Journey Beyond

Journey Beyond Rail Expeditions, doing business as Journey Beyond, is an Australian interstate luxury train operator. Founded on 1 November 1997 as Great Southern Rail (GSR), it is currently owned by Quadrant Private Equity which acquired the business in 2016.

History
Prior to the 1990s, Australian National was the owner and operator of Australia's interstate railways, freight and passenger trains. From 1996 through 1998, Australian National was broken up and on 1 Novemner 1997 its interstate passenger trains — The Ghan, Indian Pacific and The Overland — were sold to Great Southern Rail (GSR), a consortium of GB Railways, Legal & General, Macquarie Bank, RailAmerica, G13 Pty Ltd and Serco. Included were 186 items of rolling stock, primarily stainless steel carriages and the Adelaide and Alice Springs stations. In October 1999, Serco bought all the shares from its consortium partners, becoming the sole owner of Great Southern Rail.

While the former two services are profitable, the operation of The Overland continues to be subsidised by the Victorian government, after the South Australian government's announcement of its intention to cease its portion of the subsidy from the end of 2018.

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. It last ran in February 2012.

In November 2014, Serco announced its intention to sell the business. In March 2015, it was sold to Allegro Funds and a year later sold to Quadrant Private Equity.

In 2019, Great Southern Rail was rebranded as Journey Beyond Rail Expeditions.