Music Lovers Making Tracks For Tamworth
The Sunday Age
Sunday January 20, 2002
To borrow a line from country music singer Kasey Chambers, it's a case of: ``Clear that track, we're coming on down the line."
Country music fans yesterday packed on to their very own T-train - that's T for Tamworth - to mosey along 1500 kilometres of railway track to attend the country's largest country music gathering.
The train has been specially chartered to allow its passengers to eat and sleep nothing but country music for the next nine days.
One hundred passengers were on the booked-out train when it rolled out of Spencer Street Station yesterday morning. Some of them travelled from Sydney to join it at the start of its journey. Their host is country music writer and Healthy, Wealthy and Wise presenter Jim Brown.
News of the country music train - making its inaugural run this year - has spread as far afield as country music's international capital, Nashville.
``Just as we closed the bookings on this train, we got e-mails from America, from Nashville, asking how to get on the train," Mr Brown said.
Passengers have paid $1800 each for the nine-day round trip, during which performers Ted Egan and Golden Guitar award winner Troy Cassar-Daley will entertain them in the train's concert-wagon. It features a sound system and stage.
In Tamworth, where visitors are hard-pressed to find accommodation, passengers will stay in the train's air-conditioned sleeping cars.
The train is also due to bring country music to some of the rural towns it passes through on its journey.
The 30th annual Tamworth Country Music Festival will include appearances from country music legend Smokey Dawson, now 90, and hit-maker Kasey Chambers among 3000 music events.
© 2002 The Sunday Age
