Caledonian Sleeper discussion

[Norther Monkey]

What reasons don't you believe??

That train will run regardless of loadings. Its a parliamentary train so to speak.

Regards the pods I believe H&S was cited. To this layman it seems unlikely that this was insurmountable. I'd feel no less safe in a pod than a normal unrestrained seat, or indeed standing which is perfectly legal.

Of course the sleeper will not stop immediately, but if losses increase then at some point the subsidy will become too much to bear politically, or no operator will want it. Of course franchisees have been known to walk away mid contract in the past.

 

[Scotrail84]

That's a very good description. But they need to sort their staff out. Too many surly/borderline rude staff on board. And the less said about sleeper staff smoking on the platform at Aberdeen (and then chucking the fag butts onto the track) the better.

Care to elaborate?

 

[IanXC]

The issue with Leeds as it stands (prior to any Leeds-York electrification) is that it's effectively a branch from the ECML (departing the 'main' line at Donny); so a bit of a dead-end really for an electric loco-hauled train at the current time.

I'd also expect that post any electrification a somewhat circuitous route of Doncaster-Leeds-York would add a fair bit on to the journey time and that probably wouldn't be worth the potential extra passengers that could be picked up - particularly as they could quite easily hop on a TPE/Northern service from Leeds to York and join the Sleeper there.

Doncaster to York via Leeds typically adds an hour to the journey.

Given the hours we're talking about I think we're looking at Transpennine connections into and out of York - and I would be astounded if these couldn't be made to work.

 

[Scotrail84]

]Regards the pods I believe H&S was cited. [/B]To this layman it seems unlikely that this was insurmountable. I'd feel no less safe in a pod than a normal unrestrained seat, or indeed standing which is perfectly legal.

Of course the sleeper will not stop immediately, but if losses increase then at some point the subsidy will become too much to bear politically, or no operator will want it. Of course franchisees have been known to walk away mid contract in the past.

Thats true though, H+S put a stop to them although I don't have all the details unfortunately.

 

[NotATrainspott]

From the outset the Scottish Government and Serco produced a franchise that seemed to describe a travelling tin of shortbread. Everything geared towards the tourist market, and the premium end of that.

I have recently started commuting from Aberdeenshire to London, I had hoped to be a regular sleeper user, as it is a hugely civilised way to travel. Sadly it just doesn't add up financially. I fly for less than a third of a flexipass ticket, often significantly more. Perhaps surprisingly Easyjet offer regular customers more flexibility on changing advance fares than the railway.

I had hoped pods were going to offer a comfort/cost halfway house, but they've gone for reasons I don't entirely believe.

Personally I think if prices do rise on the new stock we could be looking at a huge white elephant, and the beginning of the end of this service.

That's entirely deliberate. The business market, especially for the lowland service, can and will die out within the lifespan of the CAF sleeper vehicles due to the advent of HS2. If they don't start pivoting towards a long term sustainable model of tourist travellers, then the end of business travellers will mean the end of the service entirely. By making it more attractive for tourists, they can increase demand for it and make sure that berths stay occupied with full-fare passengers while these changes are underway, as they would likely take place over the course of a few years.

The analogy I like to use is the ocean liner during the dawn of the jet airliner. Liners used to be the only realistic way to cross oceans, so there would be plenty of them and they would have to offer multiple classes of accommodation for different types of travellers. Once jet airliners were not only faster but cheaper, the only way the ocean liner companies could stay in business was to pivot towards the tourist market. It's irrelevant that a cruise ship or the QM2 is a slow and expensive way of getting around if the point of the trip is to spend time on the vessel.

 

[Marklund]

Thats true though, H+S put a stop to them although I don't have all the details unfortunately.

But that's the problem, there has been no details as to why.
And without a reason for the age old Health and Safety card being played, scepticism comes in.

And considering lie flat beds at 38,000 feet have not been banned, I tend to be a sceptic about the no pods too.

If they had said it didn't make economic sense, then fair enough, can't argue.

 

[Blindtraveler]

Tin of Shortbread...lol...couldnt have said it better meself.
I think its maybe time for somebody to point out to the Scottish Govd that there are others in Scotland than bluddy tourists, especially if regular business users are saying that the flexipass is borderline to chingy and others are getting up at daft o'clock for squeezyjet.

The next price change which is likely to be after full introduction of the new stock will likely make that flexipass a non starter meaning all these multi million pound tax payer funded trains will do is redistribute highland air to the Southeast 6 times a week.

The enthusiast market are already about as welcome onboard as bed bugs and this is not a crew thing but more the management and its out of the pricerange of most of them and families too.

 

[47271]

That's entirely deliberate. The business market, especially for the lowland service, can and will die out within the lifespan of the CAF sleeper vehicles due to the advent of HS2. If they don't start pivoting towards a long term sustainable model of tourist travellers, then the end of business travellers will mean the end of the service entirely. By making it more attractive for tourists, they can increase demand for it and make sure that berths stay occupied with full-fare passengers while these changes are underway, as they would likely take place over the course of a few years.

The analogy I like to use is the ocean liner during the dawn of the jet airliner. Liners used to be the only realistic way to cross oceans, so there would be plenty of them and they would have to offer multiple classes of accommodation for different types of travellers. Once jet airliners were not only faster but cheaper, the only way the ocean liner companies could stay in business was to pivot towards the tourist market. It's irrelevant that a cruise ship or the QM2 is a slow and expensive way of getting around if the point of the trip is to spend time on the vessel.

All well and good, but under this model who's going to be on the train on a wet Tuesday night in February?

 

[Blindtraveler]

Exactly. Given that HS2 might yet be cansled and if it isnt no firm plans or indeed payment for them are in place for bringing it to Scotland the alionation by price tag of the bread and butter traffic who will still be riding long after the American and Japanese tourists have flown home is, for want of a better word, daft.

 

[Marklund]

All well and good, but under this model who's going to be on the train on a wet Tuesday night in February?

Exactly. It's not the Royal Scotsman-lite.

 

[InOban]

Even SERCO will admit that they have difficulty filling the FW portion in winter, except on Friday and Sunday nights. Seasonal tourism is no basis for a sustainable business.

 

[leightonbd]

A very quick, back of envelope, calculation suggests to me they will have to drive prices up quite significantly. Info given at time of the franchise award was:

- 15 yrs
- total revenue. £800m of which £180m franchise payments, so £620m customer revenue
- 270,000 pax p.a.

This can be used to derive annual customer income of £41.33m or £153.09 per pax.

I would have thought the actual average income per pax just now is in the £100-120 range at most (that is just my guestimate, though) so part of the deal, it seems, has to be jacking up prices. I appreciate that franchise models tend to factor in growth in pax but that seems easier said than done - demand, to me, may not be that price sensitive - it is either there (summer holidays, deer stalking, etc) at any price, or is not there at all (wet Tuesday in November).

Factor in what I would see as the political difficulty of ramping up prices at time of high demand to maximise yield, and, to me and at this very simple level, I think it's going to be hard to make the numbers come out as expected.

I am sure there will be some of you more familiar with the numbers than me and would love to learn more.

 

[Blindtraveler]

As Scotrail84 and others including me point out Fridays and Sundays are not good times to be on the hunt for a walkup for any type of accommodation and there is for now a good sounding business market on the Inverness run but how they juggle the rest is an unknown to me

 

[NotATrainspott]

But that's the problem, there has been no details as to why.
And without a reason for the age old Health and Safety card being played, scepticism comes in.

And considering lie flat beds at 38,000 feet have not been banned, I tend to be a sceptic about the no pods too.

If they had said it didn't make economic sense, then fair enough, can't argue.

Lie flat beds can only be flat when at cruising altitude. During takeoff and landing, they have to be upright. Plane crashes tend to happen when the plane is near the ground. If it's meant to be near the ground at that time, the beds will be upright and so in the best position for crash protection. If it's not meant to be near the ground at that time, and there hasn't been enough time to raise up the flatbeds, then it's not exactly going to make an enormous difference whether or not they're raised.

The problem for flat beds on trains is that there really isn't a point when a catastrophic accident isn't possibly a second or two away. While a train-train collision is unlikely, there is still the possibility of a Grayrigg-style derailment at speed. In that event, flat beds could be significantly more dangerous than either cabins or traditional seating. The justification for new seats being high-backed is that they help to stop people being thrown too far around the cabin in a crash. While you might slam into the back or the front of the seat ahead of you, you won't have had much distance for the velocity difference between you and the train to have got high enough to cause you real injury. In a pod flatbed you could be bumped up and then fall down a long length of the carriage. The only way to prevent this would be to have the seatbelts that aircraft flatbed passengers are recommended to wear in case of turbulence.

I'm not an expert on this but this explanation would seem to fit with the real world. Pod flatbeds aren't really a thing on trains as far as I'm aware and they may have found that they're just not worth it. Also a possibility is the economics, as they may have found that the possible revenue per carriage with flatbeds wouldn't be high enough to justify it. Flat beds might not be better enough than a normal seat to justify a much larger ticket price but they will take up a considerable amount of carriage space. Airlines are currently ripping out first class and replacing it with business class for that reason - better to have 3x as many $5,000 tickets as 1x as many $10,000 tickets.

All well and good, but under this model who's going to be on the train on a wet Tuesday night in February?

Exactly. Given that HS2 might yet be cansled and if it isnt no firm plans or indeed payment for them are in place for bringing it to Scotland the alionation by price tag of the bread and butter traffic who will still be riding long after the American and Japanese tourists have flown home is, for want of a better word, daft.

Cancelling HS2 at this stage would be slightly problematic, to say the least. There's little political currency to gain by doing so, as it would suggest that Theresa May and the Tories are willing to backtrack on the sort of grands projets that make Britain a good place to invest. This isn't going to be a close election, so the few seats that are actually negatively affected by the line aren't going to make a difference.

While the tourist market might not be particularly strong outside of the peak season, the alternative is that there wouldn't be as many tourists while the business travellers would still have disappeared. Every little journey time improvement shifts the balance away from the sleeper to daytime rail services. VTEC running an hourly 4h10 Edinburgh-London service is just the start while the FirstGroup open access proposal isn't going to help either.

 

[CosherB]

A very quick, back of envelope, calculation suggests to me they will have to drive prices up quite significantly. Info given at time of the franchise award was:

- 15 yrs
- total revenue. £800m of which £180m franchise payments, so £620m customer revenue
- 270,000 pax p.a.

This can be used to derive annual customer income of £41.33m or £153.09 per pax.

I would have thought the actual average income per pax just now is in the £100-120 range at most (that is just my guestimate, though) so part of the deal, it seems, has to be jacking up prices. I appreciate that franchise models tend to factor in growth in pax but that seems easier said than done - demand, to me, may not be that price sensitive - it is either there (summer holidays, deer stalking, etc) at any price, or is not there at all (wet Tuesday in November).

Factor in what I would see as the political difficulty of ramping up prices at time of high demand to maximise yield, and, to me and at this very simple level, I think it's going to be hard to make the numbers come out as expected.

I am sure there will be some of you more familiar with the numbers than me and would love to learn more.

Don't forget the annual subsidy this service gets from the Scottish government, circa £17 million in 2015/16.

 

[Marklund]

In that event, flat beds could be significantly more dangerous than either cabins or traditional seating.

Citation required.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Not idea yet, my guess is they will be very restricted as there's less berths per train with the new coaches.

If they're regularly filling the cabins at present, why would they want to put fewer cabins on the new trains? Logically they should be increasing the number available instead?

 

[NotATrainspott]

Citation required.

Well, no one has implement pod flat beds on trains so far, and the supposed reason for cancelling them was 'elf and safety. This is despite the fact that pod flatbeds are in the contract between Serco and the Scottish Government; a change of this sort can only happen for pretty serious reasons. As I said, I'm not an expert by any means but it would seem like a perfectly plausible situation. It is no longer possible to fit low-backed seating to trains for exactly the reason that I'm talking about.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I wonder if Kajueteliegen (longitudinal couchettes) would have been worth a go. UK trains have never really gone for couchettes, but they could have been a good mid priced option.

 

[Highland37]

I wonder if Kajueteliegen (longitudinal couchettes) would have been worth a go. UK trains have never really gone for couchettes, but they could have been a good mid priced option.

Good idea I think. I am not a premium traveller and I want to support the sleeper but the price is too high for me. A couchette would be good.

 

[NotATrainspott]

I wonder if Kajueteliegen (longitudinal couchettes) would have been worth a go. UK trains have never really gone for couchettes, but they could have been a good mid priced option.

I think the main problem is that you can't fit any more couchettes in than you can bunks. Continental trains can have three couchettes in a stack, meaning 50% more passengers. Couchettes here would not reduce running costs by much but would mean a reduction in revenue earning potential.

 

[Scotrail84]

If they're regularly filling the cabins at present, why would they want to put fewer cabins on the new trains? Logically they should be increasing the number available instead?

Because the en suite berths with showers take up more room in the coaches.

 

[Marklund]

Well, no one has implement pod flat beds on trains so far, and the supposed reason for cancelling them was 'elf and safety. This is despite the fact that pod flatbeds are in the contract between Serco and the Scottish Government; a change of this sort can only happen for pretty serious reasons. As I said, I'm not an expert by any means but it would seem like a perfectly plausible situation. It is no longer possible to fit low-backed seating to trains for exactly the reason that I'm talking about.

I find it difficult to imagine a clean sheet design has not been able to find an engineering solution to the pods, or an inbetween level between berth and seat. Where there is a will, there is a way, especially when it's a clean sheet design.

Did they even take any renders or mock ups of the pods to the "elf n safety" brigade?

 

[mark-h]

The problem for flat beds on trains is that there really isn't a point when a catastrophic accident isn't possibly a second or two away.

There are flat beds on the Megabus Gold sleeper service (soon to be discontinued for business, not safety, reasons). A road crash is more likely to occur than a rail crash.

For road sleapers the passengers head is always to the rear of the vehicle to reduce the risk of death in a crash, on a train it could face either direction.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

For road sleapers the passengers head is always to the rear of the vehicle to reduce the risk of death in a crash, on a train it could face either direction.

We sleep sideways on the Sleepers, though. Not lengthwise.

 

[NotATrainspott]

There are flat beds on the Megabus Gold sleeper service (soon to be discontinued for business, not safety, reasons). A road crash is more likely to occur than a rail crash.

For road sleapers the passengers head is always to the rear of the vehicle to reduce the risk of death in a crash, on a train it could face either direction.

These bus beds have dividers between them and seatbelts are provided. Buses also run at a lower speed than trains, which would help the safety case.

We sleep sideways on the Sleepers, though. Not lengthwise.

Sideways in cabins, which themselves provide crash protection via compartmentalisation. If the sleeper derailed at speed people would probably be chucked out of their bunk but they could only travel a metre or so before hitting the walls, floor or ceiling of their cabin. Even in the worst case crash scenario the difference in velocity between a passenger and the rest of the cabin wouldn't be that high, unless the impact would be unsurvivable anyway.

 

[Jordeh]

Can't help but think if dividers were introduced between pods, which were the height of a normal seat, that would surely offer the same protection.

They would also be useful for some privacy.

 

[Marklund]

Can't help but think if dividers were introduced between pods, which were the height of a normal seat, that would surely offer the same protection.

They would also be useful for some privacy.

Exactly, a seat with a divider, or for want of a better word, a pod...
I mean, the DB Talgo sleeper managed, so it's not as if it's never been done.

More to it than the H&S smokescreen.

 

[Bungle965]

Exactly, a seat with a divider, or for want of a better word, a pod...
I mean, the DB Talgo sleeper managed, so it's not as if it's never been done.

More to it than the H&S smokescreen.

I believe that the Aberdeen to Lewick ferry service also offers Pods as an alternative to a berth.
I think if they wanted to they could find a way to do it, but for whatever reason they have decided not to.
Sam

 

[DerekC]

That's entirely deliberate. The business market, especially for the lowland service, can and will die out within the lifespan of the CAF sleeper vehicles due to the advent of HS2. If they don't start pivoting towards a long term sustainable model of tourist travellers, then the end of business travellers will mean the end of the service entirely. By making it more attractive for tourists, they can increase demand for it and make sure that berths stay occupied with full-fare passengers while these changes are underway, as they would likely take place over the course of a few years.

The analogy I like to use is the ocean liner during the dawn of the jet airliner. Liners used to be the only realistic way to cross oceans, so there would be plenty of them and they would have to offer multiple classes of accommodation for different types of travellers. Once jet airliners were not only faster but cheaper, the only way the ocean liner companies could stay in business was to pivot towards the tourist market. It's irrelevant that a cruise ship or the QM2 is a slow and expensive way of getting around if the point of the trip is to spend time on the vessel.

I am not entirely convinced by the ocean liner analogy - seems to me the reasons for travel by sleeper are different from a cruise, but it does prompt a thought. Accepting that travel via HS2 impacts mainly destinations south of Perth and if the Edinburgh and Glasgow services become (even more) uneconomic, what could be done with the spare rolling stock? Not sure if this has been covered in this thread before, but how about "cruise" services to Kyle, Mallaig and Thurso? The problem with a "cruise train" might be the need for high quality day cars to go with the sleepers.

PS - anyone know how the "Grand Hibernian" is doing?