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Caledonian Sleeper

trebor79

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8 Mar 2018
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What exactly is the splitting and attaching procedure at Edinburgh on the Highlander? It seems to regularly lose time on the South bound run attaching the portions.
There are some videos on YouTube. Fort William, Inverness and Aberdeen portions split/join at Edinburgh. In addition, a lounge and seated coach are attached/detached from the Fort William portion.
 
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6Z09

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19 Nov 2009
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What exactly is the splitting and attaching procedure at Edinburgh on the Highlander? It seems to regularly lose time on the South bound run attaching the portions.
A fairly complex operation,now slowed down further by the new improved dellner coupling process!
Three trains into one at night,involving five locos,several shunts.
One train into three in the morning splitting pulling forward,locos to attach,detach.Dellners to lift or lower at every couple/uncouple. One Train Manager handing over to three,plus the added complication of the Fort William seated and lounge cars.very easy to loose time.
I think any videos will be the old stock,however give a good overview.
 
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BRX

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What exactly is the splitting and attaching procedure at Edinburgh on the Highlander? It seems to regularly lose time on the South bound run attaching the portions.

These videos show the process with the old stock. With the new stock the order of the train is a little different but the basic principle is the same.

Joining up the southbound portions:

Splitting the northbound portions:

(and adding the Fort William day coaches to the northbound):
 

Bassman

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14 Dec 2018
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Does anyone think there could be a time when the highland sleepers become so popular with more coaches, that they could run as direct trains without splitting as now. ( presuming the trend for green travel grows!)
Highly speculative but very desirable in the long term.
 

Scotrail84

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5 Jul 2010
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73970 came back from Eastleigh 14 October, so none are away currently. It's on exam/repair and two others have suffered wheelflats, hence the 66 (and 67 from tonight probably).
There's currently little difference with train manager/cab comms whether it's a 66, 67 or another 73/9 on the front.


There is no driver/guard comms other than 2 way radios on these services at the moment.
 

Scotrail84

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Does anyone think there could be a time when the highland sleepers become so popular with more coaches, that they could run as direct trains without splitting as now. ( presuming the trend for green travel grows!)
Highly speculative but very desirable in the long term.


Not likely. Anyway, loco changes would still be needed at Edinburgh, as well as extra drivers, guards, hosts and locos would need to be sourced. There are only 75 vet's with 66ish in use each night.
 

Dr Hoo

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A fairly complex operation,now slowed down further by the new improved dellner coupling process!
Three trains into one at night,involving five locos,several shunts.
One train into three in the morning splitting pulling forward,locos to attach,detach.Dellners to lift or lower at every couple/uncouple. One Train Manager handing over to three,plus the added complication of the Fort William seated and lounge cars.very easy to loose time.
I think any videos will be the old stock,however give a good overview.
Could someone explain this please?
I thought that the whole idea was that the Dellner couplers were 'up' and at a standard height (at least within the CS fleet) the whole time, at least during shunting at Carstairs or Edinburgh.
 

BRX

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Does anyone think there could be a time when the highland sleepers become so popular with more coaches, that they could run as direct trains without splitting as now. ( presuming the trend for green travel grows!)
Highly speculative but very desirable in the long term.
I don't see why it should be ruled out as a possibility. It would be a political rather than commercial decision to do so though (unless they somehow manage to consistently fill the trains with very high fares).

I think the possibility of the Lowlander services being rendered redundant by HS2 has been discussed in the past (with stock then being available to transfer to highland operations).
 

Bald Rick

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Does anyone think there could be a time when the highland sleepers become so popular with more coaches, that they could run as direct trains without splitting as now. ( presuming the trend for green travel grows!)
Highly speculative but very desirable in the long term.

Not a chance unless one or both Governements decides to provide a lot more subsidy. Don’t forget that even with the fares being charged now, the operation loses a lot of money.
 

JModulo

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17 Nov 2013
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Best excuse for the lounge car not being open tonight goes to..... "we're waiting on the food trolleys coming from the airport and can't let you on for health and safety reasons"
 

6Z09

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Could someone explain this please?
I thought that the whole idea was that the Dellner couplers were 'up' and at a standard height (at least within the CS fleet) the whole time, at least during shunting at Carstairs or Edinburgh.
Dellners are only up when attached to a coach, when uncoupled from the coach the coupler has air pipes disconnected and is lowered, to attach raise coupler, connect air pipes then couple, a fairly labourious procedure compared to the old stock!
 

Bletchleyite

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"Marston Vale mafia"
Dellners are only up when attached to a coach, when uncoupled from the coach the coupler has air pipes disconnected and is lowered, to attach raise coupler, connect air pipes then couple, a fairly labourious procedure compared to the old stock!

That's a, er, clever piece of design. Not.

I know you can't run hotel power through a Dellner, but I thought the idea was to minimise crawling around on the floor for both safety and efficiency reasons.
 

Altnabreac

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Salt & Vinegar
Does anyone think there could be a time when the highland sleepers become so popular with more coaches, that they could run as direct trains without splitting as now. ( presuming the trend for green travel grows!)
Highly speculative but very desirable in the long term.

I could see the Sleeper being rationalised to 2 x 8 coach trains with a Fort William / Inverness portion picking up Glasgow passengers en route and an Aberdeen / Edinburgh portion splitting in Edinburgh and leaving 8 coaches there.

This would significantly simply operations , reduce loco usage, less splits and no need to early morning change for Fort William seat passengers.

The downside would be early arrivals / late departures for Glasgow passengers but they could of course use Edinburgh services and then get a day train.

This won’t happen in the current franchise but I could see it being proposed in future.
 

6Z09

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That's a, er, clever piece of design. Not.

I know you can't run hotel power through a Dellner, but I thought the idea was to minimise crawling around on the floor for both safety and efficiency reasons.
Just to make clear, the raising and lowering of dellners is on the locos.
The ones on the coaches are fixed.
 

MrEd

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13 Jan 2019
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Best excuse for the lounge car not being open tonight goes to..... "we're waiting on the food trolleys coming from the airport and can't let you on for health and safety reasons"

Which portion of the train is this on, and who came up with that one? That message is so garbled as to be nonsensical. I think something is quite clearly lost in translation! How would railway catering supplies need to come from an airport?
 

JModulo

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Which portion of the train is this on, and who came up with that one? That message is so garbled as to be nonsensical. I think something is quite clearly lost in translation! How would railway catering supplies need to come from an airport?

Inverness, and thats what several of the hosts had been telling passengers.
 

BRX

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This rather wobbly video (not mine) shows some of the coupling process

 

PG

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at the end of the high and low roads
Which portion of the train is this on, and who came up with that one? That message is so garbled as to be nonsensical. I think something is quite clearly lost in translation! How would railway catering supplies need to come from an airport?
Could it be that the catering supplier used by CS happens to be based at the airport?
I do hope supplies are not flown from Scotland for loading onto the northbound sleepers!!
 

John Bishop

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15 Nov 2018
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Perth
1M16 losing time through the night now 107L
1S25 seem to lose a load of time at Edinburgh, now 64L
1A25 seems to be okay, 17E leaving Edinburgh to 7L after Dundee
1Y11 left Edinburgh 56L and now 77L
 

Tormod

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1 Mar 2017
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Leith
Aberdeen section broken down near Montrose, and Edinburgh section cancelled from Carlisle :( Not a good night
 

InOban

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12 Mar 2017
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Indeed I'm wondering if it's broken down on the single track section because ScotRail are advising problems in both directions.
 

CJSwan

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23 Aug 2017
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It’s in Arbroath station (from what I can gather). Northbound services are being terminated at Dundee, so trains and crew can’t get to Aberdeen to work the southbound services.

For example, the 08:20 Aberdeen to Penzance is being started from Dundee.
 
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Could it be that the catering supplier used by CS happens to be based at the airport?
I do hope supplies are not flown from Scotland for loading onto the northbound sleepers!!

Makes sense, CS's offering is probably closer to that of a full service airline than the usual on train offering. Except for the seats where you're lucky to be offered the opportunity to buy anything before 2300 these days.
 

Morayshire

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6 Feb 2019
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It’s in Arbroath station (from what I can gather). Northbound services are being terminated at Dundee, so trains and crew can’t get to Aberdeen to work the southbound services.

For example, the 08:20 Aberdeen to Penzance is being started from Dundee.
Now showing on RTT as terminating in Montrose 196 mins late at 10:03
 

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