Journey Beyond

Prior to the 1990s, Australian National was the owner and operator of Australia's interstate railways, freight and passenger trains. From 1996 to 1998, Australian National was broken up and on 1 November 1997 its interstate passenger trains — The Ghan, Indian Pacific and The Overland — were sold to Great Southern Rail (GSR), a consortium of GB Railways, Legal & General, Macquarie Bank, RailAmerica, G13 Pty Ltd[1] and Serco.[2] Included were 186 items of rolling stock, primarily stainless steel carriages and the Adelaide and Alice Springs stations.[3] In October 1999, Serco bought all the shares from its consortium partners, becoming the sole owner of Great Southern Rail.[4][5]

While GSR owns the passenger car fleet, Pacific National provides motive power for the services.

In November 2014, Serco announced its intention to sell the business.[6] In March 2015, it was sold to Allegro Funds[7][8] and a year later sold to Quadrant Private Equity.[9]

In 2019, Great Southern Rail was rebranded as Journey Beyond Rail Expeditions.

While the former two services are profitable, the operation of The Overland continues to be subsidised by the Victorian government,[10] after the South Australian government's announcement of its intention to cease its portion of the subsidy from the end of 2018.[11]

On 30 June 2020, the Victorian State Government announced that it would again subsidise The Overland for three years. On the same day, South Australian premier Steven Marshall announced that South Australia would not be reopening its borders to Victorian (and New South Wales) residents from 20 July 2020 as previously suggested. The Overland is expected to resume operating two days a week each way once the Victoria-South Australia border reopens.

GSR reduced costs by renegotiating staff pay and conditions and increased revenues by extending the Ghan, which originally ran from Adelaide to Alice Springs so that it ran once each week from Sydney and once each week from Melbourne. With the completion of the railway from Alice Springs to Darwin, the Ghan now runs from Adelaide to Darwin.

The Southern Spirit was a luxury cruising train service, launched by Great Southern Rail on 17 June 2008, with the inaugural service running on 25 November 2008.[12] It last ran in February 2012.