Caledonian Sleeper

[LowLevel]

Fair enough, were LNER stopping there regularly when Lumo started up? I thought Morpeth was needed for the abstraction test but apparently it's not as clean as a 'new' station pairing.

Sure, I think there's always been Intercity services to Morpeth on the London route as well as Cross Country.

 

[jfollows]

Fair enough, were LNER stopping there regularly when Lumo started up? I thought Morpeth was needed for the abstraction test but apparently it's not as clean as a 'new' station pairing.

Tables 26 & 48 from 2021 attached. “Yes” in answer to the question.

 

[jagardner1984]

I remember reading some fairly fierce opposition from the incumbent operator (I think it was VTEC) to the first Lumo proposals - probably a correct assessment the core market would duplicate theirs, and Morpeth and Stevenage were essentially a smokescreen - but perhaps it gives hope to other operators of potential for other Open Access services on other routes.

To bring it back to the sleeper - given they are already doing a 1958 (EDB) to 0101 KGX service - you wonder if they might attempt to push that a little further to eat further into the seated sleeper business, or an extension via Carstairs to GLC for that train only. It’s fair to say for example that in August there are a LOT of late rail travellers around Waverley after 8pm, and accommodation being what it is - you would probably be cheaper commuting to Newcastle too !

 

[paul1609]

It’s actually more of a go at Stansted. Quite a lot of air passengers on the Stansted - Edinburgh flow, in 2019 it was almost twice as many passengers as Luton - Edinburgh.

I'm pretty sceptical that Lumo has won more than a very small amount of (any)previous air traffic. I would say its business has almost entirely been won from the existing rail operators/ taxpayers. Not really aware of the pathing constraints but if an ecml operator was serious about attracting park/kiss and ride traffic from Stansted and the south east Potters Bar would be a far better outer London Stop because of its proximity to the M25.
In normal traffic Stevenage station from my house (and anybody beyond the M11/25 Junction) is about the same time wise as Cambridge Services on the A14. Allow a margin for delays and parking up at Stevenage (the northbound fast services aren't that frequent) and the straight car option will be past Peterborough on the A1. If your journey is to anywhere more than walking distance from the station up to Darlington/ Leeds it will be easier and quicker to drive throughout.

 

[Bald Rick]

I'm pretty sceptical that Lumo has won more than a very small amount of (any)previous air traffic. I would say its business has almost entirely been won from the existing rail operators/ taxpayers. Not really aware of the pathing constraints but if an ecml operator was serious about attracting park/kiss and ride traffic from Stansted and the south east Potters Bar would be a far better outer London Stop because of its proximity to the M25.
In normal traffic Stevenage station from my house (and anybody beyond the M11/25 Junction) is about the same time wise as Cambridge Services on the A14. Allow a margin for delays and parking up at Stevenage (the northbound fast services aren't that frequent) and the straight car option will be past Peterborough on the A1. If your journey is to anywhere more than walking distance from the station up to Darlington/ Leeds it will be easier and quicker to drive throughout.

There’s no doubt that the rail service has taken passengers from the airlines. The number of flights London - Edinburgh has reduced, as has the capacity of the aircraft. The point of contention is whether it is the arrival of Lumo that has triggered this, or whether it would have happened anyway.

For Stansted, AIUI there is a decent amount of traffic from the ‘Cambridge sphere of influence’ to Edinburgh, people in biosciences, medical, and IT. Many of these people live in the surrounding area where a drive to Stevenage is not much different to a drive to Stansted.

 

[jagardner1984]

Also relevant to this and your last point on the business bookings - increasingly companies are flatly refusing to book domestic flights, and insisting on “green travel” - eg Lumo, LNER, Sleeper, Avanti etc. I have encountered this recently where a company insisted a group of people travel Glasgow - Brighton but not fly, which given it was a weekend of Carstairs closure and routing via ECML, and Colton Junction failure, which given they were travelling on a day off and in double time overtime, even before the ludicrously expensive rail fares, proved rather costly to the company concerned !

Doing the “right” thing certainly has a price !

 

[paul1609]

There’s no doubt that the rail service has taken passengers from the airlines. The number of flights London - Edinburgh has reduced, as has the capacity of the aircraft. The point of contention is whether it is the arrival of Lumo that has triggered this, or whether it would have happened anyway.

For Stansted, AIUI there is a decent amount of traffic from the ‘Cambridge sphere of influence’ to Edinburgh, people in biosciences, medical, and IT. Many of these people live in the surrounding area where a drive to Stevenage is not much different to a drive to Stansted.

Its certainly interesting that the Heathrow & Gatwick to Edinburgh services are more or less back to what they've always been and that the cuts have been to Stansted and Luton.
Easyjet start flying from Southampton in late October following the completion of the runway extension and they have chosen Glasgow for their first Scottish destination rather than Edinburgh. Perhaps an attempt to kill off the Bournemouth Cross Country route for good?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 May 2023 ==

Also relevant to this and your last point on the business bookings - increasingly companies are flatly refusing to book domestic flights, and insisting on “green travel” - eg Lumo, LNER, Sleeper, Avanti etc. I have encountered this recently where a company insisted a group of people travel Glasgow - Brighton but not fly, which given it was a weekend of Carstairs closure and routing via ECML, and Colton Junction failure, which given they were travelling on a day off and in double time overtime, even before the ludicrously expensive rail fares, proved rather costly to the company concerned !

Doing the “right” thing certainly has a price !

Given the last report I saw had Business Rail travel at 38% of pre pandemic if they are gaining significant air travel on green grounds it shows what a dire strait the rail finances must be in.

 

[InOban]

Gatwick to Edinburgh is not back to normal because BA have never returned. There are also far fewer flights between Edinburgh and City.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Given the last report I saw had Business Rail travel at 38% of pre pandemic if they are gaining significant air travel on green grounds it shows what a dire strait the rail finances must be in.

I'm not sure to what extent they are. Business travel has declined across the board, not just on rail.

 

[paul1609]

Gatwick to Edinburgh is not back to normal because BA have never returned. There are also far fewer flights between Edinburgh and City.

Haven't the Gatwick Edinburgh Flights just transferred to Heathrow now, its more or less an hourly service? Can't really comment on city because the flights have generally been out of my price range.

 

[Bald Rick]

Haven't the Gatwick Edinburgh Flights just transferred to Heathrow now, its more or less an hourly service? Can't really comment on city because the flights have generally been out of my price range.

On a typical weekday in 2005, there were around 55 flights each way from London to Edinburgh; now there’s 34.

BA run roughly the same number as back then, albeit they have come out of Gatwick (6 to 0) and doubled numbers at City (5 to 10).

Easyjet have fewer flights (2 more from Gatwick, 3 fewer from Luton, 4 fewer from Stansted), off set by Ryanair running 3 from Stansted when they didn’t back then.

the biggest change is the absence of other operators: BMI, Globespan and Scot Airways, who between them ran 17 pairs a day.

Air Passenger numbers back then were 3.8m per year; in 2019 they were 3.3m. In 2022 it was 1.9m, but they were still suppressed post Covid.

Rail passenger numbers on the route have more than doubled since 2005.

 

[Energy]

Easyjet start flying from Southampton in late October following the completion of the runway extension and they have chosen Glasgow for their first Scottish destination rather than Edinburgh. Perhaps an attempt to kill off the Bournemouth Cross Country route for good?

There isn't a direct Bournemouth to Glasgow service, you'd need to change in Manchester. A lot of the traffic on Bournemouth to Manchester isn't end to end anyway.

 

[Bald Rick]

There isn't a direct Bournemouth to Glasgow service, you'd need to change in Manchester.

Or Birmingham, Wolverhampton or London.

A lot of the traffic on Bournemouth to Manchester isn't end to end anyway.

Indeed. Almost none of it is.

 

[BRX]

On the question of tickets - in the period prior to separating the franchise - I have recollection of buying a berth ticket to a non London destination via the telesales - was I effectively buying an off peak return and then a berth upgrade for the Glasgow-London leg ?

If so - this would seem an obvious upgrade to the sleeper booking engine - to allow people to book from other destinations.

In fact, given the supposed purpose of bringing high value tourists in - I’d have thought there would be an argument to allow an amount of onward travel on the Scotrail network for a small supplement, or for advertising through tickets from European destinations via Eurostar.

In my head there is a pretty clear way of showing on the website - this portion is in a bed - this portion is in a seat.

Agreed, I don't really understand why CS have never bothered to make onward booking easy.

There are obvious onwards destinations like Kyle or Mallaig or Oban. Perhaps they consider that their core market is above travelling on regular trains and will hire a car or take a taxi to their fancy hotel.

 

[jagardner1984]

Agreed, I don't really understand why CS have never bothered to make onward booking easy.

There are obvious onwards destinations like Kyle or Mallaig or Oban. Perhaps they consider that their core market is above travelling on regular trains and will hire a car or take a taxi to their fancy hotel.

Or indeed given the persistent non availability on certain routes - for example offering “we have berths available to Edinburgh on your selected dates, click here for London - Glasgow via Edinburgh from £xxx. Your connecting Scotrail service will arrive in Glasgow at 0845”.

It might seem obvious to residents, but not perhaps to those travelling from overseas. And would keep more of the revenue within the sleeper business.

I find the booking engine involves a lot of clicking back and forth when there is poor availability on the chosen route. EasyJet for example are very good at up selling alternative routes, and showing prices for a date range (eg a month).

It doesn’t help the “it’s a rip off argument” that cheaper fares are unfathomably difficult to find.

 

[lachlan]

Or indeed given the persistent non availability on certain routes - for example offering “we have berths available to Edinburgh on your selected dates, click here for London - Glasgow via Edinburgh from £xxx. Your connecting Scotrail service will arrive in Glasgow at 0845”.

It might seem obvious to residents, but not perhaps to those travelling from overseas. And would keep more of the revenue within the sleeper business.

I find the booking engine involves a lot of clicking back and forth when there is poor availability on the chosen route. EasyJet for example are very good at up selling alternative routes, and showing prices for a date range (eg a month).

It doesn’t help the “it’s a rip off argument” that cheaper fares are unfathomably difficult to find.

Indeed. Having recently booked a trip to Edinburgh because the Fort William and Glasgow legs were booked up, the website didn’t make this obvious at all. Had to do a bunch of digging to find that the Edinburgh train was free.

 

[JamieL]

Indeed. Having recently booked a trip to Edinburgh because the Fort William and Glasgow legs were booked up, the website didn’t make this obvious at all. Had to do a bunch of digging to find that the Edinburgh train was free.

What date was that? And how far in advance were you booking? Can't say I have ever had trouble booking the sleeper provided I do so several weeks out.

Just checking now - availability all of next week (Sun 4 to Fri 9) on Lowlander and Highlander.

Surely the "whole bunch of digging" is just selecting "Edinburgh" from the pulldown list?

 

[trei2k]

What is the current position in relation to using the seated sleeper for local journeys on the West Highland line? i.e. if I wanted to travel Dalmuir to Fort William (or vice versa) - is it possible to get a reservation if I already hold a particular ticket like an off-peak return?

Just a quick update on this: you can book seats for local journeys on the Railforum/TrainSplit link above when buying a ticket from them. It worked very well for me and I will certainly be using it again in the future.

 

[_toommm_]

Just a quick update on this: you can book seats for local journeys on the Railforum/TrainSplit link above when buying a ticket from them. It worked very well for me and I will certainly be using it again in the future.

That’s what I did. I booked a ticket to Glenfinnan from Queen Stret, and added a very long wait at Corrour so I could get a seat reservation on the sleeper to Corrour and went for a long hike there.

It’s worth paying attention to the sleeper’s progress on its journey as it will often miss Queen Street if it’s more than twenty late. If it does, get a ScotRail to Dalmuir and it’s a very quick change there as that’s what I had to do.

 

[lachlan]

What date was that? And how far in advance were you booking? Can't say I have ever had trouble booking the sleeper provided I do so several weeks out.

Just checking now - availability all of next week (Sun 4 to Fri 9) on Lowlander and Highlander.

Surely the "whole bunch of digging" is just selecting "Edinburgh" from the pulldown list?

I’m travelling in around two weeks and I wanted a room and it was booked up (managed to book a room to Edinburgh instead)

The website kept saying there were rooms available then if I try to book it says they’re unavailable(later it changed to saying the whole train was booked up). And whenever you change destination you have to re-enter the number of passengers and railcards. There’s also no calendar view AFAIK to see what days are available- one must go through each day individually.

You know you don’t have to defend Serco at every opportunity, right?

 

[jagardner1984]

What date was that? And how far in advance were you booking? Can't say I have ever had trouble booking the sleeper provided I do so several weeks out.

Just checking now - availability all of next week (Sun 4 to Fri 9) on Lowlander and Highlander.

Surely the "whole bunch of digging" is just selecting "Edinburgh" from the pulldown list?

It is more that “sold out” is a rather more offputting message to an uncertain tourist than “you could take this slightly less direct and convenient service instead”.

The sleeper booking engine does lag somewhat behind numerous other rail ticketing websites, but it is useful to know through tickets can be booked via this site.

 

[alistairlees]

I’m travelling in around two weeks and I wanted a room and it was booked up (managed to book a room to Edinburgh instead)

The website kept saying there were rooms available then if I try to book it says they’re unavailable(later it changed to saying the whole train was booked up). And whenever you change destination you have to re-enter the number of passengers and railcards. There’s also no calendar view AFAIK to see what days are available- one must go through each day individually.

You know you don’t have to defend Serco at every opportunity, right?

You might not have to wait much longer for these things and more

 

[jagardner1984]

You might not have to wait much longer for these things and more

You tease !

Credit where it is due - sleeper options are much more complex than the two types of seat for most other journeys - so if they pull off a better booking experience - that will be a job well done from my perspective.

 

[JamieL]

I’m travelling in around two weeks and I wanted a room and it was booked up (managed to book a room to Edinburgh instead)

The website kept saying there were rooms available then if I try to book it says they’re unavailable(later it changed to saying the whole train was booked up). And whenever you change destination you have to re-enter the number of passengers and railcards. There’s also no calendar view AFAIK to see what days are available- one must go through each day individually.

You know you don’t have to defend Serco at every opportunity, right?

The only 'sold out' date next month for LON to GLA is 2 June (although I admit the First Class berths are tighter in supply).

 

[jagardner1984]

The only 'sold out' date next month for LON to GLA is 2 June (although I admit the First Class berths are tighter in supply).

Well that is a lucky situation. Sometimes people will be travelling at very short notice. Sometimes people will be trying to book Edinburgh during the festival. I have experienced quite a few times where I have been unable to book for my chosen day / date.

There are many user groups who will benefit from a better booking engine - and it sounds like one is coming, so good news for us all.

 

[Gaelan]

Surely the "whole bunch of digging" is just selecting "Edinburgh" from the pulldown list?

Not quite - the CS website doesn’t have a way to change search parameters (other than date), so to change station you have to go back to the homepage and re-enter your dates, passengers, railcards, etc. Not impossible, but far more faff than it should be!

 

[InOban]

The Aberdeen portion broke down between Kirkcaldy and Markinch with scotrail services having to run via dunfermline

 

[Cheshire Scot]

The only 'sold out' date next month for LON to GLA is 2 June (although I admit the First Class berths are tighter in supply).

Perhaps Celtic fans heading to the Scottish Cup final adding to the normal level of demand.

 

[lachlan]

The only 'sold out' date next month for LON to GLA is 2 June (although I admit the First Class berths are tighter in supply).

On the day I wanted to travel only seats were available on the Glasgow train (I’ve taken the seat before but it’s not a comfortable experience)

 

[jagardner1984]

On the day I wanted to travel only seats were available on the Glasgow train (I’ve taken the seat before but it’s not a comfortable experience)

This is the understatement of the century