Do Sleepers make money?

kylemore · 7 Dec 2011

I've never had the couchette experience except on a ferry so I can't comment, however in a previous job I used the UK sleepers a lot.
I would agree that a good nights sleep it is not, unless you're very tired.
It's more of a snooze experience, however I personally found it a better snooze experience than trying to get to sleep knowing you had to be up at 5am for a stressful rush to the airport and all that entails!
And like most people, going to bed earlier is useless - you just lie awake stressing because you can't get to sleep!
However the reason I would rather take the train is the utterly detestable nature of air travel now. Unless you're flying on some premium fare/first class product it's a horrible way to travel.
Flying with Easyjet/Ryanair might appear to be cheap but I find savings are used up getting to/from airports and spending money just sitting about.
The security palaver at airports is more about obedience training for the peasants than real security!

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amcluesent · 7 Dec 2011

I would agree that a good nights sleep it is not, unless you're very tired

Southbound I find is far better. All the bumps and clangs are over at Edinburgh about by 00:30. Northbound, the shunting seems to happen at intervals throughout the night, plus I get off at HLU at 06:25, so it's an 'early start' anyway!

WestCoast · 7 Dec 2011

jonmorris0844 said:
I often find it hard to sleep at all when I know I've got to be up early to get to an airport; my mind is thinking about loads of things, have I forgotten this, that, will the taxi turn up, what if there's a delay.. etc.

If I could instead get on a train and know 'I'm on it' then I could easily relax as I'm on my way (unless it then breaks down!).

It depends where you are on the rail network though. When I have taken the train to Germany from my local station, it involves a very early Northern Pacer followed by a cramped Pendo. It takes around 3 hours and 30 minutes just to reach St. Pancras. I can get to the airport in less time on a direct train. Or the train to Hull, followed by overnight ferry to Rotterdam and then onwards is a more relaxing option I've found.

I appreciate sleepers may be a good option to mainland Europe, but if they only depart from St Pancras don't expect people to flock to them.

Another issue is just because we have the chunnel doesn't mean the ferries should be ignored. For those wising to have a more direct route from certain areas of the country they are very good. NXEA Rail&Sail is a good scheme.

shinkansen1966 · 7 Dec 2011

kylemore said:
However the reason I would rather take the train is the utterly detestable nature of air travel now. Unless you're flying on some premium fare/first class product it's a horrible way to travel.
Flying with Easyjet/Ryanair might appear to be cheap but I find savings are used up getting to/from airports and spending money just sitting about.
The security palaver at airports is more about obedience training for the peasants than real security!

Agreed. There is absolutely no pleasure at all in flying economy.

In July, pal and me paid £60 each and went EC first class from London KX to Aberdeen. OK, it was several hours longer than the flying, even factoring airport transfers. But once we arrived in Aberdeen, we both commented on how much we'd actually enjoyed the trip north.

WestCoast · 7 Dec 2011

shinkansen1966 said:
Agreed. There is absolutely no pleasure at all in flying economy..

Although some people, believe it or not, could think of nothing worse than spending so long on a daytime train, even in first class. However, on the flip side, I bet more people would find a overnight service, where they can sleep on flat bed to be an attractive proposal. That's why I believe that sleepers are so common in other places.

I'm on an aviation forum and there's quite a few people who detest the train, so there's two sides to every coin. To be honest, I'd agree that there's nothing special about travelling London to Glasgow on a windowless Pendo seat, the plane sounds more attractive to me. That goes for Voyagers too.

I do have to wonder that if Nightstar had gone ahead, what the international services would look like. It would be great to have an extensive network from the UK, although limiting the terminal to St Pancras may not attract enough passengers from other areas of the country IMHO.

jon0844 · 7 Dec 2011

So air nuts don't like trains, and rail nuts don't like flying... seems like it justifies the existence of both modes of transport then!

I would never suggest a sleeper (or any other train) would replace flying. There's limited capacity on a sleeper for a start, and they'd hardly run loads through the night.

Likewise, there is more capacity on the trains running up and down the country during the day than the flights that operate.

87031 · 7 Dec 2011

I think with the sky high rail fares there should be enough money to keep the sleepers going, the fares themsleves on the sleeper are too high as well £160 for a 1st class berth is a joke and thats an advanced fare, there should be better deals on the sleeper, they obviously dont care whether there fully booked or not, As for the sleeper itself i think its a great way to travel but like all rail fares in this country there far too high.

junglejames · 7 Dec 2011

tbtc said:
No, but your quote suggested that there was still a market for the Sleeper in the modern world.

There is a market for sleepers though. Not saying how much of a market, but as long as people use it, there is a market.
The sleeper is a very useful service, especially for destinations like FW, Inverness and Aberdeen. Useful services should be kept.

Going back to your comment about them being subsidised. Yes, but one of the reasons it is so heavily subsidised is because of privatisation. We now have NR charging stupid access charges for loco hauled trains, and ROSCOs charging stupid fees for rolling stock, even though most have already paid for themselves.
Is it fair to pull the plug on the sleepers just because of privatisation?

Plus, remember that a lot of services are subsidised, but are kept going becuase they are a benefit. Shall we close the Heart of Wales Line? In fact, take every franchise that receives a subsidy. Are we going to close all of their services? What about Network Rail. Dont they need a subsidy on top of the money they make? Ah, you dont need to worry about sleepers now. They have no rails to run on. Shall i leave you to apologise to all the workers you have put out of work?!!! What about roads? I reckon they receive a subsidy on top of all the money made in road tax. Are we going to stop maintaining roads?

Yes, Im sure you can find services that have been pulled because the government has stopped subsidy, but instead of looking at other things that have had subsidy pulled, its fairer to look at the fact that on the whole, services that are of a benefit, are subsidised if necessary.

Yes, the sleeper is one of those subjects that really does divide opinion, but sometimes you have to realise that the subsidy is worthwhile. As long as the sleepers are leaving London with most cabins occupied, and all seats reserved, then this service can be deemed to be a benefit.

jon0844 · 7 Dec 2011

If the prices are high and people still use them, then there's clearly a demand and it's not that these people are unable or unwilling to fly.

For whatever reason, the sleepers suit their needs. They clearly can't suit all needs as there are too few of them, and only on limited routes. Thus air travel isn't likely to be threatened at any time by having them.

I don't see any reason to get rid of them until they're travelling around empty. I see every reason to look into a new fleet of trains that can get more people on, to increase usage and make them get close to breaking even or even turning a profit.

Sleepers to mainland Europe will surely come one day too. Again, due to the trains starting at St Pancras, they won't suit everyone either - but being in central London, I am sure they'll have little problem being filled.

RichmondCommu · 7 Dec 2011

junglejames said:
There is a market for sleepers though. Not saying how much of a market, but as long as people use it, there is a market.
The sleeper is a very useful service, especially for destinations like FW, Inverness and Aberdeen. Useful services should be kept.

Going back to your comment about them being subsidised. Yes, but one of the reasons it is so heavily subsidised is because of privatisation. We now have NR charging stupid access charges for loco hauled trains, and ROSCOs charging stupid fees for rolling stock, even though most have already paid for themselves.
Is it fair to pull the plug on the sleepers just because of privatisation?

Plus, remember that a lot of services are subsidised, but are kept going becuase they are a benefit. Shall we close the Heart of Wales Line? In fact, take every franchise that receives a subsidy. Are we going to close all of their services? What about Network Rail. Dont they need a subsidy on top of the money they make? Ah, you dont need to worry about sleepers now. They have no rails to run on. Shall i leave you to apologise to all the workers you have put out of work?!!! What about roads? I reckon they receive a subsidy on top of all the money made in road tax. Are we going to stop maintaining roads?

Yes, Im sure you can find services that have been pulled because the government has stopped subsidy, but instead of looking at other things that have had subsidy pulled, its fairer to look at the fact that on the whole, services that are of a benefit, are subsidised if necessary.

Yes, the sleeper is one of those subjects that really does divide opinion, but sometimes you have to realise that the subsidy is worthwhile. As long as the sleepers are leaving London with most cabins occupied, and all seats reserved, then this service can be deemed to be a benefit.

Ok, are the sleepers leaving with most cabins occupied and all seats reserved? I've never travelled on them so I don't know one way or the other but I've not read a post on here that suggests they are. From what I've read on here the Glasgow and Edinburgh services have suffered due to faster services on the WCML.

Now you could argue that just about every single service / train in the country is of benefit to someone but some are important / essential than others. I think it’s fair to say that the Heart of Wales line is more essential to the rural communities it serves than the sleeper services. Don't forget the subsidy is tax payer’s money and with the economic troubles that we face at the moment the Government has tough decisions to make.

As others have quite rightly pointed out, its good to have transport choices and some poor souls are terrified of flying. However, in my view if the sleeper service was to cease to exist (don't forget other sleeper services have been withdrawn over the years) I think the only people who would truly miss it would be rail enthusiasts.
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jonmorris0844 said:
If the prices are high and people still use them, then there's clearly a demand and it's not that these people are unable or unwilling to fly.

For whatever reason, the sleepers suit their needs. They clearly can't suit all needs as there are too few of them, and only on limited routes. Thus air travel isn't likely to be threatened at any time by having them.

I don't see any reason to get rid of them until they're travelling around empty. I see every reason to look into a new fleet of trains that can get more people on, to increase usage and make them get close to breaking even or even turning a profit.

Sleepers to mainland Europe will surely come one day too. Again, due to the trains starting at St Pancras, they won't suit everyone either - but being in central London, I am sure they'll have little problem being filled.

The thing is though, many of the Eurostars leaving for Paris and Brussels are not exactly packed to the rafters and I'm not convinced that services to Germany will be either. And personaly I think there will be very little demand for trains from the north to main land Europe as flying will always be quicker.

As others have said, eventually flying wil simply become too expensive but that is a long time off in my opinion. For business travel I think telephone conferences will take over and for people who want a holiday in the sun they will simply sacrifice more to pay for it. I really cannot see families taking the train to travel to Greece, Spain, Turkey or even France because it will simply take too long.

jon0844 · 7 Dec 2011

Perhaps the fact I'm 21 minutes from St Pancras by train does make a little more pro-Eurostar than others, but London has a pretty large population so even if a lot of people outside aren't interested, I still think it's future is secure.

Perhaps there's a downturn on the trains because of the whole economic situation - and so people are travelling less by ALL methods as you've suggested. I've not done any surveys, so it's all guess work on my part.

Eurostar has its peak periods (which is probably coming up now) and I guess any high frequency service will have quiet times - but having that frequency is what makes the service work as people want flexibility. It's why I spoke elsewhere about our bus service having the full morning/day/evening service restored, as cutting it from 7pm would actually impact on the daytime services - as people won't use a bus if they can't get back later on.

How many sleepers would there be? One a night?

Of the users today, how many are rail enthusiasts? I can't imagine there being many.

RichmondCommu · 8 Dec 2011

jonmorris0844 said:
Perhaps the fact I'm 21 minutes from St Pancras by train does make a little more pro-Eurostar than others, but London has a pretty large population so even if a lot of people outside aren't interested, I still think it's future is secure.

Perhaps there's a downturn on the trains because of the whole economic situation - and so people are travelling less by ALL methods as you've suggested. I've not done any surveys, so it's all guess work on my part.

Eurostar has its peak periods (which is probably coming up now) and I guess any high frequency service will have quiet times - but having that frequency is what makes the service work as people want flexibility. It's why I spoke elsewhere about our bus service having the full morning/day/evening service restored, as cutting it from 7pm would actually impact on the daytime services - as people won't use a bus if they can't get back later on.

How many sleepers would there be? One a night?

Of the users today, how many are rail enthusiasts? I can't imagine there being many.

I absolutely agree that the future of Eurostar is secure and having used it several times to travel to Paris on the whole I find the standard of service to be pretty good. However, more destinations needed to be added and I do think DB's ICE service will certainly help. A lot of people would find a direct service to the Netherlands very attractive and if we can run the Ski Train why can't we run a similar service to Switzerland? In all fairness, right from the start Eurostar have struggled to fill all trains even during times of economic prosperity but hopefully things will change.

jon0844 · 8 Dec 2011

I wouldn't expect any service to be full all day - any more than they are on the national railway network. If I go into Moorgate at 0830, the trains are almost crush loaded. At 11am, I may be the only person in my carriage.

The off-peak services need to run though.

Some airlines can run half empty too, but they'll usually end up being cut from a timetable if that is the case too often. Airlines have no requirement to continue running services, and can change routes/times for a number of reasons. The train is a fairly secure option.

Politics seems to have been behind holding back Eurostar (and others) from running to more destinations from London and in the next few years, it will be great to have a choice of destinations - without having to change. Changing in Belgium isn't exactly that difficult, but you can sometimes have to wait a long time which must put people off.

tbtc · 8 Dec 2011

junglejames said:
There is a market for sleepers though. Not saying how much of a market, but as long as people use it, there is a market

There's technically a market for thousands of (potential) train services, but there's a difference between "enough of a market to sustain a service" and "a market that needs huge state subsidies to keep operating". There's probably a market for a direct train from Merthyr to Middlesbrough, but that doesn't mean such a route should be run (and losses sustained on it).

junglejames said:
Going back to your comment about them being subsidised. Yes, but one of the reasons it is so heavily subsidised is because of privatisation. We now have NR charging stupid access charges for loco hauled trains, and ROSCOs charging stupid fees for rolling stock, even though most have already paid for themselves. Is it fair to pull the plug on the sleepers just because of privatisation?

All services have to factor track access/ unit hire into the equation.

Are you suggesting that if it weren't for privatisation the sleeper would be profitable?

junglejames said:
Shall i leave you to apologise to all the workers you have put out of work?!!!

Clever.

junglejames said:
As long as the sleepers are leaving London with most cabins occupied, and all seats reserved, then this service can be deemed to be a benefit

...even if its going to cost millions to build suitable stock for the sleeper in a few years (despite dozens of busy commuter routes stuck with ancient trains) and the service appears to be making losses?

jon0844 · 8 Dec 2011

How expensive would it be to buy a pretty standard train 'off the shelf' and simply configure it with more toilets and first-class style pods, as well as a buffet/lounge car, and plain seating for economy? Some people can sleep on anything, and will value the convenience of travelling through the night to avoid flying/hotels.

You'd now offer something that is geared for people sleeping (so lights down etc) but more like a long-haul flight (except on a plane, such first class seating could be costing you £4-5k!) and so nearer to a standard 'day' train. If you supply eye patches and ear plugs, I am sure people could sleep just fine and still enjoy a certain level of privacy in the pods. Chuck in some extra cheap advance deals and the students will be happy too.

Surely the trains would be standard, just fitted out differently. That shouldn't cost much at all.

Going forward, a sleeper service could actually cover even longer distances. You set off at night, sleep, then wake up in the morning and now sit in your seat for breakfast (which could be loaded on board at a specified point along the route) that now continues during the day to go even further (and perhaps as a normal train, at higher speeds than through the night). Obviously I'm now talking more about services to mainland Europe and beyond - not around the UK!

People value services with less changes (just as people don't generally like changes on planes even when it can be cheaper - as it means sitting around, the hassle of alighting/boarding, getting things together etc) so a train that also offers things like Wi-Fi and power, plus seat-back screens, would now be ideal for holidaymakers, students and so on.

The first class pod carriages could even be detached at times so the rest of the train functions as a regular service.

Greenback · 8 Dec 2011

jonmorris0844 said:
Going forward, a sleeper service could actually cover even longer distances. You set off at night, sleep, then wake up in the morning and now sit in your seat for breakfast (which could be loaded on board at a specified point along the route) that now continues during the day to go even further (and perhaps as a normal train, at higher speeds than through the night). Obviously I'm now talking more about services to mainland Europe and beyond - not around the UK!

People value services with less changes (just as people don't generally like changes on planes even when it can be cheaper - as it means sitting around, the hassle of alighting/boarding, getting things together etc) so a train that also offers things like Wi-Fi and power, plus seat-back screens, would now be ideal for holidaymakers, students and so on.

The first class pod carriages could even be detached at times so the rest of the train functions as a regular service.

Far too sensible to be even be considered in the UK!

mappman1000 · 8 Dec 2011

I don't think the UK is big enough for such a service

Greenback · 8 Dec 2011

I meant that such long distance European services would never be considered in terms of running from and to the UK, even though they might be very attractive to travellers.

Do Sleepers make money?

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