It's absolutely true that Highlander bookings, and prices charged, are substantially up on where they were two or three years ago.
However, it's also true that on a day to day basis the quality of service falls substantially short of those prices. Not just whether they put you up in an hotel if the train's cancelled, but shoddy cabin cleaning, catering failures, terrible breakfasts in cardboard boxes, staff attitude in many cases, and technical basics like ride quality. This can only last for so long. Anyone who thinks that CS don't need to bother about getting good coverage is kidding themselves.
I think that the major problem facing CS at the moment is consistency. When everything on the Mk5s works well and you get a full complement of well trained, enthusiastic staff members, it genuinely is a world class rail travel experience- my trip on the Mk5s to Spean Bridge on January 22nd-23rd is undoubtedly the most enjoyable trip I’ve ever had on the sleeper (my allocated club room was in perfect working order and everything in it worked as it should, there was lots of hot water in the shower, I got a good sleep, the food was excellent and a full menu was on offer both in the evening and in the morning, I got a fantastic welcome from the lovely and enthusiastic Fort William crew) and I left the train at Spean feeling extremely happy with the experience and smiling about it for the rest of the day. Then I look back to the (memorable for all the wrong reasons) experience of 5th-6th November going up to Inverness which was a litany of all the problems you describe (not helped by the fact that the train was running two hours late, and the somewhat surly and inexperienced staff seemed away with the fairies and oblivious to many of the issues). I will never know this, but a good number of those travelling that night in November may well (justifiably) have been put off the sleeper. CS need to get it right every night, and I just don’t think that they are even close to achieving that at the moment. I am a huge supporter of the sleeper and desperately want it to succeed, but there are only so many PR disasters that it can handle surely?
While the guy’s video posted earlier seems a little harsh at times, and I would not write the sleeper off anywhere near as quickly as he did, some of his criticisms about e.g. the shower not working seem perfectly valid in the light of the high fares and the expectations generated by the marketing. I do sympathise with his frustration over the late running- while the long single line sections are a feature of the Highland Main Line and can and do adversely impact punctuality (and are not CS’ fault in the slightest), I do feel that the sleeper staff could be a wee bit more proactive in these circumstances in keeping passengers informed and giving updates on ETA etc. Certainly when the train was running two hours late up the HML back in November, there seemed to be a lot of shrugging shoulders when passengers asked when they were likely to reach Inverness- surely even an educated guess would be more helpful for the customers, who may have onward connections to consider (or even are getting picked up by taxi drivers/friends/family- and will need to update these people)? The staff on the Fort William route seem to be much better at giving educated guesses as to ETA based on where the train might be held to pass southbound traffic on the single line, and where it might be possible to make up a few minutes here and there.
As an aside, I recognised from the video the sulky team leader who was on duty in the lounge car when I travelled up in November that time- the absolute polar opposite of the truly lovely crew I travelled with to Spean Bridge a couple of weeks back. Unless he’s a relatively new staff member who’s mellowed since I travelled with him, I don’t suppose his attitude helped the reviewer’s perception of the service much... issues like the non-availability of the requested breakfast might have been handled better by a more pro-active and customer-friendly crew member.
