Caledonian Sleeper

[TimboM]

How much more testing can there possibly be left to do, they are already in service?

A whole load of testing and mileage accumulation left to do... there's only 32 coaches in service on the Lowlander (or 31 if we exclude the "missing" 15315). That leaves another 39 coaches in the UK (with 4 to come) that need testing/mileage accumulation.
There's also training to do for the north of Edinburgh/Highlander crews which involves the stock being taken out on the rails.
There's test runs up and down the WCML most weeknights at the moment.

 

[BRX]

On the table sharing - shared a table earlier this year. The two people we shared with were seated there by the attendant a little while after we took the table so there can't be any fixed rule. In the end spent quite some time chatting to those people, was an enjoyable evening.

 

[Scotrail84]

A whole load of testing and mileage accumulation left to do... there's only 32 coaches in service on the Lowlander (or 31 if we exclude the "missing" 15315). That leaves another 39 coaches in the UK (with 4 to come) that need testing/mileage accumulation.
There's also training to do for the north of Edinburgh/Highlander crews which involves the stock being taken out on the rails.
There's test runs up and down the WCML most weeknights at the moment.

Thats back in service now.

 

[Butts]

What date were you trying to book? I can get a classic room for example for 21 August for £255.00

Humble apologies, on rechecking it was indeed £255 in total from Preston to Inverness for two people in a classic room.

Still £150 north of the £50 each par avion.

Starting from Birmingham area, hence need to go to Crewe to join the service.

Prices for my Date Friday 25th October - Have to be in Inverness on Saturday 26th.

2 Adults

1040BHX to INV arrive 1210 £102.00
Bus INV to City £9.00
Premier Inn £48.00 (City Centre by River Ness)
Train to Birmingham Airport £9.00

Total £168.00

Sleeper Crewe to Inverness £255.00
Train to Crewe around £15
Total £270

So you get a much more comfortable bed on the Friday Night and are a ton in pocket never mind the time saved !!

 

[Butts]

Inverness hotels & B&Bs are very expensive in the summer.
I paid £35 for a rubbish hotel in January but they wanted £157 when I looked at booking a few weeks ahead this month.
I used to stay in a small B&B that was cheap but the owner retired and the price doubled - £75 and usually fully booked.
A night on the sleeper has added value when & where hotel prices are high (London, Edinburgh & Inverness in particular).

Try Travelodge or Premier Inn they are normally cheaper.

 

[Norther Monkey]

Serco, to a large extent driven by the Scottish Government's vision, may have a long term problem.
Unless they get this right soon, it appears that they've aimed (and priced tickets accordingly) for the luxury travel 'experience' market and can't (yet?) deliver. In doing so they've priced out many regular commuters who just wanted to maximise quality of life by travelling whilst they slept.
The legacy of poor online reviews (see TripAdvisor) left by disappointed customers could seriously affect the business moving forward.

 

[Essexman]

I've often shared tables in sleeper lounge cars and in other restaurant cars. It is generally accepted that this is what happens. Those who dine on trains are usually interesting people and good conversation ensues.

 

[WesternLancer]

Humble apologies, on rechecking it was indeed £255 in total from Preston to Inverness for two people in a classic room.

Still £150 north of the £50 each par avion.

Starting from Birmingham area, hence need to go to Crewe to join the service.

Prices for my Date Friday 25th October - Have to be in Inverness on Saturday 26th.

2 Adults

1040BHX to INV arrive 1210 £102.00
Bus INV to City £9.00
Premier Inn £48.00 (City Centre by River Ness)
Train to Birmingham Airport £9.00

Total £168.00

Sleeper Crewe to Inverness £255.00
Train to Crewe around £15
Total £270

So you get a much more comfortable bed on the Friday Night and are a ton in pocket never mind the time saved !!

Thanks,, yes obv friday is not an eve when they would have cheap tickets, but then that point should apply to air too of course. Illustrates how CS need to get the pricing right, but if they can fill the beds at the prices they charge they will have no need to make it cheaper. All night seats is I guess, the cheaper option....but less appealing.

Hopefully B'ham international will not be fog bound that day

 

[ainsworth74]

Serco, to a large extent driven by the Scottish Government's vision, may have a long term problem.
Unless they get this right soon, it appears that they've aimed (and priced tickets accordingly) for the luxury travel 'experience' market and can't (yet?) deliver. In doing so they've priced out many regular commuters who just wanted to maximise quality of life by travelling whilst they slept.
The legacy of poor online reviews (see TripAdvisor) left by disappointed customers could seriously affect the business moving forward.

I must admit I've always had this worry since it became clear that the prices were going skyrocket. I can recall paying, as a one off treat, £120 for a first class berth from London to Inverness on a Friday night booked around three months prior to the date of travel. Expensive to be sure but factoring in the travel and accommodation not wholly unreasonable. Looking three months in advance from now on a Friday night and I'm looking at £210! £210!! And that's just for the "Classic" (so comparable with the old stock broadly) if I wanted the "Club" with en-suite it's £310! At those sorts of prices it's a no-brainer to fly for anyone who isn't after an "experience". I could fly from Heathrow at 2020 arriving into Inverness at 2200 for £58 with British Airways! Or fly on Saturday morning from Luton at 0940 and arrive in Inverness for 1110 at a cost of £63 with EasyJet.

They really better pray that there is a big tourist market for them to capture who are willing to drop in excess of £200 on these berths and then spend high in the lounge car otherwise the already dodgy finances of Sleeper operation (remember that this service is subsidised up to the hilt!) will get even more dodgy.

 

[BRX]

Air travel's subsidised as well of course, especially to Inverness.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Air travel's subsidised as well of course, especially to Inverness.

Specific routes are, but not generally.

 

[RLBH]

Specific routes are, but not generally.

Arguably the exemption from APD of flights departing from the Highlands and Islands constitutes a subsidy. Only on departure, of course, but most passengers will also arrive.

 

[WesternLancer]

I must admit I've always had this worry since it became clear that the prices were going skyrocket. I can recall paying, as a one off treat, £120 for a first class berth from London to Inverness on a Friday night booked around three months prior to the date of travel. Expensive to be sure but factoring in the travel and accommodation not wholly unreasonable. Looking three months in advance from now on a Friday night and I'm looking at £210! £210!! And that's just for the "Classic" (so comparable with the old stock broadly) if I wanted the "Club" with en-suite it's £310! At those sorts of prices it's a no-brainer to fly for anyone who isn't after an "experience". I could fly from Heathrow at 2020 arriving into Inverness at 2200 for £58 with British Airways! Or fly on Saturday morning from Luton at 0940 and arrive in Inverness for 1110 at a cost of £63 with EasyJet.

They really better pray that there is a big tourist market for them to capture who are willing to drop in excess of £200 on these berths and then spend high in the lounge car otherwise the already dodgy finances of Sleeper operation (remember that this service is subsidised up to the hilt!) will get even more dodgy.

Exactly my view too. You can fill a tourist train for the experience in busy times, but x carriages, 6 nights a week?

I suppose after the dust settles (say 2 years or so) from the Mk5 intros you might get a re-introduction of Bargain berths or some such maybe, or someone will be calling VIA rail to see if they need some cheaply priced sleepers in Canada again....

You might also need the generation of politicians and civil servants who signed off the current SERCO plan to move on / retire etc first, but their periods in office are shorter than the avg rolling stock life expectation!

 

[Glenn1969]

On the face of it flying looks cheaper but does that include the extras some airlines charge for checking in, cabin baggage, priority boarding etc etc?

 

[jagardner1984]

Honestly I think there is two parts to the air vs rail debate.

1. People don’t see the cost of the ancillary bits when booking. People probably should, but you look at the sleeper, you see a headline price. £150. £200. £300. Whatever. You go onto easyJet you see a headline price. £30. £50. Etc. For most people that’s the end of the discussion.

2. Fundamentally the headline price, not taking into account the components for travel, overnight accommodation, en-suite in some cases, and of course subsidy, is for people to sleep on a train. A very nice train perhaps but still a moving, relatively cramped, unusual environment. Blue light switches aside, that probably won’t lead to the best nights sleep. Now personally I don’t spend £200 on a hotel room .... ever, so even if you find enough people to fill 6 carriages from Glasgow on a Tuesday night in January, you are selling them something which will in most cases be a comparatively poor nights sleep, now at a significant financial premium from the flight and hotel. When I used to buy Caledonian solo berth upgrades from First Scotrail for £49 only a few years ago, that simply wasn’t the case. It was then a relatively economical room for the night.

To be clear, I think the sleeper is a great service and I’d hate for it to be an irrelevance (and thus easily disposed of), but I think there is a fundamental miscalculation in what people are prepared to pay for a mattress on a train. It’s primarily travel, it’s not the Ritz.

 

[BRX]

Specific routes are, but not generally.

It all gets a tax break on fuel.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It all gets a tax break on fuel.

Not taxing something isn't a subsidy per-se. It's only road traffic that has to pay that level of tax on fuel (and local buses get a rebate in some form). Aviation is taxed differently, via APD.

 

[Butts]

On the face of it flying looks cheaper but does that include the extras some airlines charge for checking in, cabin baggage, priority boarding etc etc?

Flying from Birmingham to Inverness on Flybe attracts none of the above unless you are taking a suitcase rather than cabin baggage.

An alternative on the same day on my October odyssey would be to traverse over to East Midlands Airport and fly up to Inverness on Loganair for about £50. For that you can take a suitcase at no extra cost and enjoy complimentary refreshments.

 

[Norther Monkey]

On the face of it flying looks cheaper but does that include the extras some airlines charge for checking in, cabin baggage, priority boarding etc etc?

In my experience flying, even with all the extras, is significantly cheaper than every sleeper option but the seats. I rarely pay more than £100 return to fly, add on £30 absolute max for travel to and from the airports. This is at least half of the cost of a bed on the sleeper. Add up the costs/savings based on 3-4 return trips a month.......

 

[WesternLancer]

Flying from Birmingham to Inverness on Flybe attracts none of the above unless you are taking a suitcase rather than cabin baggage.

An alternative on the same day on my October odyssey would be to traverse over to East Midlands Airport and fly up to Inverness on Loganair for about £50. For that you can take a suitcase at no extra cost and enjoy complimentary refreshments.

But you have to get a taxi (or walk) from east midlands parkway station to East Mids airport since the demise of any kind of bus link
But I know what you mean, or a bus from one of the not that nearby cities.

 

[WesternLancer]

Honestly I think there is two parts to the air vs rail debate.

1. People don’t see the cost of the ancillary bits when booking. People probably should, but you look at the sleeper, you see a headline price. £150. £200. £300. Whatever. You go onto easyJet you see a headline price. £30. £50. Etc. For most people that’s the end of the discussion.

2. Fundamentally the headline price, not taking into account the components for travel, overnight accommodation, en-suite in some cases, and of course subsidy, is for people to sleep on a train. A very nice train perhaps but still a moving, relatively cramped, unusual environment. Blue light switches aside, that probably won’t lead to the best nights sleep. Now personally I don’t spend £200 on a hotel room .... ever, so even if you find enough people to fill 6 carriages from Glasgow on a Tuesday night in January, you are selling them something which will in most cases be a comparatively poor nights sleep, now at a significant financial premium from the flight and hotel. When I used to buy Caledonian solo berth upgrades from First Scotrail for £49 only a few years ago, that simply wasn’t the case. It was then a relatively economical room for the night.

To be clear, I think the sleeper is a great service and I’d hate for it to be an irrelevance (and thus easily disposed of), but I think there is a fundamental miscalculation in what people are prepared to pay for a mattress on a train. It’s primarily travel, it’s not the Ritz.

Very well put - and this is of course at the heart of the problems sleeper services all over face, and in many cases cannot survive. Squeezed by both cheap airlines (who get loads of various types of indirect subsidy as touched on above but off topic really), and now even squeezed by accommodation providers like air bnb or travelodge - almost certainly helped by the zero hours contracts of work many of their employees will work under that (thankfully) are not acceptable on the railways, as yet...

Who would have thought that large countries like Germany and France would move to having got rid of all or virtually all sleepers and even the more obviously cheap couchette option?

So planning a journey to eastern europe now means I can not be time efficient and cover most of the mileage overnight, I must spend an overnight en route, or fly. I will choose the former, but most will not, for obvious reasons.

I just hope SERCO (or an alternative operator) can overcome the recent difficulties, get the prices right, and make a success of it.

 

[Mainliner]

I’m an occasional CS user, in order to avoid having to travel down and get a hotel room in London the night before, or get up in the middle of the night for an early train/flight.

I’ll give the new stock a try, and pay for an en-suite cabin, the lack of which was a major drawback on the old stock.

However, I won’t continue to be a CS customer (despite liking and preferring rail travel) if the following reported faults are ongoing - late departures, inability to get a meal in the lounge for whatever reason, non-working shower or toilet, etc, all of which reduce the reason for using the service.

I would have thought that Serco would be entitled to substantial compensation for things like late delivery of the stock and fundamental faults like non-working showers/toilets and other issues causing late departures. If so, I’d also have thought that radical action would be called for in order to preserve goodwill and the survival of the business, such as at least putting such compensation towards massively discounting fares until the promised product is delivered by the manufacturer and provided to the customer. (To that end, are staff from the manufacturer and the subcontractors who supplied things like the toilets and showers currently working on the stock at their own cost at Wembley and other depots?)

 

[BRX]

Who would have thought that large countries like Germany and France would move to having got rid of all or virtually all sleepers and even the more obviously cheap couchette option?

Although...there are some indications that they may have underestimated the demand, with OBB seemingly expanding its network and some of the scandinavian countries making noises about re-estabishing and supporting night train connections.

 

[33Hz]

Although...there are some indications that they may have underestimated the demand, with OBB seemingly expanding its network and some of the scandinavian countries making noises about re-estabishing and supporting night train connections.

And now also Switzerland - although they say it will take 3 years to buy new stock.

 

[WesternLancer]

Although...there are some indications that they may have underestimated the demand, with OBB seemingly expanding its network and some of the scandinavian countries making noises about re-estabishing and supporting night train connections.

Yes, there is some good news out there - and I thought it was v interesting that OBB decided to take on a decent number of the ex DB routes, tho of course they don't tend to benefit north west (and thus UK origin) travelers so well. But indeed good news.

 

[WesternLancer]

And now also Switzerland - although they say it will take 3 years to buy new stock.

Maybe they are not so keen on a Mk5 run on order..., or have just factored in the snagging time more accurately than SERCO.

 

[33Hz]

Yes, there is some good news out there - and I thought it was v interesting that OBB decided to take on a decent number of the ex DB routes, tho of course they don't tend to benefit north west (and thus UK origin) travelers so well. But indeed good news.

They have a service from Cologne to Munich and Vienna, which is as good as it was under DB in recent years.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Maybe they are not so keen on a Mk5 run on order..., or have just factored in the snagging time more accurately than SERCO.

I'm not sure 22m Mk5s with high entrances and no steps are much use for a low-platform country, to be honest. Anything they order will be based on a 26m UIC coach.

 

[33Hz]

Maybe they are not so keen on a Mk5 run on order..., or have just factored in the snagging time more accurately than SERCO.

They literally only just said they are considering it. More likely they will put in a follow on order with Siemens for the new Austrian ones.

 

[BRX]

Yes, there is some good news out there - and I thought it was v interesting that OBB decided to take on a decent number of the ex DB routes, tho of course they don't tend to benefit north west (and thus UK origin) travelers so well. But indeed good news.

Yes, it's frustrating that there's a bit of a night train black hole in the bit of continental Europe that's closest to the UK. Some destinations served overnight from Brussels would be very useful, with a quick change from the Eurostar.

Feel free to sign this petition!

https://back-on-track.eu/petition-belgium-to-be-served-by-night-trains-in-the-future/