Trains fail, every single day in fact. Shame for those onboard but I am sure they will get over it.
I feel that it is a little different for a dedicated sleeper service that runs only one train each day to/from each Scottish location, compared to the failure of a commuter or regional service where the next one is probably no more than half an hour away. If I had been on-board last night, the late arrival of the Fort William portion would have caused me to miss my typical Scottish Citylink reservation, despite the ample amount of time that I give in case of delays, and at a different time of year would also result in passengers potentially missing out on a pre-booked Jacobite trip. In the former case there are alternatives and in both instances passengers would be reimbursed the full price of their Sleeper ticket, but such a level of disappointment would give me cause for misgivings towards using the service in the future.
And what of those passengers who would have expected to arrive in London at 7am this morning, but instead probably didn't make it to Euston until 9:30am or perhaps later? That's not an inconsequential delay to whatever plans they might have had, even where they can be rearranged.
Hopefully, we are only witnessing teething troubles related to the introduction of the new loco type. With a dedicated franchise, I certainly hope that we will see a great deal of effort put into minimising the potential for delays and cancellations, as with only four trains (split into ten portions) in each twenty four hour period, any disruption will cause a dramatic reduction in PPM figures: Last night/this morning, 50% of the sleeper service either arrived at its' destination over an hour late, or failed to arrive at all!
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Yes they did, but I am curious as to whether a loco change would have been required in this particular instance. Faults occur, but are Serco introducing additional complexity into the operation by sourcing locomotives that have been recently refurbished (are any of the Caledonian Sleeper locos examples that spent extended periods of time in store? They may not be, but I'm not sure), are more electronically complex than their predecessors and have no proven track record working regular passenger trains*, as opposed to sticking with the tried and tested alternative?
*Granted that the class 92s, through European Passenger Services and Nightstar, were designed with the full intention of working heavy and power hungry sleeper trains over the West Coast main line, but they have never been extensively tested on such duties.
