By The Bug‘s consumer rights writer Kav E. Atemptor

A young married couple from Perth are considering legal action over “deliberately misleading” information that led them to believe that a recent trip on the Indian Pacific train would be full of passengers much their own age.

“Our solicitors think we have a solid case,” Archie Jones, 24, of East Armidale, said on behalf of his wife of two years, Tifanie, also 24. “They think we might have been deliberately misled.

“A grand aunt of mine had been on the train some time ago and she gave me the journey companion booklet for her gold-cabin service to have a look at,” Archie explained.

“As you can see from the pictures in the brochure (shown above) the people behind the Indian Pacific clearly wanted to create the impression that the explorer lounge and dining car would be packed with people our own age.

“Look at the eleven passengers shown in those two photos – they’d all be well under 30!”

“Admittedly, there was one photo (at right) showing slightly older people but there’s still not a silver hair among them!”

Tifanie explained that she and her husband had taken the Perth to Sydney service in early August “as a special treat as we’re considering starting a family soon and it would have been great talking to people of much our own age so we could discuss things like that… and of course other things of interest for our age group”.

“We didn’t expect to be sharing meals in the club car and Queen Adelaide restaurant with people who wanted to talk about their grand and great grand children!”

“I’m not saying those two carriages reminded me of God’s waiting room at an old people’s home but sometimes it came close.”

Archie added: “Don’t get me wrong. There were some lovely old folk we dined with. One lady, Carol, was very nice but her husband Don sat there complaining how boring the Nullarbor was and whingeing as to why we weren’t seeing any wedgetail eagles.

“He get babbling on about how he used to be a journalist. We know no one of our age who sees any future at all in that dying profession so that was of no interest to us at all.

“By the second day, we dreaded seeing the silly overweight bugger limping up the passageway – he was too vain to use the walking frame he clearly needed – and dreading the possibility that he was headed for our table.”

Tifanie added: “And he coughed a lot and kept apologising for that while trying to reassure us he didn’t have Covid. That didn’t bother me anywhere near as much as the fact he wore the same shirt and tracksuit daks the whole four days!

“He was pretty old but it’s still sad to see someone let themselves go like that.”

As this story was being prepared for uploading, the operators of the Indian Pacific had not responded to questions we hadn’t bothered putting to them.