My understanding was that the plan is for mainland Scotland to move from level 4 to level 3 restrictions on 26 April, which still prohibits non-essential travel across local authority boundaries. Obviously lots of pent up demand for essential travel between London & Fort William in the last week of April...
Going back to the reopening of the seated coach, looking at RTT & National Rail journey planner, it does appear that this excludes intermediate travel on the FTW portion, such as Rannoch to Fort William.
So much for the remote WHL communities doing their food shopping without an overnight stay in Fort William...
That’s not quite true- assuming that case numbers fall as expected, free travel throughout mainland Scotland is being allowed from 26 April as stated in the latest Scottish Government guidelines. This is why hotels and holiday accommodation are due to open on this date (otherwise it would be pointless). While this is not set in stone, the plan as I understand it is to allow free travel from other parts of the UK from the end of April or as soon as possible thereafter (as the First Minister suggested to Parliament last month), which explains the re-instatement of the Fort William sleeper- there certainly won’t be much demand from ‘essential’ travellers on that service, and there is no point running it if lockdown continues. That said, I’m not sure why it has filled up so quickly given that there is still so much uncertainty. Obviously if the Scottish government delays the return of leisure travel then the reintroduction of the other sleeper portions will also be put back. I think we are due a review soon in which the plan for the end of the month will be set out.
Island communities are being given the choice as to whether to stick with the same rules as the mainland, allowing free travel, or to continue with the travel ban from the mainland and the rest of the UK. Skye will probably follow the mainland as it’s very difficult to police travel to it otherwise, but nothing has been confirmed about other islands.
I believe that Scotrail have now introduced a temporary morning service with a spare class 156 unit from Rannoch to Fort William to replace the sleeper seated coach.