The Sunshine Route - Daylight Rail Tours between Brisbane and Cairns

This delightful retro 1960's Queensland Rail advertising poster illustrates ‘The Sunlander’. Young parents with two children ‘riding a magic carpet’, with a map of the east coast of Queensland as the background.

The Sunlander operated between 1953 and December 2014 by Queensland Rail before it was replaced by the ‘Spirit of Queensland’. 'Sunshine Route' was a long-distance service that travelled the North Coast line between Brisbane and Cairns, it took over 35 years to complete and stretched over 1,600 kilometres.

The route follows the North Coast line from Brisbane in the sub-tropical region of South East Queensland through to the tropical north region. The train travels the coastal strip between the beaches and the Great Dividing Range passing diverse country including the Glasshouse Mountains, the sugar cane country of North Queensland and the tropics beyond Townsville.