- published: 11 Jun 2011
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CountryLink is the operator of passenger rail services in country New South Wales, Australia and into Queensland and Victoria. It is an operating brand of the Rail Corporation New South Wales, a government-owned entity. CountryLink operates rail services using two types of rollingstock - the XPT and the Xplorer, and contracts out connecting bus services to private operators.
CountryLink was formed as a business unit of the State Rail Authority in 1989 to operate all non-metropolitan long distance passenger services. It inherited a fleet of XPT and locomotive hauled passenger trains. This was following the election of the Greiner State Government in 1988 and the publication of the Booz- Allen Hamilton report into NSW rail services. This report recommended closing all country passenger services as they were considered economically unviable, however this was politically not feasible.
The report's fall-back position was that NSW move to an all XPT fleet, a move which was initially implemented but never fully introduced. Many locomotive hauled long distance trains, such as the Brisbane Limited and the Pacific Coast MotoRail were withdrawn and replaced by XPT services at about this time. In 1993, CountryLink introduced its first and only new passenger stock- the Xplorer railcar, to replace the Northern Tablelands XPT to Tamworth and locomotive hauled services to Canberra. In 1996, political pressure forced the government to reintroduce passenger services to Griffith, initially as a weekly locomotive hauled service and later a weekly Xplorer service. A weekly service to Broken Hill was also reintroduced at about the same time.