Is the Spirit of Queensland one of the best value long-distance train journeys – not just in Australia… anywhere? Within the delightfully quirky 19p-per-mile service (with flatbed pod and entertainment screen included)

Australia is a big country – it stretches about 2,500 miles across and 2,000 miles from top to bottom. Most people there, quite sensibly, take a plane to get from A to B.

Unless they board one of the country’s vast luxury trains, such as the much-loved Ghan through Australia’s ‘Red Centre’ between Adelaide and Darwin, or the Indian Pacific, a lavish journey between Perth in Western Australia and Sydney on the east coast.

There are other long-distance routes, less ‘fancy’ (less expensive). And one of them is the fantastic, extremely cheap Spirit of Queensland between Cairns in the far north of Queensland state and Brisbane, the capital. Even in the most posh moorings it costs just £205 (AUS$403/US$263), which works out at 19p per mile.

This is a 1,045 mile (1,681 km) journey that takes about 25 hours. The flight time between the two interesting cities? Just 2 hours and 25 minutes. But for a train enthusiast (like me), “making time” isn’t the point… it’s all about the ride.

On a sultry morning at Cairns station, I board the silver train and take a seat in one of the two RailBed carriages.

Tom Chesshyre of MailOnline Travel travelled on the Spirit of Queensland sleeper train between Cairns in the far north of Queensland state and Brisbane, the capital. His berth was an innovative RailBed (above) pod, which is equipped with an entertainment screen

Tom’s journey was 1,045 miles (1,681 km), and took around 25 hours. The train expert reveals: ‘You leave Cairns at 9.35am and arrive at 10.20am, if all goes well, the next day’

With no couchettes or private cabins on the Spirit of Queensland, RailBeds – large leather sofas that convert to flat beds at night – are the best option.

You will depart Cairns at 9:35am and arrive at 10:20am, if all goes well, the following day. From Brisbane to Cairns you will depart at 1:45pm and arrive at your destination just over 24 hours later at 2:30pm.

In total there are 35 RailBeds in the two carriages – 16 in carriage B (where I am) and 19 in the adjacent carriage C. The reason for fewer seats in carriage B is that there is a shower room for RailBed passengers only.

The other way to travel is in one of the three economy carriages in addition to a Spirit of Queensland Café carriage. These offer up to 51 much more cramped beds.

My RailBed is opposite Don and Noelene, retired estate agents from Springwood in New South Wales, on holiday with friends sitting in the row behind. They will all soon be my mates.

The Spirit of Queensland offers 35 RailBeds, economy seating and a café car

Tom (left) explains that the RailBeds feel ‘fairly private’. The food on board (right) is ‘reasonable’ but ‘far from gastronomic’

A still from Tom’s fascinating video of the trip

The seats are equipped with a handy reading light, headphones for the entertainment system (featuring Hollywood films, music albums and podcasts about the history of the Cairns-Brisbane line, which first opened in 1924), an inflatable headrest and a Bubbles Organic toiletries bag containing soap, moisturiser and lip balm.

RailBeds have a pod-like feel with curved sides, so even though you’re sharing a space with others, you feel fairly private. That said, you can (like me) hear snoring at night, and sometimes you can hear loud conversations in the next row – not Don and Noelene, I hasten to add – about romances gone tragically wrong and tales of ‘comrades’ getting caught up in horrific crimes.

That’s all part of the experience and actually a lot of fun.

You will be provided with three meals (lunch, dinner and breakfast), plus tea/coffee and biscuits on arrival. As I get to know Don and Noelene, the Spirit of Queensland winds steadily south, passing an unusual triangular hill known as Walshs Pyramid, which pokes through low-hanging cloud.

The café wagon, where, as Tom explains, sandwiches (£2.90) and hot meals (£5 for beef and rice) are available, plus Great Northern Super Crisp lagers (£3.42 a can) and glasses of Australian shiraz/sauvignon blanc (£4.21 for 187ml)

Above is one of the economy compartments on Spirit of Queensland, where the seating is much less spacious. Each economy compartment offers 51 berths

Car B has a shower room, only for RailBed passengers (above)

The landscape alternates between wild jungle-like scrub and vast sugar cane plantations, through which run mini-railways with metal cage-like wagons to transport the sugar cane to the mills. As we drive past, we see large plumes of steam rising from chimneys.

In the café car – which offers sandwiches (£2.90) and hot meals (£5 for beef and rice), plus Great Northern Super Crisp lagers (£3.42 a can) and glasses of Australian shiraz/sauvignon blanc (£4.21 for 187ml) – low, comfy leather chairs are arranged in a zigzag formation by the windows. It’s here that I meet Kerry, the friendly passenger services supervisor.

As the rain begins to fall – unfortunately blocking the view out the window – she tells me that there are 176 passengers on board and that the top speed is 100mph, although it is slower in the sugar cane regions to the north (as the sugar cane lines often cross the mainline railways, making it bumpy). There are five services in each direction per week, with three sets of trains. The crew changes three times per journey.

Are there any Brits riding? ‘Some,’ she says. ‘We’ve had that Michael Portillo on board before.’

We stop at Tully, a remote station with a sign announcing that it is the wettest area in Australia (with a record rainfall of 7.9 metres/25 feet in one incredible year, 1950). There are 29 delightfully sleepy little towns in total and passengers are told over loudspeakers whether they can get out to stretch their legs and for how long, although ‘we cannot accept responsibility for anyone left behind’.

At Tully, a pretty station with hanging baskets of ferns and flowers, driver Alan picks up his lunch – he had phoned ahead for a takeaway. He stops for a chat and tells me about the locomotives used on the narrow gauge (3ft 6in), one at each end of the train. They are ‘diesel hydraulic V12’ locomotives with a total output of 7,200bhp.

Tom reveals he ‘slept like a log’ after his bed was turned down for him

Collisions with animals on the track, including kangaroos, are common. ‘If you hit a cow at 120 km/h [75mph]”Then you know,” he says. “It can make a hole a meter wide. It happened to another driver the other day. He said he was scared to death.”

That is not so strange, but the trains have a well-designed nose, which makes derailments virtually impossible.

The meals on board are decent, but far from gourmet: chicken and rice for lunch (could have done with a bit more seasoning) and roast pork with potatoes and vegetables for dinner (not bad, as far as I’m concerned, although Don and Noelene aren’t too impressed).

I sleep like a log, after the bed is turned down for me – staff does this for all passengers. And in the morning at 6.30 am the light goes on for cooked breakfast and muesli-yoghurt: again fine, nothing special.

The landscape becomes more hilly and then suburbs appear, followed by the gleaming skyscrapers of Brisbane’s CBD (Central Business District).

The first services in the early days of the line were called the Sunshine Express, later the Sunlander, with the world’s first air-conditioned carriages. Those were glamorous days when the great and the good flocked to the line, plus tens of thousands of holidaymakers each year.

That may not be entirely true, but when it comes to value for money and a wonderful adventure, the Spirit of Queensland is hard to beat.

Tom Chesshyre is the author of Slow trains to Istanbul… and back: a 7,340-kilometer adventure with 55 tripswhich was published by Summerdale last month.