Railways and Tramways of Australia

Luxury travel

 

The first Pullman sleeping and dining cars entered service on the Melbourne Express on 21 May 1928.

 

Two sleeping cars and one dining car were ordered from the Pullman Car & Manufacturing Company in Chicago, leaders in the manufacture of luxury carriages. The sleeping cars, named Mount Lofty and Macedon, were jointly owned by South Australian Railways and Victorian Railways. The dining car, Adelaide, was owned solely by South Australian Railways. Each car came with a price tag of over £19,000, a considerable sum of money in 1928.

 

Being built from steel and having considerable weight gave them a high level of safety. The sleeping cars weighed 75.6 tons (76.8 tonnes) and the dining car 76.4 tons (77.6 tonnes), making them the heaviest passenger carriages to operate in Australia.

 

The sleeping cars had ten two-berth compartments with a wardrobe and wash basin. Toilets and linen were available at the end of the corridor. A conductor’s compartment had tea and coffee making facilities.

 

Mount Lofty and Adelaide made their first runs in regular service on the Melbourne Express departing from Adelaide. While the sleeping cars travelled the full journey between Adelaide and Melbourne, dining car Adelaide typically only operated between Adelaide and the border station of Serviceton.

 

The Pullman cars were discontinued in 1930 then reinstated in 1935. They were later discontinued again, the dining car in 1938 and the sleeping cars in 1940.

 

All three of the 1928 Pullman cars are preserved. Adelaide can be seen at the National Railway Museum in Port Adelaide; Macedon is preserved by the Victorian Goldfields Railway, although it has been considerably modified from its original condition; and Mount Lofty is stored at Tailem Bend.

 

Although their tenure was brief, the Pullman cars provided a high level of luxury in their era.

 

Bibliography

C Banger, ‘Pullman sleeping cars’, Newsrail, vol. 35, no. 7, July 2007, pp 204–8, 210–11.

C Drymalik, ‘Commonwealth, Australian National and South Australian Railways rollingstock volume 2: carriage information’, Chris’s Commonwealth Railways Information (ComRails), www.comrails.com/print/ComrailsVolume2.pdf, accessed 17 May 2026.

Parliament of Victoria, Report of the Victorian Railways Commissioner for the year ended 30th June 1928, Government Printer, Melbourne, 1928.

J Wilson, The Overland: a social history, SAR Lines Railway Books, Adelaide, 2020.