This article is written from a personal viewpoint and all statements made are either correct at the time of publication or an expression of opinion.

Journey Beyond – previously Great Southern Railway – have no true commitment to the needs of those with psychological disabilities and conditions. Even with physical disabilities they are ordinary – as they successfully applied for an exemption to the basic disability standards for public rail transport due to (what I consider to be a poor excuse) the age and inflexibility of the current rolling stock. So get some new stock that complies! That’s lazy in my book, and putting the making money ahead of it’s responsibility to it’s customers.

My experience says it all. When they were GSR they had one of the strictest and most inflexible set of rules going in public transport – all designed to protect the company’s hip pocket. This was especially the case in the seated areas. They can get away with it on the Overland because it’s a daylight journey – but the Indian Pacific and the Ghan were another matter entirely. Unless you can sleep sitting up (and I mean sitting up properly), you were in big trouble. And if you claim a medical condition, they are entitled to say “If you want to travel with us, you pay for the class that is best for you”. In other words – if you can’t sleep sitting up you MUST purchase a sleeping berth. Otherwise, they will refuse to carry you.

The rules that flew right into my face was the one about sleeping on the floor. Now in general this is a fair rule because the intent of it is to stop people putting their feet across the aisle – which is dangerous. But I knew through previous experience that as long as I got a certain seat, I could sleep on the floor parallel to the aisle and inhibit no one. Nope – not allowed, and my routine was shot. On that trip I had to pay $99 to upgrade to an economy berth (that was the cheapest the head conductor could go) for the rest of the trip and I had to cancel the return journey in favour of a wretched aeroplane flight which I hated.

And when I complained to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, GSR (as they were then) claimed that I was lying about being able to sleep on the floor without putting my feet across the aisle (and I never got the chance to prove that I was telling the truth). Not only that, they made the claim about “you pay for the class that is best for you”. And guess what? Discrimination on the basis of financial capacity (which is what HREOC said this was) is legal.

It’s frustrating that Journey Beyond provide the only ground based transport service across the Nullabor. It places me under a lot of strain, and my most recent trips to WA have been by air and I hated it. Journey Beyond need a good swift kick up the rear end. They provide a service – a public transport service and not a tourist attraction, and when you are in that business, the customer comes first. If you can’t do that, you shouldn’t be in the industry. Especially when that includes not being flexible for the special needs of passengers. The 2013 cutback in Overland services from three to two is a reflection on this lack of commitment, and they should have lodged a formal complaint against the Australian Rail Track Corporation for the increase in track use charges (their excuse for the cutback). I suspect I wasn’t the only one who complained about the economy seating of the Indian Pacific and The Ghan and instead of adjusting, they just cut the economy section entirely.

Journey Beyond is an enemy to Autistics.

PHIL GLUYAS