Caledonian Sleeper

[Bletchleyite]

Also- would I not need an anytime rather than an off peak walk up, because I’d be using the 08:55 Inverness to Kyle train (i.e. before 09:30), and also arriving in Inverness off the Sleeper at 08:40) or are those restrictions not important in this case?

No, all restrictions on that ticket are based on departure from/arrival in London, and they specifically exempt the Sleeper from morning restrictions.

 

[MrEd]

No, all restrictions on that ticket are based on departure from/arrival in London, and they specifically exempt the Sleeper from morning restrictions.

Good to know, I never realised that.

 

[pitdiver]

Up thread someone mentioned travelling to Orkney using the sleeper via Inverness. When I enquired about this last year I found that the timings just didn't work. If i had gone via the ferry at Scrabster to Stromness the journey time was about 23 hrs. Journey time flying from Luton To Kirkwall was bout 5-6 hrs this was with a 3 1/2 wait at Aberdeen. I flew.

 

[Struner]

This is where the Thurso (misnamed Wick) sleeper comes in

 

[BRX]

You can. Buy an Any Permitted Super Off Peak Single or Return from London to Kyle from the retailer of your choice, then buy a room supplement from CS (perhaps best the other way round in case CS are sold out). It might not be cheaper but it does give you what you want.

This is true - and most people reading this forum would have little difficulty obtaining that ticket - but have you been through the process to actually do this?

Sometimes I've suggested to people to get their ticket this way but then they always need some help in actually doing it.

To take as an example, buying a through ticket to Mallaig on the FW sleeper, here are some of the obstacles:

1) Starting on the CS website, 'Mallaig' is not offered as a destination. The only way to find out (via their website) that it's possible to book such a ticket is to click on the "what's this" link by the "room supplement only" tick box, which takes you to a page that explains you can combine a room supplement with various types of ticket (ticket types that are likely not to mean much to a casual user). It's not explicitly explained that you can use it combined with a ticket that starts / finishes away from the sleeper destinations.

2) Let's say you start at NRE website. If you search for London-Mallaig, it'll give you the connection that involves getting the Lowlander to Glasgow then a day train up the WHL (because using the FW sleeper doesn't get you there any earlier). Ok, so this is a quirk specific to Mallaig, but it immediately excludes use of the FW portion for anyone unaware of it as a possibility)

3) If you select that connection on NRE, it directs you to the Virgin trains booking engine. I've just tried this for a number of dates - in each case, the VT page comes back with "No tickets are available, please refine your search". Changing times/dates and resubmitting seems to return the same error.

4) Ok, so give up on the Virgin Trains site. I happen to know that the Scotrail one is a bit better - but most people wouldn't. Anyway, let's try the Scotrail site.

5) Some dates on the Scotrail site return the same "No tickets available" message. However, I can get *some* dates (which don't work on the VT site) to take me through to the next stage of the booking process.

6) The Scotrail site informs me that it's a sleeper service, and asks my gender. Then it gives me ticket prices, with an indication that there's a supplement. Nothing about the cost of the supplement though.

7) So I choose one of those fares. The next page offers me a tick box for a "seated supplement". I can give contact details if booking a berth (no explanation of what a "berth" means) but I can't proceed to the next page without selecting a "seated supplement". Let's suppose I'm a particularly determined customer, and even though I want a bed, I tick the "seated supplement" box in order to get to the next page. Now a message says: "1 reclining seats to be reserved. If you would prefer a berth, please search again". If I click on the "search again" link I am returned to stage (6).

8) Yup, I am now caught in an endless loop between stages 6 and 7! You might wonder if this is because, behind the scenes, there are no berths available on that date, and to escape the loop I have to select a day where there is availability. But I am looking at midweek in October, and checking CS's website confirms there's availability on the Glasgow sleeper that night.

How would I actually go about buying this ticket? I'd fiddle with the booking engines to give me an off-peak single from London to Mallaig, even if I'd have to 'pretend' to be using a different set of connections. Then I'd go and do the supplement on the CS website. But that would require me being confident about the validity of that off-peak single, being able to fiddle the booking engines, and not minding having no reservation on the intended connection to Mallaig. All this is way beyond the understanding or patience of the 'normal' customer and certainly any foreign customer with zero knowledge of the UK ticket system.

I think the only plausible way would be for them to phone up CS (can they book tickets to/from non sleeper destinations for you?) or go in person to a station ticket office and hope that the person at the desk knows how to book sleepers. Even so they'd likely end up booked on the lowlander and miss the opportunity to do the FW portion.

 

[BRX]

I would be surprised if that genuinely was the case, as the staff on the Highlander to Inverness seem to place great importance on finding out whether their passengers have onward connections to Kyle, Wick, Elgin or wherever.

Seems plausible to me that there could be a management decision that where people have connections, then they are honoured (at CS expense), but at the same time, it's not actively encouraged for people to use these connections (because the more people use them, the more financial risk for CS). Therefore the on-train experience is that staff are helpful in getting you to your destination, but the booking process avoids suggesting such connections to passengers not otherwise aware of them.

 

[paul1609]

Up thread someone mentioned travelling to Orkney using the sleeper via Inverness. When I enquired about this last year I found that the timings just didn't work. If i had gone via the ferry at Scrabster to Stromness the journey time was about 23 hrs. Journey time flying from Luton To Kirkwall was bout 5-6 hrs this was with a 3 1/2 wait at Aberdeen. I flew.

I flew down from Kirkwall to London Southend via Aberdeen with Loganair last month it took 4 hours.
For a one way journey rails price was way out of my reach, complimentary coffee and caramel wafers on each leg was just the icing on the cake.

 

[MrEd]

Seems plausible to me that there could be a management decision that where people have connections, then they are honoured (at CS expense), but at the same time, it's not actively encouraged for people to use these connections (because the more people use them, the more financial risk for CS). Therefore the on-train experience is that staff are helpful in getting you to your destination, but the booking process avoids suggesting such connections to passengers not otherwise aware of them.

That sounds a plausible explanation of the situation to me, and I can well believe that CS are trying to eliminate this risk as much as possible. Indeed the CS website does not sell any tickets to any Scottish destinations not served by the sleeper, and other posts suggest that buying a through ticket may be hard for the general public if they’re not clued up (and that online booking engines make it seem needlessly complicated).

 

[MrEd]

I flew down from Kirkwall to London Southend via Aberdeen with Loganair last month it took 4 hours.
For a one way journey rails price was way out of my reach, complimentary coffee and caramel wafers on each leg was just the icing on the cake.

I have never personally visited Orkney, but agree that the sleeper would make it into a needlessly long-winded and complicated journey (unless you specifically wanted to do the FNL and have a bit of an adventure). My suggestions about Orkney being a plausible destination for Inverness sleeper passengers (as well as Caithness via the FNL) is merely based on conversations I’ve overheard in the lounge car over the years. Some of the travellers I’ve spoken to planned to get off in Inverness and hire cars to take them onwards, whereas others seemed to want to use the Wick and Kyle trains. I always notice, too, a few passengers headed for Nairn, Forres and Elgin (I suppose for anywhere further east, it’s quicker to use the Aberdeen section). I for one regularly use the Inverness sleeper for travel to Skye, as the connections work so much better this way than via Mallaig (where you’ll end up with a two-hour wait in Fort William).

CS could definitely follow that lead with the free caramel wafers... I’d much prefer those to the breakfast muffins (although they’re not bad).

 

[paul1609]

I have never personally visited Orkney, but agree that the sleeper would make it into a needlessly long-winded and complicated journey (unless you specifically wanted to do the FNL and have a bit of an adventure). My suggestions about Orkney being a plausible destination for Inverness sleeper passengers (as well as Caithness via the FNL) is merely based on conversations I’ve overheard in the lounge car over the years. Some of the travellers I’ve spoken to planned to get off in Inverness and hire cars to take them onwards, whereas others seemed to want to use the Wick and Kyle trains. I always notice, too, a few passengers headed for Nairn, Forres and Elgin (I suppose for anywhere further east, it’s quicker to use the Aberdeen section). I for one regularly use the Inverness sleeper for travel to Skye, as the connections work so much better this way than via Mallaig (where you’ll end up with a two-hour wait in Fort William).

CS could definitely follow that lead with the free caramel wafers... I’d much prefer those to the breakfast muffins (although they’re not bad).

Whereabouts in Skye is your destination? Personally I'd get the sleeper to Fort William, have a proper breakfast and then get the Citylink Bus to Portree. Once past Fort William the Skye Bus is surely the coach industries " West Highland Line" after you leave the Great Glen the whole route is just stunning and past Broadford on Skye its just spectacular if you exclude Iceland I guess its by far Europes No. 1 bus journey.

 

[MrEd]

Whereabouts in Skye is your destination? Personally I'd get the sleeper to Fort William, have a proper breakfast and then get the Citylink Bus to Portree. Once past Fort William the Skye Bus is surely the coach industries " West Highland Line" after you leave the Great Glen the whole route is just stunning and past Broadford on Skye its just spectacular if you exclude Iceland I guess its by far Europes No. 1 bus journey.

I go to Skye quite a lot actually, travelling fairly widely around the island (both north and south, and often to the Carbost and Dunvegan areas in the West/northwest of Skye) as I’ve got lots of very good friends who live in those two corners of the island, and know my way around fairly well. I have used the 916 bus from Spean Bridge which I think is the one you describe, unless there’s another one you know about (unfortunately you don’t get that much time for a breakfast, but it’s doable in the Spean Bridge mill cafe, as the sleeper arrives at Spean at 09:38 and the bus on this summer’s timetable leaves at 10:30; at Fort William the bus leaves at 10.15, only 20 minutes after the sleeper arrives, so sadly very little time for breakfast at Fort William these days unless you're happy with McDonalds or a takeaway roll, and the next one to Skye doesn’t leave till 14:00). If I can be honest I prefer to use the Kyle line (I can then get the 916 Portree bus from Kyle which connects with the train from Inverness, enjoy the amazing island scenery and meet my friends at the Sligachan Hotel, which is a truly stunning spot). While the bus journey from Fort William to Kyle goes through some extremely impressive scenery, and is definitely worth a go, for some reason I just seem to prefer the Kyle line (particularly the upland section round Achnasheen and the lochside section from Strathcarron through Plockton to Kyle, which is my favourite stretch of railway in the UK). Perhaps it’s also because my railway enthusiast mind always associates getting to Skye with using the Kyle line... Sometimes I get off at Plockton or Duirinish and go for a lovely coastal walk (with lunch in Plockton- a beautiful spot- or at the amazing new cafe in Duirinish) before getting the afternoon train (the 13.35 Inverness to Kyle) to meet the 16.15 Portree bus in Kyle. That said, I don’t think there’s a bad way of reaching Skye, all the possible routes to Kyle/Mallaig and across the island are absolutely fantastic.

 

[Struner]

Perhaps Mr Ed’s travellers to Orkney would be taking the John o’Groats Express bus, which would get them to Kirkwall at sometime after 7 (& a bonus of some five hrs at Inverness lol) - summer only though.
Or the Pentalina? But that means bussing with Stagecoach from Inverness. & they seem to change the timetable more or less every year - Stagecoach that is

 

[Hadders]

However, if you split the journey into your sleeper advance, and then your journeys before and after, you lose the protection that travelling on a through ticket offers.

This is incorrect. You are perfectly entitled to use a combination of tickets to make a journey and there is no loss or rights or protection for doing so.

There are some journeys where it is not possible to book a 'through' ticket and a combination has to be used.

As well as the aforementioned through journey protection (the TOCs would be obligated to get you to your final destination as opposed to what was on that particular split of your ticket) you'd also be entitled for a much larger degree of Delay Repay.

Again, there is no loss of Delay Repay is using a combination. There is an article of this very subject in the current edition of Rail Magazine (issue 885).

I'll not take this subject off topic any further so if there are any more queries then it might be best to start a new thread.

 

[BRX]

Things have gone quiet on the introduction of mk5s on the highlander. Are they still saying that'll happen at the end of this month?

 

[47271]

Things have gone quiet on the introduction of mk5s on the highlander. Are they still saying that'll happen at the end of this month?

I've heard early October, but that's just 'lounge talk'.

 

[MrEd]

I've heard early October, but that's just 'lounge talk'.

That’s what I’ve heard (very informally- staff and lounge talk) too. Will be interested to see when they do appear.

 

[Hipster Dashie]

https://www.scotsman.com/news/trans...plaints-of-filthy-disgusting-cabins-1-4987952

Seems there are some complaints of dirty berths filtering through to the media now. More bad press for Serco.

 

[47271]

https://www.scotsman.com/news/trans...plaints-of-filthy-disgusting-cabins-1-4987952

Seems there are some complaints of dirty berths filtering through to the media now. More bad press for Serco.

There's nothing new about poor cleaning standards - mainly unemptied bins and bad hoovering, Scotrail used to specialise in it, I know someone who found a half eaten sandwich under their bed once.

I've never heard of beds not having been changed though, that's gross if true.

 

[Bletchleyite]

There's nothing new about poor cleaning standards - mainly unemptied bins and bad hoovering, Scotrail used to specialise in it, I know someone who found a half eaten sandwich under their bed once.

I've never heard of beds not having been changed though, that's gross if true.

To be fair, that's entirely in line with my experience in hotels - very rarely is the cleaning up to scratch. I'd far rather the cleaning during my stay was removed (I don't after all clean my house daily nor pointlessly replace the towels that often) and a proper amount of time spent on an actual deep clean before I receive the keys, rather than the very quick cleans completed every day as most hotels do.

In particular, muck on air vents is a sign of sloppiness and laziness, it takes half a second with a brush to remove it.

 

[BRX]

Travelled on an internal italian sleeper a couple of months back and the cleaning was pretty ropey... Worse than what I'd generally expect on the CS.

 

[Mag_seven]

Travelled on an internal italian sleeper a couple of months back and the cleaning was pretty ropey... Worse than what I'd generally expect on the CS.

I travelled on the Berlin-Malmo sleeper the other week - you had to make your own bed up from scratch!

 

[BRX]

I travelled on the Berlin-Malmo sleeper the other week - you had to make your own bed up from scratch!

Yes, I've done that one too, and it's just the kind of budget-orientated operation that I'd like to have on CS!

 

[Antman]

Travelled on an internal italian sleeper a couple of months back and the cleaning was pretty ropey... Worse than what I'd generally expect on the CS.

what did it cost ? Single/double berth/exclusive/distance/sultry Italian sirens for cabin crew or big mommas in billowing black dresses, you know that sort of thing

If it's good value, it's fair enough, but I expect clean sheets. I got impetigo from a Glasgow to Stranraer train seat 25 years ago, not something I'd like to repeat....

 

[BRX]

what did it cost ? Single/double berth/exclusive/distance/sultry Italian sirens for cabin crew or big mommas in billowing black dresses, you know that sort of thing

If it's good value, it's fair enough, but I expect clean sheets. I got impetigo from a Glasgow to Stranraer train seat 25 years ago, not something I'd like to repeat....

two people in a two-person cabin, €135. Naples to Turin. The service on board was quite minimal - no restaurant car, mini croissant etc for breakfast. The cabin was fine but 'well worn', something like a mk3 cabin but a little better maintained. I thought it was pretty good value.

 

[Antman]

so fairly similar to the Sleeper run.... at a good price (let's call it £135. So £62.50 a head). thanks for the detail.

 

[SteveM70]

To be fair, that's entirely in line with my experience in hotels - very rarely is the cleaning up to scratch. I'd far rather the cleaning during my stay was removed (I don't after all clean my house daily nor pointlessly replace the towels that often) and a proper amount of time spent on an actual deep clean before I receive the keys, rather than the very quick cleans completed every day as most hotels do.

In particular, muck on air vents is a sign of sloppiness and laziness, it takes half a second with a brush to remove it.

Absolutely. I often wonder how often - if ever - the mugs and glasses in hotel rooms get more than a cursory swill under the bathroom tap

 

[paul1609]

There's nothing new about poor cleaning standards - mainly unemptied bins and bad hoovering, Scotrail used to specialise in it, I know someone who found a half eaten sandwich under their bed once.

I've never heard of beds not having been changed though, that's gross if true.

This is incorrect. You are perfectly entitled to use a combination of tickets to make a journey and there is no loss or rights or protection for doing so.

There are some journeys where it is not possible to book a 'through' ticket and a combination has to be used.



Again, there is no loss of Delay Repay is using a combination. There is an article of this very subject in the current edition of Rail Magazine (issue 885).

I'll not take this subject off topic any further so if there are any more queries then it might be best to start a new thread.

Just to say Ive had experience of this in Serco days. A passenger had a heart attack on a Thameslink train from Brighton when I was travelling to catch the Highlander. We were delayed at Hassocks whilst paramedics attended. I missed the sleeper at Euston and thought I try to get on the Lowlander- the team leader sat me in the lounge car until the train left Euston and explained to me that the trains was fully booked and I might have to stay there for the night but they had a no show and gave me that berth. my ticket was endorsed and i went forward to Tyndrum on a Scotrail service next morning with no problems at all. To be honest I was so grateful I didn't claim delay repay.

 

[Hadders]

Just to say Ive had experience of this in Serco days. A passenger had a heart attack on a Thameslink train from Brighton when I was travelling to catch the Highlander. We were delayed at Hassocks whilst paramedics attended. I missed the sleeper at Euston and thought I try to get on the Lowlander- the team leader sat me in the lounge car until the train left Euston and explained to me that the trains was fully booked and I might have to stay there for the night but they had a no show and gave me that berth. my ticket was endorsed and i went forward to Tyndrum on a Scotrail service next morning with no problems at all. To be honest I was so grateful I didn't claim delay repay.

Good that you were sorted without too much hassle but the reality is they had 3 choices:

1. Put you on an alternative train service (which they did)
2. Arrange onward travel by taxi
3. Arrange overnight accommodation and train the following morning

Whether you had a through ticket or a combination of tickets is immaterial. The only caveat I would add is that you have to leave sufficient interchange time when changing trains and to cross London nd it is 'neater' if your tickets 'join up' if crossing London rather than using Oyster/contactless.

 

[route101]

Absolutely. I often wonder how often - if ever - the mugs and glasses in hotel rooms get more than a cursory swill under the bathroom tap

Thats why i dont touch them , also may just be cleaned with a towel!

 

[Bletchleyite]

Thats why i dont touch them , also may just be cleaned with a towel!

The body's immune system is a wonderful thing, and I can't think of ever having picked up any kind of illness relating to the use of such things in the past.

If you're immunocompromised (or have a severe allergy to something that might have been in the cup) there's a need to be a bit more paranoid, but if (like most people) you aren't, there really is no need to be. Let the body do its job - it's really rather good at it - and worry about things that might actually be worth worrying about in a hotel, such as how you're going to get out in the event of fire.