Great Southern Rail (Australia)
| File:Great Southern Rail (Aust) logo.svg | |
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| Industry | Railway operator |
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| Founded | 1 November 1997 |
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Key people
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Chris Tallent, CEO (January 2012 - ) |
| Parent | Allegro Funds |
| Website | www.greatsouthernrail.com.au |
Great Southern Rail (GSR) is an interstate passenger train operator in Australia. Formed on November 1, 1997, it is a subsidiary of Allegro Funds.
History
As part of the privatisation of Australian National, on 1 November 1997, The Ghan, Indian Pacific and The Overland were sold to Great Southern Rail, 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.[4][5]
While the former two services are profitable, the operation of The Overland is subsidised by the Victorian and South Australian governments.[6]
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 completion of the railway from Alice Springs to Darwin, the Ghan now runs from Adelaide to Darwin. While GSR owns the passenger car fleet, Pacific National provides motive power for the services.
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.[7] It last ran in February 2012.
In November 2014, Serco announced its intention to sell the business.[8] In March 2015, it was sold to Allegro Funds.[9][10]
References
- ↑ G13 Pty Ltd
- ↑ Great Southern Railway Consortium completes acquisition of Australian National Railways Passenger Business Serco 31 October 1997
- ↑ "Goodbye AN Passenger, Hello Great Southern Railway" Railway Digest December 1997 page 7
- ↑ About Us Great Southern Rail
- ↑ "Serco Takes Full Control of GSR" Railway Digest January 2000 page 7
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Update on Serco's Strategy Review Serco 10 November 2014
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Great Southern Rail to be bought by Allegro in high-end tourism push ABC News 30 March 2015
- Use dmy dates from November 2012
- Use Australian English from January 2012
- All Wikipedia articles written in Australian English
- Pages with broken file links
- Pages using infobox company with unsupported parameters
- Interstate rail in Australia
- Railway companies of Australia
- Trans-Australian Railway
- Railway companies established in 1997
- 1997 establishments in Australia
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