Is there anything preventing a northbound Inverness passenger walking through the train to use the Aberdeen/Fort William lounge if there's a serious mismatch in loadings?
This is against company policy, so far as I can see, and is generally not allowed- generally a lounge car host will ask for the passenger’s carriage and berth number, and if an Inverness passenger is in the Aberdeen/Fort William lounge, or vice versa, they will generally be politely directed to the lounge car in their own portion. Often passengers in coaches E, F and G (with the new stock, these are the Fort William coaches in the middle of the train) end up in the Inverness lounge car because this is actually closer than the Aberdeen one they’re supposed to use, and are redirected to the Aberdeen one.
Most team leaders are insistent that this policy is upheld- but
@47271 I know exactly what you’re referring to- one or two team leaders from various crew bases are not especially pleasant when enforcing this rule (the woeful host manning the Inverness lounge back in November treated some stray folk from the Aberdeen/Fort William portions like they’d just escaped from a high security prison, whereas others just politely point the passengers in the direction of the correct lounge- the staff need to remember sometimes that not every passenger is familiar with the train or its layout). I believe that this has been policy after a notorious incident, perhaps in the early Scotrail era, whereby a young lass ended up in a lounge car in the wrong portion of the train, and after an extended drinking session, realised that she was beyond Edinburgh, the train had split and that she had no accommodation (and that her belongings were hurtling north towards Aberdeen without her...). The only time this rule is relaxed is when one of the two lounge cars on the northbound Highlander cannot provide a full service, due to either electrical faults or a staff shortage. When this happens, the staff are very careful to ensure that everyone returns to the correct portion well before Edinburgh.
In any case, the mismatch in loadings may not always be particularly great.