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Caledonian Sleeper

Scotrail84

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5 Jul 2010
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There's been much made of the poor communication from Caledonian Sleeper over these pages when trains are delayed. You'd have thought with the ongoing delays virtually every morning on the Northbound Highlander that by now they'd have robust social media arrangements in place to keep both passengers and those picking them up from intermediate stations up to date with developments. Clearly not. This morning the FW service was 2 hours late making it's final destination, the Inverness portion missed out several stops due to being prohibitively late too and yet checking the CS Twitter pages there was nothing whatsoever advising of the delays and even now there's still no a mention. Frankly that is abysmal customer service - it seems like they think if they don't mention it maybe it won't be noticed


Whats the obsession with Twitter? Its not compulsory for passengers to have Twitter is it? Anyway I doubt theres anyone able at Cal Sleeper to routinely monitor Twitter throughout he night when the proverbial has hit the fan.
 
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TimboM

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Whats the obsession with Twitter? Its not compulsory for passengers to have Twitter is it? Anyway I doubt theres anyone able at Cal Sleeper to routinely monitor Twitter throughout he night when the proverbial has hit the fan.
Agreed. I understand it's a useful medium ahead of boarding, but once on the train, the on-board staff tend to keep passengers informed directly when there's disruption, whilst taking into account the individual wishes each guest can express on their boarding/breakfast cards as to whether they want to be disturbed in the event of disruption or left asleep. This has certainly been my personal experience.

Once the train is underway, Twitter appears to serve only the nosey enthusiast, or the voyeurs who appear to relish in every misfortune the Sleeper has and can't wait to make some really helpful or productive comment.
 

side effect

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20 Jul 2015
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81
Agreed. I understand it's a useful medium ahead of boarding, but once on the train, the on-board staff tend to keep passengers informed directly when there's disruption, whilst taking into account the individual wishes each guest can express on their boarding/breakfast cards as to whether they want to be disturbed in the event of disruption or left asleep. This has certainly been my personal experience.

Once the train is underway, Twitter appears to serve only the nosey enthusiast, or the voyeurs who appear to relish in every misfortune the Sleeper has and can't wait to make some really helpful or productive comment.
If I'm up through the night on railcam and the sleeper is in trouble I try to help anyway I can. Someone might only have fb or only Twitter and if I can give any advice I will. If I lived anywhere near a failed train I would be there asap to offer any help I could.
 

JModulo

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Once the train is underway, Twitter appears to serve only the nosey enthusiast, or the voyeurs who appear to relish in every misfortune the Sleeper has and can't wait to make some really helpful or productive comment.

Alot of the time the onboard staff don't have a clue whats going on either though.
 

Chrism20

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27 Feb 2013
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Once the train is underway, Twitter appears to serve only the nosey enthusiast, or the voyeurs who appear to relish in every misfortune the Sleeper has and can't wait to make some really helpful or productive comment.

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there and this is probably the main reason CS have very little to do with twitter and don’t get engaged in anything other than what appears to be legitimate queries.

There are a few that you can set your watch by that going by their posts, comments and attitude have clearly never been near CS.

There are a few that also seem to like tagging in Alex Hynes.

Regardless of the issues there is one that just keeps jumping onto threads and banging on about the crew having been on strike and another that rants on about CAF being rubbish.

Genuine queries are liable to be missed because of these fools.
 
Joined
7 Aug 2011
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245
I think the social media feeds serve a very useful purpose for sleeper passengers. In the wee small hours I might stir and be curious about progress, but neither want to traipse down the train to find a host nor want disturbed. RTT can update me on live progress but an updated Twitter feed, or similar, provides valuable context and predicted arrival times.
 

Brissle Girl

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In the wee small hours I might stir and be curious about progress, but neither want to traipse down the train to find a host nor want disturbed.
But is your curiosity on the off chance that you stir enough of a reason to have someone on duty all night manning a twitter account, just because you can't be bothered to get up to fulfil that curiosity? The expectation will be that most customers will be asleep during the night, and there are staff on board to let you know if there is an issue, if you tell them that you want to be disturbed.
 

John Bishop

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15 Nov 2018
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Perth
Looks like a collision between a 73 and a Mk 5 in FW. Buffer broken off the 73 and some damage to the rear of the Mk 5.

was mentioned getting the 73 turned in order to operate south, but not entirely sure how that can take place up there?
 

JModulo

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Looks like a collision between a 73 and a Mk 5 in FW. Buffer broken off the 73 and some damage to the rear of the Mk 5.

was mentioned getting the 73 turned in order to operate south, but not entirely sure how that can take place up there?

You're about 24 hours too late.
 
Joined
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But is your curiosity on the off chance that you stir enough of a reason to have someone on duty all night manning a twitter account, just because you can't be bothered to get up to fulfil that curiosity? The expectation will be that most customers will be asleep during the night, and there are staff on board to let you know if there is an issue, if you tell them that you want to be disturbed.

I don't think it's an unreasonable expectation these days to be able to get as accurate an update, as is available, of any disruption on my phone. Additionally, as previously mentioned, those meeting sleeper passengers may want updates to plan pick ups.
They market, and price, this service as a high end product - the customer support should match. If I use the air alternative updates are easily available on line (of varying quality admittedly) for both passengers and other parties with a valid interest.
 

Richard P

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Joined
18 Dec 2018
Messages
92
Whats the obsession with Twitter? Its not compulsory for passengers to have Twitter is it? Anyway I doubt theres anyone able at Cal Sleeper to routinely monitor Twitter throughout he night when the proverbial has hit the fan.
Twitter, maybe their own website could list details - critical really as they don't have anyone actually in their offices most of the time when their train are running - I assume your not in a service industry?
 

MrEd

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13 Jan 2019
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587
There's been much made of the poor communication from Caledonian Sleeper over these pages when trains are delayed. You'd have thought with the ongoing delays virtually every morning on the Northbound Highlander that by now they'd have robust social media arrangements in place to keep both passengers and those picking them up from intermediate stations up to date with developments. Clearly not. This morning the FW service was 2 hours late making it's final destination, the Inverness portion missed out several stops due to being prohibitively late too and yet checking the CS Twitter pages there was nothing whatsoever advising of the delays and even now there's still no a mention. Frankly that is abysmal customer service - it seems like they think if they don't mention it maybe it won't be noticed

I agree with your overall argument, in that communication is paramount, but as I understand it, the northbound Inverness and Aberdeen portions can only skip intermediate stops to save time if they are significantly delayed and if both these conditions are met:

1) The station is marked ‘set down only’ in the timetable (I.e. not Kingussie, Aviemore or Carrbridge, from which day passengers can board to travel to Inverness) and if it can be ascertained on the basis of the passenger list (which the Inverness and Aberdeen sleepers, as reservations compulsory services, have for both seats and berths) that no passenger needs to alight there.
2) The stop is not needed for operational reasons such as crew changes (this rules out Stirling on the northbound Inverness portion).

On the Fort William portion, which carries day passengers, it is not generally possible to skip stops (although a couple of calls on the WHL are by request only), unless perhaps the train is running so late that any day passengers could be picked up by the first Scotrail train of the day without any inconvenience. That said, most stations on the West Highland Line are mandatory token exchange points for the RETB signalling, so the train will need to stop there to exchange tokens anyway. The Dalmuir stop is also needed for the guard change (and Helensburgh Upper for entering the radio signalling system and changing driver). That said, I have known the train to bypass Glasgow Queen Street (by taking the direct route to Dalmuir via the Edinburgh-Glasgow main line and the Cowlairs chord) when running late; perhaps day passengers from Glasgow Queen Street are simply put onto a unit to connect with the sleeper at Dalmuir. Glasgow Queen Street is a pick-up only call and no overnight passengers alight here under normal circumstances.

When I was on the severely delayed northbound Highlander to Inverness on Wednesday morning, I recall that the train skipped Dunblane, Gleneagles, Pitlochry, Blair Atholl and Dalwhinnie (although the train slowed here to allow the southbound HST to clear the single line section). In all cases, the train manager had made sure that no one intended to leave the train at any of those places. We did of course stop at Dunkeld and Newtonmore to allow a few sleeper passengers to alight. The skipping of stops will have been of inconvenience to no-one. I do feel for those picking up delayed sleeper passengers from these unstaffed Highland stations but this is not a problem unique to the sleeper.
 

MrEd

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13 Jan 2019
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587
Twitter, maybe their own website could list details - critical really as they don't have anyone actually in their offices most of the time when their train are running - I assume your not in a service industry?

The CS website ought to provide clear details if trains are likely to arrive late; it used to do this at the top of the homepage but this ended when the website was changed with the arrival of the Mk5s. Like other TOCs (e.g. Scotrail) it ought to have a JourneyCheck facility detailing severely disrupted/delayed services- this would be a great help to those picking up sleeper passengers from unstaffed highland stations (although most passengers will probably have communicated with their pick-up themselves if the train is likely to arrive severely late).
 

Bletchleyite

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Twitter, maybe their own website could list details - critical really as they don't have anyone actually in their offices most of the time when their train are running - I assume your not in a service industry?

A number of Eurostar guards "tweet the journey" officially. This might not be a terrible idea.
 

Chrism20

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27 Feb 2013
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A number of Eurostar guards "tweet the journey" officially. This might not be a terrible idea.

Is there really any need for sleeper guards or crew to tweet the journey?

The communication needs to improve and by all means there should be a social media/front line control presence between something like 5am-Midnight.

But realistically does there need to be a presence to the point that the spotter in C6 who’s stirred in the night gets a chain by chain update on the progress of the journey?
 

Bletchleyite

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Is there really any need for sleeper guards or crew to tweet the journey?

The communication needs to improve and by all means there should be a social media/front line control presence between something like 5am-Midnight.

But realistically does there need to be a presence to the point that the spotter in C6 who’s stirred in the night gets a chain by chain update on the progress of the journey?

Have you had a look at how Eurostar do it?
 

Chrism20

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Have you had a look at how Eurostar do it?

Yes I’ve seen how they do it but I don’t see what good it will do or what value it will add at circa 3am.

For example....

The train has come to a halt just outside Warrington at 3:12am and is now delayed 30 minutes. What value is there in firing out a tweet at 3am with this info?

Probably the only thing you will do is hack people off for notifications waking them up in the middle of the night.

A timely update as the sun comes up maybe but absolutely no need in the dark hours on a sleeper service - the clue being in the name.
 

6Z09

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19 Nov 2009
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I would think that currently the Train Managers have enough problems to deal with, never mind tweeting all night as well!
 

Bletchleyite

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The train has come to a halt just outside Warrington at 3:12am and is now delayed 30 minutes. What value is there in firing out a tweet at 3am with this info?

Because someone has just stirred and wonders what's going on.

Probably the only thing you will do is hack people off for notifications waking them up in the middle of the night.

You don't get notifications in the middle of the night if someone just Tweets.

A timely update as the sun comes up maybe but absolutely no need in the dark hours on a sleeper service - the clue being in the name.

Not everyone is going to be asleep.
 

Chrism20

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Because someone has just stirred and wonders what's going on.



You don't get notifications in the middle of the night if someone just Tweets.



Not everyone is going to be asleep.

Again what value does it add when the vast majority are sleeping and won’t give a damn or be able to do anything about the delay until daylight hours?

No one delayed in the middle of the night is going to phone ahead to their destination and say hey I’m running late.

It’s not the E* and it’s not the middle of the day where time is of the essence and someone picking you up needs alerted ASAP to a delay, you are suggesting they tweet to keep a few spotters entertained in the middle of the night.
 

AlterEgo

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Have you had a look at how Eurostar do it?

I have always thought the E* guards tweets to be useless. They merely duplicate what must be the content of their on train announcements, and I’ve always thought the purpose of them tweeting was simply to make them visible to people *not* travelling as company ambassadors.
 

leightonbd

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4 Oct 2013
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Edinburgh (South Sub)
Have managed to book myself a trip at last, a classic room which became available at short notice (the train had been showing seats and doubles only, but someone must have cancelled).

Does anyone know if I can expect the top bed to be folded away or do they leave it down regardless?
 

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