About Us

Justin Kelaher

General Manager

Justin’s ticked off around 29 countries, so it’s safe to say that travel’s a big part of life for him and his family. 

He’s had some pretty memorable adventures on the rails – Switzerland, Italy, and a cruise from Venice to the Balkans, down the Italian coast and around to Rome. Italy stole his heart and he reckons he might just move to Europe one day (once the kids are doing their own thing).

Speaking of kids, he’s a proud dad of two daughters in their 20s. 

In his downtime? Justin has a bit of an unusual hobby – he’s a self-confessed serial house renovator. He just loves the design, project management and styling side of it.

Before diving into emails and calls for the day, you’ll usually find him starting the morning with a walk through his local national park. Not a bad way to kick things off! 

Donna Hawkins

Booking Manager

South African by birth, a global explorer at heart, and these days you’ll find her on Australia’s Sunshine Coast. Donna’s passport’s been busy, with stamps from 35+ countries. She’s backpacked across the Americas, hiked to Machu Picchu, sailed around the Mediterranean and spent 6 years living in the Middle East.

When she’s not planning the next adventure, you’ll find her capturing the world through photography, creating abstract pieces with watercolour and mosaics.

Next on her travel list is a Barcelona to Marrakech adventure – mainly for the food, the architecture, and those colourful Moroccan markets. 

Annette Dickson

Booking Manager

At 18, she flew to Zambia for a wedding and came back with a whole new perspective. Safe to say: adventure’s in her blood.

Annette was born in England, backpacked New Zealand, met her husband in Sydney and now lives on the southern Gold Coast. 

She’s big on travel, especially by train. From England to France, Italy to Spain, she’s covered some serious ground – Switzerland takes the cake for those epic views and the all-important snack cart.

On her travels, diving’s a favourite, and back home it’s all about painting birds in watercolour (she’s something of a bird whisperer).

Carolyn O’Neill

Booking Manager

Another seasoned traveller on the team, Carolyn’s been to more than 30 countries. She grew up in the US, but Australia has been home for a long time.

She’s travelled through the Swiss Alps, China, India, Cambodia… the list goes on. 

When she’s not working, you’ll find her hiking new trails or wandering along a beautiful beach. 

Next up for Carolyn is travelling north by train into the Arctic Circle, as well as the Budapest to Istanbul adventure. 

Lisa O’Donnell

Trip Design Manager

She is the woman behind the rail magic! As our head trip designer, her genius touch makes sure every trip at Magnificent Rail is perfectly designed.

Lisa has lived overseas, most recently in Myanmar. She worked in Australian Embassies before switching over to travel. Her specialty was philanthropic travel, working with wealthy donors (household names), to visit their projects – usually remote locations. The level of detail required for this was insane!

For all you rail buffs, Lisa’s experienced some epic train rides during her extensive travels throughout Asia, leading up to her time in Myanmar, including:

• The Trans-Mongolian Railway from Mongolia to Beijing
• Bullet trains from Beijing to Xi’an (of the Terracotta Warriors fame)
• Hong Kong to Guilin via Guangzhou
• The Mandalay to Lashio over the Goteik viaduct

Lisa tells us she’s still keen to do a Balkans rail trip (maybe not quite Chris Tarrant style, but almost)!

Matthew Newton

Founder

And then, of course, there is humble ol’ Mat. His love of train travel started early as a 12-year-old following his parents around Europe. Then, at 17, he experienced his first rail adventure of India, and as he’ll tell you, “…the rot really did set in!” That was a long time ago; but his passion never went away.

Workwise, he actually did a stint at V-Line amongst other things, though that was early on! But since entering the travel industry back in 2009, he’s never left. During this time he’s run a travel marketing agency, written a book on tourism, run trips all over the world, been a guest speaker on travel industry podcasts and… started multiple travel brands. Not to mention, more train travels in there somewhere.

Mat has a bunch of other travel projects also in the planning. Some are further along, while others are just pipe dreams – but as he says, “it’s the process that I really enjoy”.