A Train Trip in Australia

My family live in the country, about 700 kms from Sydney, where I went to university. And when I travelled to and from the North Coast of New South Wales to Sydney, I usually took the train. Most people preferred a tour bus, but I could never understand that. True, the bus was a bit faster than the train, but it was more expensive, and not nearly as comfortable; at least, that's what I thought. I enjoyed the twelve hour train trip. It was at night, and even if I didn't take a sleeper, the seats were OK, but best of all was taht on the train, you could get up and walk around. There was a dining car where you could get a meal or sit over a coffee for a bit, and you could walk up and walk up and down the cars. The tour buses, by comparison, seemed to me to be cramped and and restrictive. You pretty much had to stay in your seat and a tasteless sandwich in a cardboard box just couldn't compete with a nice, fresh cooked meal from teh dining car. My favourite meal was breakfast. I used to have bacon and eggs around 5:00 AM, a couple of hours before the train pulled into the local station near my family home.
ANother advantage that trains have over buses is that they are much safer. Trains occasionally have accidents, but very rarely; buses, on the other hand, are as likely to be involved in accidents as any other traffic. The long train trip can be a bit boring, but that didn't worry me a lot. I could usually sleep for most of the night, and I always had a book with me. SOmetimes I invited a friend back to visit my home, and that always made the journey go much faster.