Tears For The ‘Purple People Seaters’ (Naked City)

The Sydney Morning Herald billed it as a ‘Sad day: End Of The Line for beloved steel rattlers’ as Sydney’s last V-set train made its way from Central, up through the Blue Mountains to Lithgow. The story helped unleash a wave of nostalgia for the tired old intercity carriages with their distinctive purple seats and carpets.

Maybe those who poured out their hearts at the demise of the old purple people seaters hadn’t travelled on them for some time. If so, they would have witnessed the rampant vandalism where just about every window was inscribed with either a tag or set of miscellaneous scratches. They definitely would have held off using one of the rather foreboding on train toilets in favour of something a bit more welcoming elsewhere. And they needed to have eaten their Wheaties to muster the strength to prise open the unforgiving carriage doors, which required to be manually opened – often with considerable force!

Should they have travelled late at night, perhaps all the way to Lithgow, when the number of passengers often dwindled to a dozen or so, they may well have questioned their own security – especially if they were a lone young woman. The late night trains were once popular with ‘sleepers’, homeless people travelling to Lithgow and back in lieu of a bed for the night. Most were harmless and happy to snooze away in one of the purple seats. Occasionally however there was a menacing drunk wandering through the camera free carriages. It was not surprising many late night commuters chose the very last carriage next to the guard’s compartment, with the big red panic button only a few steps away.

The old V-sets were due for the wreckers in 2022 but the South Korean built ‘D-sets’, or Mariyung trains, encountered numerous problems when they were first delivered in December of 2019. There was initially a long drawn out dispute between the State Government and the drivers’ union over safety issues and numerous modifications were needed to existing rail infrastructure. However by 2024, the first of the trains started running on the Central Coast and Newcastle line but additional problems meant another two years before they would service the Blue Mountains.

It’s the same story, applied to numerous governments in NSW, going right back to the days of the notorious red rattlers. There’s been no uniformity in updating and modernising the train network in NSW. We might have a multi-billion dollar Metro but jump on the XPT to Melbourne, Brisbane or to various destinations within NSW and you’ll be travelling in carriages that are often thirty years old, albeit with some minor refurbishments over the decades. Compared to modern day train fleets operating in China, Malaysia, Japan and many European countries we are back in the dark ages.

When the new Mariyung fleet started running to the Blue Mountains some weeks ago, there was the inevitable bunch of pollies out to beat their chests and welcome in the sparkling new carriages. Ironically when the trains arrive at Katoomba station, spilling out hundreds of tourists and commuters every day, the journey takes a turn for the worse. Unlike the million dollar stops on the Sydney Metro, Katoomba Station is desperately in need of a makeover. The toilets are archaic and the waiting room has a distinct lack of seating – especially when it’s crowded in winter. The paint is peeling and it’s hardly a friendly welcome to the Mountains’ various attractions.

No doubt there will be some train buffs keen to preserve some of the old V-Set carriages and who knows what will happen to those thousands of rather comfy purple vinyl seats. A gutted stainless steel carriage could make a unique holiday home provided you were prepared to replace every vandalised window.

Many will remember the Southern Aurora, which once ran nonstop between Sydney and Melbourne from the 1960s through to the early 80s. It was an era when train travel was taken quite seriously and its classy all sleeper accommodation and excellent dining car made the trip a memorable one. These days train travel in NSW is very much a mixed bag with the new (and ultra costly) Sydney Metro certainly a welcome addition. Elsewhere, there’s a lot of updating to do with sad old Katoomba station surely a priority.

In the meantime if State Rail flogs off the old hard wearing purple seats from the V-Sets I’m grabbing a couple for my funky 60s patio!