Surely the "Hotel on Wheels " marketing must be one of the biggest blunders ever made!
Two years down the line still plagued by snagging issues.
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Caledonian Sleeper
- Thread starter Essexman
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Two years down the line still plagued by snagging issues.
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Blindtraveler
Established Member
And at what sort of hotel would you pay over £100 or sometimes even substantially more for a standard room with shared toilet facilities? This sort of accommodation now is reserved mainly for the likes of budget travelers or long staying contractors or stupid train enthusiasts that require a bed for the night in in insert name of silly random location here at a cheap as chips price
Aren't they pretty much stuck where they are? If they lower the advertised quality people will expect lower fares, or if they reduce the fares to match the perceived quality then that would require even more subsidy of an already heavily subsidised service. Trying to raise the quality presumably requires either higher fares or again higher subsidy, neither of which are going to be welcome.
Not just that, but the standard I expect from a hotel has risen. Bluntly, the Scotrail offering didn't deliver what I'd expect when paying for overnight accommodation and, when it works, the CS offering does.
It's really interesting to think about this branding. Many years ago I travelled from Paris to Madrid (and back) on the “trenhotel” which sadly no longer runs (a victim of improved high speed day services serving the route). That was part of a longer journey between south east England and Andalusia. That included both a restaurant car and a cafe-bar car, and the rooms were of good quality (with three price tiers). Given the distance, and the cost and time of using a day train for the same journey back then (with an extra night spent somewhere en route in a hotel), it was a good option.
It sounds as if there are quite a lot of ways in which the CS would need to change, in order to provide even that level of “hotel” service, which was decent enough, but only arguably “luxury”. And given that the length of the route won't change, …
There's an article at https://www.acprail.com/blog/2013/07/a-guide-to-the-elipsos-trenhotel/ which gives some more information about these services, including images of cabins with floorplans (4-berth / 2-berth / 2-berth + ensuite WC+shower), and mention of the restaurant and bar services.
jumble
Established Member
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This prompted me to check on a trip at Todays prices for a trip I did pre covid on Amtrak which is directly comparable to London Aberdeen
22 March 2022 Eugene to Oakland 530 Miles ish 2 People in a Roomette £277
Bedroom £462
Includes decent Dinner and Breakfast worth probably around £60.00
22 March 2022 Euston to Aberdeen 530 Miles ish 2 People in Fixed Classic £175
Twin Suite £250
I conclude that Caledonian are not outrageous in their pricing
Ken_Ilworth
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Is that a totally fair comparison? (converting Amtrak's fares into sterling). Would those fares "feel" as expensive to an average American, earning and paying in dollars, I wonder
I agree, especially when you consider that the seated advance is £53, which in itself is competitive with all but the very lowest daytime advances.
UK £175 / £250. UK median wage £30,420, so cost is 0.6% / 0.8% of median wage.
US £277 / £462, median wage in Oregon $60,306 dollars, £43344, so cost is 0.6% / 1.1% of median wage
So similar. How much subsidy does the Amtrack service get?
Peter Mugridge
Veteran Member
InterCity used the same marketing angle when the Mk3s were introduced...
That's definitely interesting. Unfortunately I can't remember what the trenhotel fares were, because that too would be an interesting comparison!
Interesting as always to compare flight prices + hotel prices too (and that's the worst case of course, often the outbound flight will mean that one could stay at home instead of an extra night in the hotel …) — Luton to Aberdeen return can be had for £75 at best, with many options below £100, and the Premier Inn in Aberdeen seems to cost a very reasonable £209.50 for 7 nights (less than £30 a night), for two people in a double room.
Which makes me think: if the Caledonian Sleeper is supposed to be a hotel, why is there anything other than a completely marginal increase in price for a cabin, i.e. a few quid, when there are two people in that cabin, instead of one? That's how it works with hotels (indeed, sometimes there's no difference in price at all between single and double occupancy of a double room — as is the case with the Aberdeen City Centre Premier Inn …).
Peter Sarf
Established Member
And CS now really rub it in by showing you that your single room is indeed just a double, well two single bunks !.
Because otherwise it would make Single occupancy even more expensive .......
Fares are presumably pitched at a level to take the maximum amount of money. If they could charge more for single occupancy they would, regardless of the cost of double occupancy.
The railway doesn't generally cope well for groups though.
Hire a car to go from Crewe to Norwich for 3 days, £200 return by car assuming you're hiring from outside Crewe station (car hire prices are really high at the moment, probably because people are still avoiding the train), but by train it's £110. But if there's two people the car is still £200 but the train is now £220. For 3 people the train is £330.
Given the many different news outlets which used that phrase, strongly suggesting that it was used as part of its press releases on launch, rather than independently chosen by all those organisations, I don't think it's strange at all …
Given how often the phrase is placed in quotation marks, that really reinforces the likelihood that it is a key phrase from the press releases, for me at least.
'Hotel on wheels' train service
The overnight train service between Scotland and England is revamped with £150m of new carriages.
www.bbc.co.uk
New £150m Caledonian Sleeper trains 'are hotels on wheels'
The new £150m fleet of Caledonian Sleeper trains, complete with en-suite double rooms, is unveiled.
www.bbc.co.uk
New sleeper trains like 'hotels on wheels' arrive in UK
The service will operate overnight between London and Scotland, allowing passengers to travel in comfort
www.chroniclelive.co.uk
From a hospitality recruiter: https://www.berkeley-scott.co.uk/caledonian-sleepers-new-hotel-on-wheels/
A DREAM OF A JOURNEY AWAITS YOU IN YOUR RAILWAY HOTEL ON WHEELS - Review of Caledonian Sleeper, Fort William, Scotland - Tripadvisor
Caledonian Sleeper: A DREAM OF A JOURNEY AWAITS YOU IN YOUR RAILWAY HOTEL ON WHEELS - See 791 traveler reviews, 528 candid photos, and great deals for Fort William, UK, at Tripadvisor.
en.tripadvisor.com.hk
… and many many more similar press and other articles.
Looks as if they operators wanted to present it as such to me, at least a couple of years ago when it was launched.
And, in a sense, given the pricing, it's implicitly being pitched as such … in fact, as discussed a lot in this thread, it's way more expensive than the combination of a travel ticket and a perfectly decent hotel.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
No indeed, which is understandable when you're selling seat-by-seat, … but not so much when it's room-by-room.
I find it interesting that this post refers to the 'poor staff' three times. I'm not sure if it's intentional but the impression that is given is that the staff are being held in these jobs against their will and are the put-upon victims of evil management with no hope for an alternative future. Being on the passenger side, it may sound harsh but I don't expect to have to think about such things when coughing up almost £500 one-way to Aberdeen. It's not that I don't care on a human level, but I perhaps erroneously thought that such a price tag would buy me at least a little distance from the IR fallout.
It's also interesting regarding what you say about the staff seeing the Club Car as a nuisance, this would explain relatively minor transgressions such as being turned away for being 5 minutes late to breakfast, but with ample time remaining, and sticking to the original cut off times even when the train is delayed. It also explains why the car remains closed, for months after eating places reopened, rather more convincingly than the social distancing argument trotted out by CS. If the staff expect empathy from passengers and managers, are they willing to give this in return? I don't see much of that. I have read about staff asking passengers to not even look into the Club Car, through the locked doors! I wonder why that would be.
Overall, perhaps a case of golden handcuffs and the customer being the collateral damage?
SuspectUsual
Established Member
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Indeed. And four of the five articles you used the phrase with quotation marks around it so clearly it was something they’d be given by CS or their PR company
mirodo
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This appears to be the source of the “hotel on wheels” quote
www.transport.gov.scot
EXCITING NEW SLEEPER CONTRACT UNVEILED | Transport Scotland
www.transport.gov.scot
MrEd
Member
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- 593
I’m not sure that the high fares charged by CS necessarily translate to good pay and conditions for staff, nor a great level of staff satisfaction. Just because it is a supposedly ‘high end’ business does not necessarily mean that the workforce are happy. Management are not ‘evil’ but are not always very kind to CS staff, and I don’t think they ever take their complaints especially seriously. The main problem is that CS management constantly think of operating practices (perhaps designed to reflect a ‘hotel on wheels’ and their exaggerated marketing claims) which do not work in practice (the boarding system used in 2018-19 is a prime example of this), and the staff are then harassed by constant complaints from the travelling public (paying very high fares, so their patience is already low) because the policies do not make sense.
I am not sure about why the lounge car remains closed - but I do agree that there’s not exactly much enthusiasm for reopening it. Perhaps the extensive risk assessments and reduction in capacity mean that it’s prohibitively difficult to open (or too difficult to be worth bothering with). Maybe the accountants are saying that it costs more to run than the revenue which it will bring with social distancing measures in place. The train can run with fewer staff each night if there is no lounge service. Again, I think that CS got carried away with this silly idea dreamt up by the PR people that it was some kind of exclusive ‘club’ car (resembling some kind of gentrified bar on rails) and wanted the staff to run it in that way (when the staff had no interest in doing so and many passengers were perfectly satisfied with what went before) the lounge car of First Group days (which was basically a glorified buffet car) was much easier for the staff to run and was still a nice place for passengers to sit.
Some of the staff who were familiar with the First Group business model (and even BR before that, in the case of the very senior staff) have found it quite hard to adapt to the Serco model. I’m not saying that this is right, but I wonder if CS have supported the staff as well as they could have done throughout the change from Mk3s to Mk5s and all the changes in operating practices that this has brought? Disillusioned staff are very unlikely to offer great customer service - perhaps because things are as alien to them as they are to the passenger.
The Mk2s and Mk3s were absolutely knackered and had to be replaced, but I can’t help thinking that many of the positive aspects of the old First Group business model could have been retained.
Realistically, how can the customer control how CS treats its staff? Are you suggesting that customers boycott the company because they supposedly treat their staff in a substandard way? I think this would be expecting an unrealistic level of interest and engagement from a consumer base who merely wishes to get from A to B in relative comfort and is paying a substantial cost to do so.
I find it amazing that there is an apparent issue with the managers not being 'very kind' to their teams. They are there to get the most out of their teams and on occasion, often more frequent than anyone would want, this involves asking people to do things they wouldn't do of their own volition. In no way am I excusing tactlessness or rudeness, but hand on heart I cannot say I am constantly 'very kind' to the people I manage. Equally, they are not always 'very kind' to me, and nor do I expect that, as that is what I get a salary for.
Re the Club Car, I'm staggered the concept is described as 'silly'. Having been on FGW's equivalent, what CS was attempting to do did not hold a candle on a culinary level, it was hardly the most ambitious food going and very clearly simplified for the benefit of the staff not the customer. But even that is apparently too much to bear.
I'm pretty new to this forum and know very little about the UK rail industry and I am not one for hyperbole. But reading the tone of the language that is applied to staff, I am taken aback at how slanted it is towards the staff and not the customer; 'poor staff', who need to be treated 'very kindly', 'supported' though changes and who have 'no interest' in doing the Club Car service (as prescribed and advertised) because it was 'easier' (for the staff) before.
Genuine question, is that truly meant to elicit some kind of sympathetic reaction, or expectation to change anything, from Mr or Mrs Miggins who has paid £££?
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
I'm not aware of it really being any different from ScotRail days other than the physical rolling stock and the menu being slightly but not massively different. As was said it's a glorified buffet car but with real crockery etc and table service. A DB Bistro on the UK rails, basically. Which is ideal for this sort of train.
But TBH I don't overly care for staff who might not want to do their job as per their contract, once COVID is over. They have two choices, do it as per their contract, or resign and let someone who wants to do it take it.
What makes you think staff don't want to do their jobs as per their contracts?
A Company that has had industrial action every year for the past few years clearly is not addressing the many issues that exist !
From earlier in this thread:
I also note that the “important duties” referred to below remain to be particularised by anyone:
My few journeys on the sleepers in the last 10 years have seen very mixed quality of service by the staff, varying between the excellent and the diabolical. There has been no correlation with ownership of the business.
That tells me that the challenge of delivering consistent quality of service runs a lot deeper than who the operator is, and that the management of change has not been good.
At that point, the language of "support" and "kindness" does matter - if a company wants to achieve change, it needs to do so by bringing staff with them. Otherwise, all the PR in the world can't mask a different reality. And on that, it's clear from what's been said that Serco bear responsibility. It is their decisions that have left staff with worse facilities than on the Mk3 pantries, it is their decisions that have left staff feeling alienated. While there may well be other factors in the mix - it does after all take two to tango - the prime responsibility lies with the operator.
When I travel with CS, I buy the ticket from CS based on the offer that CS make me. It is up to CS to deliver on that offer, and up to CS to find the right way to deliver on that offer. If individual staff members let the side down, then it is open to me to raise a complaint about their actions, or to pass feedback. But the accountability for delivery is always with CS.
Agreed. But that doesn't absolve the employer of it's responsibility to manage change effectively.
Hotel on wheels? That is dangerously close to the wrong side of the trade descriptions act. I've had more space and a better nights sleep in a Scottish bothy than on the sleeper. I have only used the classic rooms, which when I first used the sleeper were the only cabins available (was either 1st class, single occupancy, or standard class, you might have to share), so maybe the twin and double room with en-suite facilities on offer now are a closer approximation to a hotel. I doubt they will be as comfortable and/or spacious as a hotel room, simply because space is very restricted in a train carriage, coimpared to a purpose built building.
That's one take, granted. Another would be that effective change management also needs vision and drive, in fairness to Serco they have done that with the new hardware and much-maligned marketing. Be kind to the staff and support them through the changes, of course, but not to the extent that the strategic aims of upping the standard and thus the fares, are lost.
Regarding the worse staff rest areas, is this what the IR malaise boils down to? Were the MK5 cars not run past the union at all? In any case, what does the law say with regards to rest areas, surely what CS is providing must be legal?
Journeyman
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It is legal - of course it is. And yes, there was full consultation at the design stage.
The pantries were design features from a bygone era, dating back to a very different sleeper product, i.e. the traditional BR one.