'All of the carriages have ashtrays in the compartments, and you can't smoke on trains any more, so we had to remove them and we installed a USB charging port in its place,' Mr Clancy said. However, there is one modification that will bring the trains into the 21st century. 'It's taken us a considerable amount of time to get it as accurate as possible.' Mr Clancy estimates $2 million has been spent on the restoration, which has involved sourcing original materials like floors and wallpapers from the 1960s for the interior, as well as a complete mechanical overhaul. 'The vintage nature of the carriages were appropriate for a railway museum, but for a commercial operation, many of the components of the carriage had to be upgraded,' he said. He said the restoration work, carried out in Lithgow, had been a significant challenge. Canberra resident Rodney Clancy has been one of the people behind the project and is the director of G'Day Rail, the company operating the future train trips.

Once completed, the restored carriages will be used for multi-day trips from Sydney from later this year, journeying to locations such as the Blue Mountains and Wollongong. Work has been under way since November to painstakingly restore all the carriages to replicate their original 1960s grandeur. Seven carriages of the former sleeper train were purchased at an auction last year of former exhibits of the railway museum, following its liquidation. After spending many years as an exhibition at the former Canberra Railway Museum, a team of railway enthusiasts has helped to restore carriages of the Southern Aurora to their former glory, as the train gets ready to ride the rails once more. They used to be a regular sight on railway tracks between Sydney and Melbourne more than 50 years ago.

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