Sunshine Coast Services Upgraded

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From Sunshine Coast News by Toby Walker
Sunshine Coast Daily here

QUEENSLAND Rail has said it will look at easing overcrowding on a popular Sunshine Coast train as early as next month.
Earlier this week, commuters on the 3.57pm Brisbane to Nambour train called for a long-overdue improvement to their rail service.
A QR spokesman yesterday confirmed that a proposal to upgrade the 3.57pm from three cars to six cars, from June 18, was being considered to provide more seats for Sunshine Coast commuters.
The Sunshine Coast Commuters Association, a group that has campaigned for upgrades to the north coast line since the early 1990s, suggested the overcrowding could be fixed by omitting outer-Brisbane stops at Northgate and Petrie, but QR insisted stops at those stations needed to be retained.

QR also announced two existing all-stops morning services, the 4.40am and 5.26am from Nambour to Brisbane, would be converted to express services from Caboolture to Central Brisbane, stopping only at Petrie and Northgate.
A SCCA spokesman welcomed QR's announcements but insisted Sunshine Coast rail users would not get a fair go until the Coast was treated as a regional destination rather than just the end of greater Brisbane s suburban line.
"For more than 30 years, Sunshine Coast commuters have asked that all services transit express across the Brisbane suburban area," he said.
"This is standard in the rest of the world for inter-urban or inter-regional passenger railways.
"Of QR's three inter-urban sections, only the Gold Coast conforms to this model, while the others, Ipswich to Rose8wood and Caboolture to Nambour, have yet to be treated as equally.
"Petrie and Northgate are suburban Brisbane stations and are irrelevant to the Sunshine Coast.
"It is an exceptionally ludicrous justification by QR Citytrain to claim that because they are popular stations, Sunshine Coast trains should stop for passengers whose only interest is to get to and from the city."