Why does a 33-carriage train carrying about 200 passengers have such small lounge and dining carriages?
That's a fair question, until you realise that there are really two separate trains running here, joined together at the halfway point by a power-generating carriage, through which no passenger can transit.
And in each of those two haves there are two separated sets of service levels, each with its own lounge and dining carriages and sets of sleepers. The kitchen, through which no passenger can transit, separates these two quarter-trains.
So on my reckoning, the consist comprises two locos, followed by one baggage carriage, then a Red class carriage (actually a third service level scarcely promoted, but comprising a single carriage with seats, and toilet/shower facilities, and access to a cafe), then the first power carriage, then the forward crew carriage, then a Gold carriage with single rooms and the wobbly central corridor, then three Gold doubles/twins, then the Gold Lounge, then the Gold diner, then the forward kitchen, then the Platinum diner, then Platinum Lounge, then several Platinum double/twin and single carriages.
The second power-generating carriage follows to split the passengers into the two halves, with the rear half being a mirror image of the first half, except for the Red Class and the locos.
I can find a combination which produces 33 with the only carriage not appearing in both halves being the single Red Class one.
Red Class looks like it will be withdrawn officially mid-year. I suspect it was at least partly publicly-funded because of either the backpacker transport angle, or the community responsibility obligation for providing transport in some of the more isolated places. I think the subsidy is being withdrawn, so the company is ditching the seats. As far as I can see, Red Class gets no marketing - not even on the company's website or publications. Maybe it was more directly targetted at communities along the line, or backpacker haunts.
But the train scarcely works as a long-haul economy passenger service anyway. Its lengthy halts at Katherine, Alice, and Coober Pedy (the train station for which is many kilometres, perhaps 40, from Coober Pedy and the Stuart Highway) mean it can't credibly call itself a travelling passenger service. The fare I understand applies is expensive by comparison to other ways of covering the country which are both more comfortable and more direct.
Instead, it is a cruise on steel wheels, The Ghan and the Indian-Pacific both. There's nothing wrong with that, but it is neither Amtrak's LD trains, nor even Via Rail's The Canadian, so can't easily be compared to either except in the most basic terms of train, ride, staffing, meals, and accommodation, all of which you'd expect the Oz trains to provide a premium on because of how they are priced and marketed.
I am now about to pull out of Alice Springs at 2200h, after a full day on the ground here, with a number of optional and included activities, all of which congregate at the historic Old Telegraph Station close to Alice, for a table-service, sit down BBQ at circular tables of ten set out on the sandy desert floor with the stars for our roof.