Caledonian Sleeper

GRALISTAIR · 9 Aug 2019

All I can say is “Oh dear the sleeper service is having terrible bad luck”

RailUK Forums

david_g · 9 Aug 2019

CS set came through Brinklow on the up slow about 11.30am. I thought it was both late and running slowly at the time, the above explains it.

AndrewE · 9 Aug 2019

Thanks, I had a quick look at the thread but obviously didn't read far enough.
I'm still astonished that Virgin even considered refusing acceptance, let alone told people. Glad they went back on it too, although too late for some.
the story is unbelievable:

I’m on it, can confirm I’ve no goodwill! Awoken at 5:30 and told we’d be getting a Virgin train at 6. Then this was retracted as Virgin wouldn’t accept us. Then no info til 6:30 when told to get out and go to waiting rooms as platform was needed. Bus replacement would be at....8:30/9 and would take 4 hours according to googlemaps. Then they told us we could buy train tickets to London and be reimbursed. So we’ve done this and are now on fast train to London getting in at 9:06. Was £359 upfront for 2 with a railcard. Not everyone will have that ready...

Dren Ahmeti · 9 Aug 2019

AndrewE said:
Thanks, I had a quick look at the thread but obviously didn't read far enough.
I'm still astonished that Virgin even considered refusing acceptance, let alone told people. Glad they went back on it too, although too late for some.
the story is unbelievable:

VT refused acceptance as they had their own pax loadings and issues to deal with, what with the OHL issues near Coventry.

modernrail · 9 Aug 2019

Extremely annoying for those concerned. However, I am tempted to express a little sympathy for Virgin. They must be sick to the back teeth of having to pick up the pieces for Serco's inability to run a proper service.

richa2002 · 9 Aug 2019

Dren Ahmeti said:
VT refused acceptance as they had their own pax loadings and issues to deal with, what with the OHL issues near Coventry.

This is the epitome of what's wrong with the privatised railway. At times like this, all passengers should be treated equally and TOCs become irrelevant.

Ianno87 · 9 Aug 2019

richa2002 said:
This is the epitome of what's wrong with the privatised railway. At times like this, all passengers should be treated equally and TOCs become irrelevant.

Ownership is not going to make getting 16 carriages worth of sleeper passengers onto 11 carriages worth of Pendolino any easier.

LeylandLen · 9 Aug 2019

modernrail said:
Extremely annoying for those concerned. However, I am tempted to express a little sympathy for Virgin. They must be sick to the back teeth of having to pick up the pieces for Serco's inability to run a proper service.

Can well understand your point ; not the first time CS have terminated a sleeper at Preston or elsewhere on WCML and hoped Virgin would take stranded passengers.I would image Virgin would try to get compensation from CS ; do they pay up ?

Bletchleyite · 9 Aug 2019

AndrewE said:
Thanks, I had a quick look at the thread but obviously didn't read far enough.
I'm still astonished that Virgin even considered refusing acceptance, let alone told people. Glad they went back on it too, although too late for some.
the story is unbelievable:

If they did refuse, why weren't CS staff there with their corporate credit card purchasing said tickets? That's how I believe the open access operators have done it in the past.

Bletchleyite · 9 Aug 2019

Ianno87 said:
Ownership is not going to make getting 16 carriages worth of sleeper passengers onto 11 carriages worth of Pendolino any easier.

16 carriages of sleeper passengers is not very many - what's that, about 12 per coach in most cases? Probably 2 Standard coaches at most, and at a time of day when due to the high Anytime fares VTWC is decidedly quiet.

berneyarms · 9 Aug 2019

Ianno87 said:
Ownership is not going to make getting 16 carriages worth of sleeper passengers onto 11 carriages worth of Pendolino any easier.

We are talking about 16 sleeper coaches - which includes two lounge cars which don't have passengers allocated to them, and plenty of single berths too within the sleeper coaches - not 16 seated coaches. Therefore we aren't talking massive numbers here.

I find it difficult to believe that the load couldn't be spread over three or four VT services.

richa2002 · 9 Aug 2019

Ianno87 said:
Ownership is not going to make getting 16 carriages worth of sleeper passengers onto 11 carriages worth of Pendolino any easier.

Never said it would. But they should have as much chance as the VT passengers.

MrEd · 9 Aug 2019

sftfan1909 said:
Just rang them up and it turns out that the bus carrying passengers to Glasgow which stop between A&T and Glasgow also continues to Edinburgh afterwards, so I can board that

Excellent! Good that they came up with a solution for you.

Bletchleyite · 9 Aug 2019

richa2002 said:
Never said it would. But they should have as much chance as the VT passengers.

VTWCs in the morning peak are generally not full.

gray1404 · 9 Aug 2019

The problem is that if the sleeper is candelled the passenger's are stranded, as there is only one sleeper service that day. Therefore it is arguable that Virgin had no basis to refuse to take effected passengers as a TOC in a position to help in the absence of no alternative transport arranged by CS at that point. Also, if new tickets is really required, don't the guards on the CS carry a ticket machine anyway?

Taunton · 9 Aug 2019

Dren Ahmeti said:
VT refused acceptance as they had their own pax loadings and issues to deal with, what with the OHL issues near Coventry.

Then they told us we could buy train tickets to London and be reimbursed. So we’ve done this and are now on fast train to London getting in at 9:06. Was £359 upfront for 2 with a railcard

Can someone explain to me why tickets are not accepted by another operator because they have "no room", but if the same passengers go and buy tickets for £359 miraculously there is space for them.

Presumably "acceptance" does not give them this sort of money. Sounds like a revenue grab to me.

MrEd · 9 Aug 2019

route:oxford said:
I'm just disgusted by what's happened here.

There are absolutely no circumstancees where a UK railway passenger should find themselves told to buy a new ticket if they want to continue a journey, when the train that they are currently on fails.

It's a never never event. if the on train crew couldn't issue 200 tickets to "cash" with the accountants sorting it out later, The head of Serco should have been on the phone with his company credit card to buy 200 tickets.

Given the £Ms of cash Westminster is throwing at the service, the head of Serco needs to be interviewed by a committee at Parliament.

This happened to me (equally inexcusably) heading northbound to Inverness at Perth in November 2016, when the ETS on the Class 73 failed and we were chucked off in -4 degrees (into the renowned ice box that is Perth station). I mentioned this upthread, but we were told that our only option was to wait until 08.30 for a replacement bus which would stop at every station (some of which involve considerable deviations off the A9) to Inverness, and would not reach Inverness until at least 11.45. No formal ticket acceptance was arranged with Scotrail, despite the 08:10 Perth to Inverness having plenty of spare capacity and connecting with the Wick and Kyle services which a number of the sleeper passengers (myself included) wanted. A good number of sleeper passengers, either because they had these connections or because they were freezing, just boarded the 08:10 Perth to Inverness and let the conductor decide what to do. One of the sleeper crew (a London crew on this occasion) actually discouraged us from doing this on the ground that we could incur a penalty fare (in Scotland!!!), but we were all too irate/frozen to care. (I hope CS have reminded the staff member concerned that there are no penalty fares schemes in Scotland, and that on-train staff can exercise discretion in any case). The Scotrail conductor on the 08:10 (a Perth man, I believe) was extremely sympathetic and let us all travel without any extra charge (he even let some of the standard sleeper passengers sit in first class), even giving us free cups of tea off the trolley. A lovely reminder that Scottish hospitality is definitely alive and well! He actually remarked how disgusting it was that CS had done what they did.

I do think that Virgin, although they had their own problems, could have been a little more sympathetic this morning (and I think that CS need to be more proactive in arranging ticket acceptance). No one wants to endure waiting around in the freezing cold/rain/wind for a slow bus, especially when perfectly usable fast trains to their destination are pulling out in front of them! That sort of thing definitely annoys the travelling public.

Bletchleyite · 9 Aug 2019

Taunton said:
Can someone explain to me why tickets are not accepted by another operator because they have "no room", but if the same passengers go and buy tickets for £359 miraculously there is space for them.

Presumably "acceptance" does not give them this sort of money. Sounds like a revenue grab to me.

It's probably more that VTWC didn't want the extra passengers, but as there is no scope for them to prevent the sale of walk-up tickets that there was nothing they could do to prevent them just going and buying them.

Bletchleyite · 9 Aug 2019

MrEd said:
One of the sleeper crew (a London crew on this occasion) actually discouraged us from doing this on the ground that we could incur a penalty fare (in Scotland!!!), but we were all too irate/frozen to care. (I hope CS have reminded the staff member concerned that there are no penalty fares schemes in Scotland, and that on-train staff can exercise discretion in any case)

And that ScotRail basically can't prosecute due to Scottish law being different, so at worst all they could do is flog Anytime Singles, or issue UFNs to anyone refusing to buy one.

Merseysider · 9 Aug 2019

MrEd said:
That sort of thing definitely annoys the travelling public.

...and encourages them to fly next time.

oxfordray1 · 9 Aug 2019

Merseysider said:
...and encourages them to fly next time.

Backing up your point, I personally will never use CS again. Horrible journey. Flying or City Link for me.

Bletchleyite · 9 Aug 2019

oxfordray1 said:
Backing up your point, I personally will never use CS again. Horrible journey. Flying or City Link for me.

What's the relevance of a Scottish domestic coach operation to CS?

syorksdeano · 9 Aug 2019

Bletchleyite said:
What's the relevance of a Scottish domestic coach operation to CS?

At a guess, at the moment your more likely to get a coach than CS

Bletchleyite · 9 Aug 2019

syorksdeano said:
At a guess, at the moment your more likely to get a coach than CS

I suspect he meant Megabus/NatEx, but (having just spent 20-odd hours on a coach for a Scout event which was only even vaguely acceptable because us Leaders had a double seat each) I can't see how, other than for the seats, they are in even remotely similar markets - no way would I take an overnight coach for a work trip, not in a million years.

oxfordray1 · 9 Aug 2019

Bletchleyite said:
What's the relevance of a Scottish domestic coach operation to CS?

When I next go to Arrochar + Tarbet I'll get a direct Manchester to Glasgow train and then City Link (or Scotrail) to Tarbet. Even with a Travelodge stay in Glasgow, it would be much more preferable to me than the CS, based on prior experience (sample size of 1, but it was bad).

Jocques · 9 Aug 2019

I received a call from one of the customer service team, about my trip on Monday. They've said that I'm fine to travel from Crewe to Dundee, then a coach to Fort William. I'll receive a 50% discount, so down from £92 to £46.

SN1 19-5 · 9 Aug 2019

Why didn't virgin offer to run this way back in the day? Maybe, they did. And it went wrong. Don't know.

Please excuse my reluctance to read the whole thread from the start. I only joined here in May.

oxfordray1 · 9 Aug 2019

Bletchleyite said:
I suspect he meant Megabus/NatEx, but (having just spent 20-odd hours on a coach for a Scout event which was only even vaguely acceptable because us Leaders had a double seat each) I can't see how, other than for the seats, they are in even remotely similar markets - no way would I take an overnight coach for a work trip, not in a million years.

I agree, I would never get a 20-hour coach for a work trip. When I'm paying for it though it's borderline.

Bletchleyite · 9 Aug 2019

oxfordray1 said:
I agree, I would never get a 20-hour coach for a work trip. When I'm paying for it though it's borderline.

I'd consider it for a leisure trip if they'd allow me to pay a little extra to ensure a pair of seats. A single seat is just too cramped. I put up with it on a plane only because it is the only realistic option.

mde · 9 Aug 2019

route:oxford said:
Given the £Ms of cash Westminster is throwing at the service, the head of Serco needs to be interviewed by a committee at Parliament.

It seems more likely that it'd be under the purview of the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee at Holyrood, given the contract was tendered by Scottish Ministers.

Their rail focus to date has been predominantly the ScotRail alliance, with Mr Hynes being a regular visitor; but, perhaps it is time for them to look at what on earth is happening at CS.

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