long distance trains being replaced by coaches?

[KS]

I have a trip booked to cairns on the tilt train on the 21/2 (got a $99 sale fare) but due to QR estimates the line to cairns will not reopen until the end of the month (and possibly longer for passenger traffic).

The likely situation is that there will be a train to Townsville and a connecting coach transfer to cairns (and other stations).

A simple question is what are the coaches like, It could be 7+ hours on it so how comfortable is it and do they have toilets, etc?

Has anyone been on one before?

[mufreight]

When there is a coach subsutition for a rail service where possible the coaches used are 5 star rated tour coaches, air conditioned, reclining seats and toilet equiped, no buffet or lounge and less leg room than on a train but they are a reasonable alternative to fill the gap and it is possible that the line might reopen for passenger traffic before your trip anyway, they are no slouches at restoring traffic up there and there is no reason to doubt that they will have the line up and running again in short order.

[Golliwog]

I don't know how they operate here, but when I was in the UK I ended up on a coach from Edinburgh to London (the ticket was cheap as part of a package deal, otherwise I would have caught the train) There was a bathroom on board and the seats were fairly confortable. They also had scheduled stops for meals and to stretch your legs along the way.

[KS]

We got a coach from Townsville to Cairns but it wasn't as good as I expected, it looked very old  and the aircon didn't work that well and the seats were quite small, hopefully it was just due to a lack of supply of good coaches and it isn't the same for all QR replacement services on long distance routes, It wasn't bad but it was quite uncomfortable for a 5 hour trip. The tour companies in Cairns used very nice coaches with really comfy seats and working aircon on all services even 10 minute transfers.