Caledonian Sleeper: How should it be run and what changes would you like to see?

[JamieL]

So basically CS loses the cost of an Airbus every year, and carries about 2 flights worth of passengers each way daily…

They could buy BA an Airbus and fly the passengers for free for 25 years and still save more than it costs to run the sleeper, then hire the plane out for the other 16 hours a day the aircraft is doing nothing…and turn the whole thing into a profit.

Can an Airbus land at all the pickup locations/destinations that CS does? Far too much focus on counting the pennies here and not on the broader service the CS offers. Which is why it needs to be taken back into public ownership by the Scottish Government who understand the importance and relevance to Scotland.

 

[Bald Rick]

A total profit of £10m was reported, so an effective subsidy of £38m was paid to keep CS running last year.

You have to be careful with the accounts of the sleeper, as although they are certified and correct, there are some Movements of cash around the system (onerous contract provisions, etc) that create profit or loss that clouds the real position.

So basically CS loses the cost of an Airbus every year, and carries about 2 flights worth of passengers each way daily…

They could buy BA an Airbus and fly the passengers for free for 25 years and still save more than it costs to run the sleeper, then hire the plane out for the other 16 hours a day the aircraft is doing nothing…and turn the whole thing into a profit.

Essntially CS costs around £50m a year to run, and they get back about half that in fares income.

but to correct your other point, roughly 500 people travel on the sleeper each way per day (including seated passengers) so you’d need an A380, and they cost a lot more than £25m.

 

[zwk500]

You have to be careful with the accounts of the sleeper, as although they are certified and correct, there are some Movements of cash around the system (onerous contract provisions, etc) that create profit or loss that clouds the real position.

Oh, absolutely. But with various suggestions and statements being made about what was and wasn't possible with savings etc. I thought at least some official data would help get a clear picture.

 

[Carntyne]

Can an Airbus land at all the pickup locations/destinations that CS does? Far too much focus on counting the pennies here and not on the broader service the CS offers. Which is why it needs to be taken back into public ownership by the Scottish Government who understand the importance and relevance to Scotland.

It already is in public ownership. It was/is a franchise. I doubt Transport Scotland could exert any more control over the day-to-day operation than they already do.

 

[43096]

but to correct your other point, roughly 500 people travel on the sleeper each way per day (including seated passengers) so you’d need an A380, and they cost a lot more than £25m.

It would have to be a second-hand A380, as Airbus won't build one new for you now.

 

[Peter Sarf]

Is that filling the seats to the extent that they are booked up two weeks in advance, a month perhaps? Or setting the price at a level that they will sell out some nights, but there are usually some for last minute travellers?

I am minded to recall one night I caught the Aberdeen sleeper and overheard a conversation about someone booking that night because their flight had been cancelled at short notice. Should the price be set so there is no room for people in that situation.

Of course, there are some nights when there would be spare seats even if they were free. The prevailing £75 seems about right.

Good question.

A hard business person would not want ANY seats left. But then being fully booked early would indicate to that hard business person they could raise their fares.

So it makes sense to not sell too cheaply if you are guaranteed to sell out but then again you don't want to many empty spaces.

In the case of subsidised services it is about not taking more than you really need form the state rather than profit.

 

[Peter Sarf]

How much savings are actually available though? CS's accounts for year ending March 2021 (available here, page 33 is the tasty one) show that total Staff costs were £9.6m, of which £294,000 was directors pay (which can, presumably, be largely discounted).

What of the remaining £9.3m?
The guards will presumably be retained in full, anybody know what the number is?
Scotrail's back office teams will likely not have slack in their workflow to take on the full CS workload without at least some additional staff coming in. Say 50% of the backroom staff stay on.

You're looking at 66-75% of staff being kept on, presumably with the same terms, so a saving of what, £2.5m ish?
The Scotrail franchise payments to CS to keep running the service were £48m. A total profit of £10m was reported, so an effective subsidy of £38m was paid to keep CS running last year. The potential savings are between 10 and 25% of the losses.

I hope the main benefit IF Scotrail took over would be smoother running. Anything to make the fares more justifiable.

But nowhere near duplicated in full. Someone with specialist knowledge of the sleeper market will still need to be employed in their revenue, marketing and sales channels - not something that can be easily picked up by a bit of slack in the Scotrail team. The managers of the Scotrail onboard crews will still be needed, I can’t imagine that the 100(?) or so on board staff could all be managed from within existing Scotrail first line supervisory management.

As I said upthread, there may be savings of a couple of million a year; not to be sniffed at, but easily lost if other things go the wrong way.

Yes, it has to work better. The fact it should cost less will make it an attractive proposition.

 

[Norther Monkey]

Can an Airbus land at all the pickup locations/destinations that CS does? Far too much focus on counting the pennies here and not on the broader service the CS offers. Which is why it needs to be taken back into public ownership by the Scottish Government who understand the importance and relevance to Scotland.

Exactly, it's the intermediate stops that have, for me, made the sleeper useful. Well, until the increased berth costs and horrendous new seats largely put me off.

 

[AVK17]

It's 7 hours from Aberdeen to London by day train on current timings, so for a 9am arrival you'd be looking at a departure from Aberdeen at 0200. (And the boxes between Aberdeen and Dundee are shut overnight so it's a non-starter.)

No they’re not. Inverkeilor and Craigo switch out of circuit overnight during the week and Stonehaven switches out of circuit on a Saturday night but trains can still run even with those signalboxes switched out. The rest of the signalboxes on the line are open continuously.

 

[Bletchleyite]

How does OeBB make theirs pay internationally, I wonder? OK, no restaurant car, but that's one member of low paid staff.

 

[Bald Rick]

How does OeBB make theirs pay internationally, I wonder? OK, no restaurant car, but that's one member of low paid staff.

A lot more people on the train.

 

[Bletchleyite]

A lot more people on the train.

Are there? I know they squash in a few more with 6er couchettes, but they aren't operating 16 car trains like we do - those days on European night trains are long gone - it's normally something like one sleeper, two couchettes and a seating car, more like the Riviera.

 

[irish_rail]

Not sure when Cornwall ceased to be in England.

Well that depends who you talk to. The expats from London and the North like to decry how English it is. Talk to a Cornishman or women born and bred and you may get a different response. Delve a bit beyond the mainstream tourist rubbish about surfing and there is quite a big Celtic culture and history. The Cornish language is even beginning (slowly) to re emerge. There are plenty that would like to see it as a separate Celtic nation like Wales or Scotland.

 

[StephenHunter]

Are there? I know they squash in a few more with 6er couchettes, but they aren't operating 16 car trains like we do - those days on European night trains are long gone - it's normally something like one sleeper, two couchettes and a seating car, more like the Riviera.

Often combined into two services though. The amusingly numbered NJ 420 to Amsterdam has ex-Innsbruck and ex-Vienna portions, with a thrice weekly Vienna to Brussels portion. It was ten carriages from Amsterdam when I got it the other direction in October 2021.

 

[Pugwash]

The real question is how much does it add to the local economy ? if this means tax take is increased by the losses each year then the money is not lost, it is an investment.

All those people travelling to the Highlands spend money, and all those business people living in Scotland that need this service in order to run their business effectively pay tax.

I would argue Fort William as a tourist city is built on the direct connection to London or at least the prospect of being able to use the service if people need it.

A couchette service with the ability to carry mountain bikes etc would certainly add more to the local economy of the area.

 

[haggishunter]

So basically CS loses the cost of an Airbus every year, and carries about 2 flights worth of passengers each way daily…

They could buy BA an Airbus and fly the passengers for free for 25 years and still save more than it costs to run the sleeper, then hire the plane out for the other 16 hours a day the aircraft is doing nothing…and turn the whole thing into a profit.

And would that Airbus land on Loch Linnhe and tie up at the Crannog Restaurant pier to serve Fort William? Planes aren't that great for intermediate locations between the terminals either, big catapult at Aviemore, cannon at Corrour?

 

[Bald Rick]

Are there? I know they squash in a few more with 6er couchettes, but they aren't operating 16 car trains like we do - those days on European night trains are long gone - it's normally something like one sleeper, two couchettes and a seating car, more like the Riviera.

a lot more seats…

The real question is how much does it add to the local economy ? if this means tax take is increased by the losses each year then the money is not lost, it is an investment.

All those people travelling to the Highlands spend money, and all those business people living in Scotland that need this service in order to run their business effectively pay tax.

I would argue Fort William as a tourist city is built on the direct connection to London or at least the prospect of being able to use the service if people need it.

A couchette service with the ability to carry mountain bikes etc would certainly add more to the local economy of the area.

Of the people travelling from London / South East to the Highlands for tourism to spend money, the proportion travelling by sleeper is tiny. And the proportion of those sleeper travellers who would not travel if the sleeper didn’t exist is much smaller still.

Taking your Ft William example. I’ve been there more times than I care to remember. I’m going again soon. I get the sleeper for free. I’ve never used it to Ft William.

Almost every tourist going to Ft William arrives on the A82, either by scheduled coach, tour coach, private car or hire car. And, of course, for 5 months of the year tourism to Ft William is pretty low.

 

[Bletchleyite]

a lot more seats…

Usually with very low occupation.

 

[edi_local]

Usually with very low occupation.

Do you have a source for this? Just that I often see the sleeper arrive in the morning and the seats often look busy. In fact, I have just been through Waverley station about an hour ago and there was certainly no shortage of people waiting to board the seats tonight too.

 

[XAM2175]

Do you have a source for this? Just that I often see the sleeper arrive in the morning and the seats often look busy. In fact, I have just been through Waverley station about an hour ago and there was certainly no shortage of people waiting to board the seats tonight too.

That comment is in reply to a discussion on the economics of ÖBB's night train network in Europe, not here.

 

[Falcon1200]

I agree with this sentiment ^ Seems that they are a fair few bean counters on the forum.

I freely admit to being one of those bean counters, possibly because unlike many commentators here I actually live in Scotland and therefore subsidise, through the higher taxes I pay compared to the rest of the UK, the sleeper operation, from which I do not benefit, at all.

I'm not vexed that sleeper services - and many rural routes - don't make a profit.

Not only do the sleepers not make a profit, they require huge public subsidy to keep running - What is the quantifiable benefit resulting from that subsidy?

Various public bodies and institutions - eg the health service - don't make a profit.

The health service is essential, sleeper trains are not.

 

[jthjth]

I freely admit to being one of those bean counters, possibly because unlike many commentators here I actually live in Scotland and therefore subsidise, through the higher taxes I pay compared to the rest of the UK, the sleeper operation, from which I do not benefit, at all.



Not only do the sleepers not make a profit, they require huge public subsidy to keep running - What is the quantifiable benefit resulting from that subsidy?



The health service is essential, sleeper trains are not.

I have sympathy with your position. I don’t think that many realise how much higher Scottish taxation is. I can see a societal benefit to the Highland sleeper, but I do wonder why the Lowland service continues. There’s any number of alternative methods of getting between Glasgow/Edinburgh and London. Transport subsidies should really go to protect rural/isolated communities In Scotland.

 

[Norther Monkey]

I often wonder how many people know about the Caledonian seats. They don't seem to be mentioned much (at all?) in the marketing. Cost wise they're pretty good value for money.

It's just a shame that from a comfort perspective they're such a step down from the Mk2s (in my opinion anyway).

 

[A S Leib]

As far as I can tell, it isn't currently possible to add PlusBus onto the CS booking, which seems like a slightly odd omission (the Night Riviera has the option of adding on PlusBus)

The London to Belfast anytime return doesn't say that it isn't valid on the Sleeper, but being able to buy through tickets at least for some stations (Kilmarnock, Oban, Dingwall, Whitehaven etc.) or Eurostar / some* ferry services on the CS website instead of buying elsewhere then getting a room supplement would be nice.

* I doubt anybody would want to get to Carlisle for five in the morning so that they can get to North Shields for 16:00, and the fact that there isn't enough time to get from the southbound Sleepers to Harwich in time for the daytime crossing means people doing that route avoiding Eurostar would probably prefer to get a daytime train and the overnight ferry. As has been pointed out, there's around ten hours between the Sleeper and ferries at Aberdeen as well, so realistically I think that would mostly affect Dover, possibly Newhaven (check-in for the day ferry closes at 10:45 next Friday, but it looks like it's 09:15 most of the time) and the closer Scottish islands.

 

[philosopher]

The CS operation would benefit from simplification, especially if the trains to the four remaining destinations from London can still be filled. There has got to be some saving from merging with Scotrail and might allow better support during times of disruption. Then its fares up as much as you dare and subsidy down. Otherwise its Mk5s sat in sidings doing nothing.

Could they have the Inverness portion go via Aberdeen. That way they could bin one of the portions of the Highland sleeper while still allowing both Aberdeen and Inverness to be served.

 

[Energy]

Could they have the Inverness portion go via Aberdeen. That way they could bin one of the portions of the Highland sleeper while still allowing both Aberdeen and Inverness to be served.

Changing the current 1x lowlands and 1x highlander arrangement to 1x Fort William and 1x Inverness via Aberdeen would completely remove splitting.

If they use the GBRf class 99s they wouldn't need to change locos either.

 

[Agent_Squash]

Changing the current 1x lowlands and 1x highlander arrangement to 1x Fort William and 1x Inverness via Aberdeen would completely remove splitting.

If they use the GBRf class 99s they wouldn't need to change locos either.

But then you lose the late departures for the Lowlander.

 

[JonathanH]

Could they have the Inverness portion go via Aberdeen. That way they could bin one of the portions of the Highland sleeper while still allowing both Aberdeen and Inverness to be served.

No, the arrival time in Inverness would be late morning at best and it would miss out Perth, Pitlochry and Aviemore. The sleepers are by no means just about the ultimate destinations.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Could they have the Inverness portion go via Aberdeen. That way they could bin one of the portions of the Highland sleeper while still allowing both Aberdeen and Inverness to be served.

Again, no. Aviemore is a major destination for snow sports.

 

[43096]

Changing the current 1x lowlands and 1x highlander arrangement to 1x Fort William and 1x Inverness via Aberdeen would completely remove splitting.

If they use the GBRf class 99s they wouldn't need to change locos either.

Have you considered platform length restrictions, particularly on the West Highland? I doubt the West Highland would take much more than load 6 and the Inverness as load 8. So rather than running two 16-coach trains out of Euston, you'd suggest running an 8-car and a 6-car. That's not going to improve things in any way, shape or form, is it?