Caledonian Sleeper

[Ianno87]

If there are "plenty of platforms available" then why spend billions providing more for HS2?

Because even "plenty" isn't enough for the extra 18tph that will operate on HS2.

 

[Grumpy]

Max capacity on each is around 250 (though this isn't really reached, as it requires all rooms to be booked as a twin)

So it's an interesting figure but as you state hardly likely to be reached. What are the actual carryings, say midweek in March?

 

[Ianno87]

So it's an interesting figure but as you state hardly likely to be reached. What are the actual carryings, say midweek in March?

The other way to look at this is that in the morning peak, the sleepers occupying two platforms don't prevent maximising use of the Fast Lines approaching Euston - they are basically full to planning capacity even with 2 platforms lost to the sleepers - there are enough other platforms for the platforms capacity to not be the limiting factor.

 

[Bald Rick]

So it's an interesting figure but as you state hardly likely to be reached. What are the actual carryings, say midweek in March?

Pre Covid, average passenger load arriving or departing Euston was around 200 per train (including the seated passengers).

 

[miami]

Average passngers about 300k passengers a year

https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/media/1869/caledonian-sleeper-key-stats-2019-20.pdf

Assuming they all go to/from London, that would be 5,800 a week, or 961 per day, or 480 in each direction - 240 people for each train.

At £10m a year it's a mere £33/journey subsidy, or 7.8p per mile subsidy.

Over staffed, under serving, full of entitled 1970s militant staff who still think the trains are run for the benefit of railway staff, not for passengers. Seems the MO is to race to the end as soon as possible so staff can go home. Either dump the passengers off at closed stations hours before they should be woken, or leave them on the train and wait for the depot to deal with them.

Passenger ends up in train depot after not being woken on Sleeper service

Passengers have been turfed off the Caledonian Sleeper hours early or found themselves in a depot after not being woken on arrival at their destination, Scotland on Sunday can reveal.

www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com

 

[Bald Rick]

Assuming they all go to/from London, that would be 5,800 a week, or 961 per day, or 480 in each direction - 240 people for each train.

They don’t, hence my quote of around 200 a train in the previous post.

 

[alistairlees]

Average passngers about 300k passengers a year

https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/media/1869/caledonian-sleeper-key-stats-2019-20.pdf

Assuming they all go to/from London, that would be 5,800 a week, or 961 per day, or 480 in each direction - 240 people for each train.

At £10m a year it's a mere £33/journey subsidy, or 7.8p per mile subsidy.

Over staffed, under serving, full of entitled 1970s militant staff who still think the trains are run for the benefit of railway staff, not for passengers. Seems the MO is to race to the end as soon as possible so staff can go home. Either dump the passengers off at closed stations hours before they should be woken, or leave them on the train and wait for the depot to deal with them.

Passenger ends up in train depot after not being woken on Sleeper service

Passengers have been turfed off the Caledonian Sleeper hours early or found themselves in a depot after not being woken on arrival at their destination, Scotland on Sunday can reveal.

www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com

The ORR stats don't look correct to me.

 

[MrEd]

Average passngers about 300k passengers a year

https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/media/1869/caledonian-sleeper-key-stats-2019-20.pdf

Assuming they all go to/from London, that would be 5,800 a week, or 961 per day, or 480 in each direction - 240 people for each train.

At £10m a year it's a mere £33/journey subsidy, or 7.8p per mile subsidy.

Over staffed, under serving, full of entitled 1970s militant staff who still think the trains are run for the benefit of railway staff, not for passengers. Seems the MO is to race to the end as soon as possible so staff can go home. Either dump the passengers off at closed stations hours before they should be woken, or leave them on the train and wait for the depot to deal with them.

Passenger ends up in train depot after not being woken on Sleeper service

Passengers have been turfed off the Caledonian Sleeper hours early or found themselves in a depot after not being woken on arrival at their destination, Scotland on Sunday can reveal.

www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com

I think that the comment about ‘entitled 1970s militant staff’ is completely OTT and actually quite unfair - there are some excellent and very committed staff who work for CS. One or two, perhaps, are average or even poor, but that is the same with every TOC in the UK. Remember that the media narrative that we are being fed is shaped to an extent by Serco’s PR department and they are desperate to present the poor staff who’ve gone to hell in a handcart several times throughout this franchise as militant trade unionists (which they absolutely are not) to disguise their own catalogue of failings as an operator, of which the pay freeze is merely the last straw. It’s hardly as though the poor staff are millionaires. The night shifts are quite long and arduous (and very repetitive) by railway standards, and the pay is not exactly brilliant given the unsociable working hours and their implications for family life. There’s nothing ‘entitled’ about asking for a pay rise in line with inflation given the escalation of living costs (when these staff are hardly living in luxury)- it’s hardly asking for a mansion and a Ming vase!

Remember that the poor staff are very often forced to apply ridiculous company policy which is not of their choosing- like the nonsensical ’no sharing with strangers’ rule in the lounge car back in 2018/19, or that utterly woeful boarding system around the same time, which the staff hardly wanted to enforce and indeed dreaded enforcing. Management at CS is quite top-down and dictatorial, with little room for discretion on the part of staff. It may be that CS staff are under pressure to clear the train on arrival at Euston for operational reasons. I don’t think that the trains are understaffed, or overstaffed for that matter. I am not excusing the incident involving the depot which you mention, but it strikes me as a one-off. Euston is fully open at 6.30am so there’s no issue with passengers disembarking at that time.

If you think that CS is run for the benefit of railway staff, I wonder why they bother doing a gruelling 13-14-hour shift on the Fort William run? Surely, by your logic, they’d just want to leave everyone at Waverley and be done with it!

The sleeper is a somewhat flawed operation in its present form, but the on-train staff are its best assets. I have always maintained that CS’ weaknesses lie in its management and policy which too often seem hare-brained. The current CS management are the sleeper’s worst enemy, and many users of the service will be very relieved to see them go.

 

[Iskra]

I think that the comment about ‘entitled 1970s militant staff’ is completely OTT and actually quite unfair - there are some excellent and very committed staff who work for CS. One or two, perhaps, are average or even poor, but that is the same with every TOC in the UK. Remember that the media narrative that we are being fed is shaped to an extent by Serco’s PR department and they are desperate to present the poor staff who’ve gone to hell in a handcart several times throughout this franchise as militant trade unionists (which they absolutely are not) to disguise their own catalogue of failings as an operator, of which the pay freeze is merely the last straw. It’s hardly as though the poor staff are millionaires. The night shifts are quite long and arduous (and very repetitive) by railway standards, and the pay is not exactly brilliant given the unsociable working hours and their implications for family life. There’s nothing ‘entitled’ about asking for a pay rise in line with inflation given the escalation of living costs (when these staff are hardly living in luxury)- it’s hardly asking for a mansion and a Ming vase!

Remember that the poor staff are very often forced to apply ridiculous company policy which is not of their choosing- like the nonsensical ’no sharing with strangers’ rule in the lounge car back in 2018/19, or that utterly woeful boarding system around the same time, which the staff hardly wanted to enforce and indeed dreaded enforcing. Management at CS is quite top-down and dictatorial, with little room for discretion on the part of staff. It may be that CS staff are under pressure to clear the train on arrival at Euston for operational reasons. I don’t think that the trains are understaffed, or overstaffed for that matter. I am not excusing the incident involving the depot which you mention, but it strikes me as a one-off. Euston is fully open at 6.30am so there’s no issue with passengers disembarking at that time.

If you think that CS is run for the benefit of railway staff, I wonder why they bother doing a gruelling 13-14-hour shift on the Fort William run? Surely, by your logic, they’d just want to leave everyone at Waverley and be done with it!

The sleeper is a somewhat flawed operation in its present form, but the on-train staff are its best assets. I have always maintained that CS’ weaknesses lie in its management and policy which too often seem hare-brained. The current CS management are the sleeper’s worst enemy, and many users of the service will be very relieved to see them go.

The pay looks very good to me for the tasks required and the work done. It doesn't seem all that reasonable to expect a payrise if your business is making a loss, especially during a pandemic when passenger numbers have clearly dwindled.

I'm sure many of us on here have felt rushed off the train in the morning, which is for staffs convenience and nobody else's.

Yes, there are some good staff and the catering offer is also decent in normal times, but there are some who take a bare minimum approach and act hassled when they have the inconvenience of 3 customers to attend to in the lounge on a Tuesday in January. When you compare the pay and conditions to other similar jobs in hospitality and the (lack of) productivity often required, it looks a cushy number to me.

I agree about it being a flawed operation, however.

 

[Siemens Trains]

Whilst the hassle was a factor, the main reason was that they had few passengers. When I was on the sleeper team I regularly heard about Saturday night sleepers with no one in a berth. Little to no postal traffic Sat night either.

As a guide, are the last Anglo-Scot day trains on a Saturday evening and the first on a Sunday morning significantly earlier/later than on weekdays? I expect they are, and surely the reason is due to low demand (or maybe high cost) rather than engineering work every weekend for half a century.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It seems barmy to me that we are spending billions(?) to , essentially, provide more platforms at Euston whilst the two sleeper trains conveying 70 passengers or so take up two platforms for the greater part of the morning peak

We are investing to provide 400m platforms connected to HS2 (so at a different level). We aren't investing in conventional platforms, indeed we have reduced them by 2.

Removing the Sleeper would have no bearing on whether those need building or not.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Jun 2021 ==

Because even "plenty" isn't enough for the extra 18tph that will operate on HS2.

They also aren't 400m long.

 

[MrEd]

The pay looks very good to me for the tasks required and the work done. It doesn't seem all that reasonable to expect a payrise if your business is making a loss, especially during a pandemic when passenger numbers have clearly dwindled.

I'm sure many of us on here have felt rushed off the train in the morning, which is for staffs convenience and nobody else's.

Yes, there are some good staff and the catering offer is also decent in normal times, but there are some who take a bare minimum approach and act hassled when they have the inconvenience of 3 customers to attend to in the lounge on a Tuesday in January. When you compare the pay and conditions to other similar jobs in hospitality and the (lack of) productivity often required, it looks a cushy number to me.

I agree about it being a flawed operation, however.

But surely the Scottish Government have bankrolled CS, to the extent that all their losses resulting from the pandemic are covered? The sleeper never makes a profit even in normal times, so it seems a bit strange that the staff aren’t getting a pay rise this year when they have in previous years (even in 2019 which was plagued with the new stock’s teething troubles). Its not the poor staff’s fault that the sleeper is loss making, after all.

I do agree that the staff can rush passengers off the train in London (never to the same extent at the Scottish destinations, but that’s probably because the arrival time is later- so most folk are ready to disembark anyway- and there is far less pressure at the northern terminals), and that there are some who aren’t particularly motivated when it comes to the lounge car (not that this matters any more), perhaps because they don’t really see it as the main purpose of their job (whether rightly or wrongly), and in fact regard the catering side of the operation as a nuisance (a minority of sleeper staff do think this, whether rightly or wrongly). Railway work and hospitality are in no way comparable. Yes, they’re both public facing (often with difficult customers) but that’s where the similarities end. The sleeper staff are there as much for safety and operational efficiency as for hospitality, and (unlike restaurant and hotel workers) have little or no formal training in catering or restaurant management. Working on the sleeper is quite a different ball game from working in Costa or even a Premier Inn, and carries with it far greater responsibility. I don’t think any sleeper hosts, team leaders or especially train managers would describe their job as ’cushy‘ given its safety implications. Just because the staff are not visible does not mean that they don’t have important duties to attend to.

 

[Ianno87]

As a guide, are the last Anglo-Scot day trains on a Saturday evening and the first on a Sunday morning significantly earlier/later than on weekdays? I expect they are, and surely the reason is due to low demand (or maybe high cost) rather than engineering work every weekend for half a century.

A bit of both - relatively quiet in demand terms, so the best opportunity each week to do "heavy" regular maintenance in a Saturday night/Sunday morning possession.

 

[Bald Rick]

But surely the Scottish Government have bankrolled CS

Subject to an assessment and adjustment to reflect how much CS would have lost anyway.

so it seems a bit strange that the staff aren’t getting a pay rise this year

On the contrary. As almost the whole rail industry is now being paid for by Government, and the Government has spent a lot of money shoring up the economy and fighting the pandemic, it would seem strange if staff were getting a pay rise. Very few others in the rail industry are, and very few other Governement employees are either.

 

[Iskra]

But surely the Scottish Government have bankrolled CS, to the extent that all their losses resulting from the pandemic are covered? The sleeper never makes a profit even in normal times, so it seems a bit strange that the staff aren’t getting a pay rise this year when they have in previous years (even in 2019 which was plagued with the new stock’s teething troubles). Its not the poor staff’s fault that the sleeper is loss making, after all.

I do agree that the staff can rush passengers off the train in London (never to the same extent at the Scottish destinations, but that’s probably because the arrival time is later- so most folk are ready to disembark anyway- and there is far less pressure at the northern terminals), and that there are some who aren’t particularly motivated when it comes to the lounge car (not that this matters any more), perhaps because they don’t really see it as the main purpose of their job (whether rightly or wrongly), and in fact regard the catering side of the operation as a nuisance (a minority of sleeper staff do think this, whether rightly or wrongly). Railway work and hospitality are in no way comparable. Yes, they’re both public facing (often with difficult customers) but that’s where the similarities end. The sleeper staff are there as much for safety and operational efficiency as for hospitality, and (unlike restaurant and hotel workers) have little or no formal training in catering or restaurant management. Working on the sleeper is quite a different ball game from working in Costa or even a Premier Inn, and carries with it far greater responsibility. I don’t think any sleeper hosts, team leaders or especially train managers would describe their job as ’cushy‘ given its safety implications. Just because the staff are not visible does not mean that they don’t have important duties to attend to.

I'm sorry but if you're in a job where the company is making a massive loss and is heavily subsidised by the government, I don't think payrises should be expected. I wasn't expecting a payrise in the year just finished for obvious reasons, I was grateful just to have a job at all. Yes, it isn't purely the staffs fault and yes management don't appear to be great either as they don't seem all that interested in filling the trains; their yield management strategy does seem to be totally lacking and this then restricts the opportunities to make additional revenue with catering and any other add ons.

The lounge car service is a great opportunity for CS to make some additional money at quite decent profit margins, so it's a shame it's not taken seriously by some of the staff. Perhaps, they could link next years payrise to catering sales I disagree that it's not similar to hospitality work, it is after all a 'hotel on wheels,' however I do appreciate that it comes with extra responsibility- but crucially not the right to choose to do one side of the job at the expense of the other. I don't think you appreciate that there's quite a bit of health and safety responsibility in places such as restaurants and hotels too.

 

[miami]

Its not the poor staff’s fault that the sleeper is loss making, after all.

You then go to list
* Staff turf off passengers (thus meaning they're more likely to fly or take a day train next time)
* Staff don't care about the lounge car (a key part of the offering)
* Staff see that catering isn't their job (Airline cabin crew are there for your safety, yet I wouldn't want to be a purser who decided not to bother with good food service for premium passengers)

Staff seem to have some culpability.

Public sector pay rise has been 1% per year for most of the decade, and frozen this year.

The railway is not special, and especially over the last year we've seen how unimportant it really is. This strike is an out of touch. It will hardly affect anyone - indeed it will probably reduce losses for the operator.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I do agree that the staff can rush passengers off the train in London (never to the same extent at the Scottish destinations, but that’s probably because the arrival time is later- so most folk are ready to disembark anyway- and there is far less pressure at the northern terminals), and that there are some who aren’t particularly motivated when it comes to the lounge car (not that this matters any more), perhaps because they don’t really see it as the main purpose of their job (whether rightly or wrongly), and in fact regard the catering side of the operation as a nuisance (a minority of sleeper staff do think this, whether rightly or wrongly). Railway work and hospitality are in no way comparable. Yes, they’re both public facing (often with difficult customers) but that’s where the similarities end. The sleeper staff are there as much for safety and operational efficiency as for hospitality, and (unlike restaurant and hotel workers) have little or no formal training in catering or restaurant management. Working on the sleeper is quite a different ball game from working in Costa or even a Premier Inn, and carries with it far greater responsibility. I don’t think any sleeper hosts, team leaders or especially train managers would describe their job as ’cushy‘ given its safety implications. Just because the staff are not visible does not mean that they don’t have important duties to attend to.

So therein lines the problem. It sounds rather like cabin crew on established US airlines.

Why don't they have training in operating hospitality, because that's a fair chunk of what they are doing? A big error by Serco there.

This is perhaps one of the cases where TUPE is perhaps a little unhelpful as it would prevent Serco, when they took over, from choosing staff based on their attitude to the intended product and on contracts that encourage that product to be delivered, e.g. with performance related or even commission being elements of the contract. Like they probably have on their genuine quality operations, the Ghan etc. (Though I think they've sold those off now?)

Clearly the guard is safety critical - but in ScotRail days the guard just did, er, the guarding (and checked tickets in the seated coach, which is a bit like keeping track of who's on a 153 so hardly a massive impingement). But were this a day train it could operate with the driver and one guard. That's the safety of the train dealt with. Surely, other than having fire evacuation training, everyone else is there for the comfort of the passengers, not their immediate safety?

I don't really see why hosts, team leaders etc are any different to the various stewards found on board a Pendolino - their job is hospitality, and safety only comes into it in an emergency. Though of course some of those have a perhaps elevated view of their own importance at times - I refer anyone who doubts that to the perpetual Coach K issue. So if any of them don't think quality hospitality is important, then it's time for some formal retraining, and if that doesn't work it's time for them to get a new job. Perhaps being a Provodnik/Provodnitsa on Russian Railways, where "hospitality" isn't really a thing, might appeal to those particular individuals?

If they are selling CS as a premium hotel experience, which they are, staff need to be dealing with customers with an approach commensurate with a premium hotel. If it's to be sold as a Premier Inn on rails, which is more what it is, the prices need to come right down and the marketing become much more aimed at that market. Mind you, "With a Premier Inn, you know exactly what you're going to get" (and they're not lying - the consistency of the product and attention to detail of that consistency is impressive - and I've very rarely been disappointed by a PI as a result - and on the one occasion I was I got a full refund without question). With CS, you don't know if your bog is going to work...

 

[Grumpy]

The ORR stats don't look correct to me.

Indeed. Given the capacity of the trains, would be full and standing on a regular basis

 

[Bald Rick]

Indeed. Given the capacity of the trains, would be full and standing on a regular basis

Don’t forget the seated passengers, and the local passengers within Scotland.

 

[Grumpy]

Don’t forget the seated passengers, and the local passengers within Scotland.

I haven't. Post 9537 quotes a max capacity of approx 250 although I understood it was closer to 230.

 

[JonathanH]

Don’t forget the seated passengers, and the local passengers within Scotland.

There don't appear to be any plans for local passengers within Scotland to be accommodated in the future so they probably can be forgotten.

With the introduction of the 0520 Glasgow Queen Street to Oban, 2037 Oban to Glasgow Queen Street and 0503 Perth to Inverness, and coaches from Glasgow to Fort William at 0645 with a 1910 return there can't really be too many people inconvenienced if the facility isn't reintroduced.

I do wonder whether the seated coach could be refitted to partly include an extension of the club car and partly provide space for the staff to relax to address the current dispute and seated passengers be pushed towards coaches / other arrangements.

 

[6Z09]

I think that the comment about ‘entitled 1970s militant staff’ is completely OTT and actually quite unfair - there are some excellent and very committed staff who work for CS. One or two, perhaps, are average or even poor, but that is the same with every TOC in the UK. Remember that the media narrative that we are being fed is shaped to an extent by Serco’s PR department and they are desperate to present the poor staff who’ve gone to hell in a handcart several times throughout this franchise as militant trade unionists (which they absolutely are not) to disguise their own catalogue of failings as an operator, of which the pay freeze is merely the last straw. It’s hardly as though the poor staff are millionaires. The night shifts are quite long and arduous (and very repetitive) by railway standards, and the pay is not exactly brilliant given the unsociable working hours and their implications for family life. There’s nothing ‘entitled’ about asking for a pay rise in line with inflation given the escalation of living costs (when these staff are hardly living in luxury)- it’s hardly asking for a mansion and a Ming vase!

Remember that the poor staff are very often forced to apply ridiculous company policy which is not of their choosing- like the nonsensical ’no sharing with strangers’ rule in the lounge car back in 2018/19, or that utterly woeful boarding system around the same time, which the staff hardly wanted to enforce and indeed dreaded enforcing. Management at CS is quite top-down and dictatorial, with little room for discretion on the part of staff. It may be that CS staff are under pressure to clear the train on arrival at Euston for operational reasons. I don’t think that the trains are understaffed, or overstaffed for that matter. I am not excusing the incident involving the depot which you mention, but it strikes me as a one-off. Euston is fully open at 6.30am so there’s no issue with passengers disembarking at that time.

If you think that CS is run for the benefit of railway staff, I wonder why they bother doing a gruelling 13-14-hour shift on the Fort William run? Surely, by your logic, they’d just want to leave everyone at Waverley and be done with it!

The sleeper is a somewhat flawed operation in its present form, but the on-train staff are its best assets. I have always maintained that CS’ weaknesses lie in its management and policy which too often seem hare-brained. The current CS management are the sleeper’s worst enemy, and many users of the service will be very relieved to see them go.

A very accurate summary of the whole operation!

 

[Blindtraveler]

I have today written to my recently reelected MSP and encourage others to do the same and suggested that when the ScotRail franchise is brought back under the public ownership of the Scottish government albeit buy an at arm's-length company next year that the same happens with the sleeper. Booting serco in2touch would be a good thing in the eyes of many and and this would certainly do that. The Scottish government seem to like handing serco contracts that they don't want anything to do with themselves collar they trumpet about how successful the NorthLink ferries operation has been but I don't think if you ask many northern isles passengers if they thought it was successful that they would agree. Same goes for the sleepers

 

[Ianno87]

You then go to list
* Staff turf off passengers (thus meaning they're more likely to fly or take a day train next time)
*

Whilst I recognise the inconvenience, I wonder how many passengers are actually bothered by this - I suspect most will have no desire to stay on the train after arrival, or will go "Oh, OK then" if asked to alight.

My single trip on the sleeper, I was awake, dressed and breakfasted long before then, and got off immediately on arrival (of my own free will).

 

[MrEd]

Whilst I recognise the inconvenience, I wonder how many passengers are actually bothered by this - I suspect most will have no desire to stay on the train after arrival, or will go "Oh, OK then" if asked to alight.

My single trip on the sleeper, I was awake, dressed and breakfasted long before then, and got off immediately on arrival (of my own free will).

Depends if it’s the Lowlander or the Highlander- on the Highlander it doesn’t matter in any direction/to any destination, but on the southbound Lowlander it might cause issues if the train arrives at Euston 40 minutes early (as has been known), which is a full hour before the nominal ‘vacate cabins by’ time of 07:30. I don’t think the Edinburgh or Glasgow portions tend to arrive early at either of their respective destinations, by which time it is almost 07:30 anyway.

I did notice that during lockdown, the Inverness sleeper sometimes arrived in Inverness 30 early at around 08:06 because of the absence of southbound traffic. I don’t know whether passengers were able to stay on until 08:40 in this situation, but 08:06 was a sociable time anyway and there were probably too few passengers travelling for this to be an issue (and those that were travelling were probably just grateful that the sleeper was still running for them). Since May 17th I don’t think an early arrival on the Inverness sleeper has been possible because of the need to pass three southbound services (including the up Chieftain).

I don’t think an arrival more than a couple of minutes early is possible on the Aberdeen or Fort William route either, and the need to vacate on arrival is well established at those destinations. It’s just the southbound Lowlander into Euston where I can see that this can be a pain.

I wonder, is there anything that can be done to ensure that the up Lowlander does not run early, so as to ensure that passengers receive the correct amount of sleep?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Whilst I recognise the inconvenience, I wonder how many passengers are actually bothered by this - I suspect most will have no desire to stay on the train after arrival, or will go "Oh, OK then" if asked to alight.

My single trip on the sleeper, I was awake, dressed and breakfasted long before then, and got off immediately on arrival (of my own free will).

Which is why I proposed changing the footnote as a perfectly valid solution. Just as I proposed reserving certain seats explicitly for staff as a solution to the Avanti coach K issue (which they actually did in the end).

What definitely isn't OK under any circumstances is a business saying one thing and doing another.

 

[Bald Rick]

I wonder, is there anything that can be done to ensure that the up Lowlander does not run early, so as to ensure that passengers receive the correct amount of sleep?

There will be some (many?) passengers who rather appreciate the early arrival - enables them to crack on to get where ever they are going early. Whether that be work, connecting train, airport, whatever. I suspect if the sleeper did sit in Kilburn Loop for half an hour there would be plenty of complaints asking why couldn’t it have got into London early, etc.

The real answer to ensure passengers get the ‘sleep’ they expect is not to turf them off until the advertised time. If I was running the sleeper that would be non negotiable!

 

[williamn]

On the turfing out front the Glasgow arrival is currently 07.22, and in some places its advertised as 'remain on board until 7.30am' (how generous!) and in others as 8.00am. In my experience this week the steward was knocking on my door within minutes of arrival to get me off. I'd actually appreciate a little extra time to finish my (pretty minimal currently) breakfast, especially as I can't get into my office until 9am!

 

[185143]

There will be some (many?) passengers who rather appreciate the early arrival - enables them to crack on to get where ever they are going early. Whether that be work, connecting train, airport, whatever. I suspect if the sleeper did sit in Kilburn Loop for half an hour there would be plenty of complaints asking why couldn’t it have got into London early, etc.

The real answer to ensure passengers get the ‘sleep’ they expect is not to turf them off until the advertised time. If I was running the sleeper that would be non negotiable!

Should be a question on the breakfast card ideally. Much like the "do you wish to be woken and informed of severe disruption" option.

"In the event of an early arrival, would you prefer to be woken to vacate the train on arrival, or for the scheduled time?"

Although the only time I've been on the Southbound Lowlander, we arrived into Euston 40 early. I woke up in the seats roughly 20 minutes after arrival, I'd have probably appreciated a nudge really. Or even a "please wake me if we arrive early" sticker to put on the seat, similar to how some airlines will provide stickers on long haul flights specifically asking crews to/not to disturb you if asleep for the meal service. Though that's probably wishful thinking.

 

[SuspectUsual]

A “hotel on wheels” with a pre-8am checkout makes for a poor hotel in my opinion. They really need to think about what level of service (and price) their customers will expect if they’re marketing their product in that way