured in the sun, there is nothiing to make shade ... except
the train) that just needs to be experienced, and doing that by alighting
from the train at one of its middle of the day stops, briefly, and knowing
that you can return to the aircon any time you like, that jmakes this trip
the way to do it.  The humidity tends to be near 0, so it is actually quite
bearable ... of course, I like hot weather, and detest cold (anything < 20C).




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