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Call to let sleeper trains use the Channel tunnel

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Starmill

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Isn’t that only if you are redeeming points for a free ticket? Using cash & points doesn’t incur the £16 fee.
Yes although you only get a £10 discount for exchanging 200 points don't you? Not going to make much of a dent in even the cheapest fare.
 
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gingerheid

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The promoter basically sums up all the problems as being a lack of political will.

You could look at it from another perspective, which is that it is rather hard to get political support for a proposal that is expensive, would serve a small market, and requires significant changes to some fundamental elements of government policy.

Or put another way ..

“My Sleeper proposal to Europe would work if only Government(s) would force the infrastructure owner(s) to lower their prices, increase taxes on air transport, either join Schengen or introduce expensive border and security controls at all the stations we want to serve, and provide guarantees on funding so that our backers don’t lose money”

Yet again, it’s an answer looking for a question.

And maybe also ask the Canadian government to order the return of the Renaissance trains, bc why not? Purely bureaucracy if they refuse!

Though tbh I'm surprised this didn't come with a suggestion to not use HS1 to avoid the access charge. Maybe use Waterloo instead or something? If we're just going to deal in fantasy, then why not?

Something more general that I really don't understand... If you consider what has been the death of many sleeper routes, and if you look at a map of Europe and look at where the density of sleeper routes is highest... why would we want more of them? Are they what we should be aiming for?

I would suggest that a well developed sleeper network is a sign of the daytime services passengers prefer to travel on failing to meet their needs, usually because they are too slow. This might be best evidenced by the article that talks wistfully of the boat train to Paris as if it was something we should aim to return to!

(In truth I love sleepers as much as anyone and actively try to find excuses to justify using them, but I'm also realistic.)
 
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Bald Rick

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Another point here is the market the sleepers serve. There’s no easy way to put this, but in this country at least the sleeper is the near exclusive preserve of people who have plenty of money; they choose the sleeper as an experience, or to save time, but very rarely because it is cheaper than the alternatives.

It would seem odd in this day and age to be spending significant subsidy - and were talking over £100 per passenger - to enable rich people to save a few hours or have a jolly time.

I know this may be controversial!
 

AlbertBeale

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Another point here is the market the sleepers serve. There’s no easy way to put this, but in this country at least the sleeper is the near exclusive preserve of people who have plenty of money; they choose the sleeper as an experience, or to save time, but very rarely because it is cheaper than the alternatives.

It would seem odd in this day and age to be spending significant subsidy - and were talking over £100 per passenger - to enable rich people to save a few hours or have a jolly time.

I know this may be controversial!

I think the key point is "in this country". Elsewhere in Europe sleepers seem not to be priced just for the luxury market, and I'm not aware that they have such a massive subsidy (any more than rail services in general deserve). And by booking ahead, fares can often be comparable with day trains on the same route. My bed from Zurich to Prague a few years back was a few tens of pounds (£40-ish I think); and similarly my bed all the way from Milan to Syracuse a few years ago.

Any subsidy is peanuts compared to the money taken from everyone's taxes to pay for roads - if you count both the direct costs and the massive indirect costs.

NB - the idea of Eurostars to Lille and sleepers from there (as mentioned above) makes some sense for many UK-Europe journeys. But I'd have thought that much of the desire for overnight trains would be from other [than London] parts of Britain direct to Paris/Brussels etc; and from London direct to places significantly further away. Both of these require sleepers through the tunnel, and all the problems (real or invented) that seems to entail. Otherwise (if the tunnel has to be a distinct segment, come what may), for journeys from "before" London to "after" Paris/Brussels you're looking at a minimum of 2 changes en route, and a more fiddly and less attractive journey. (Though personally, as a Londoner wanting to travel around Europe whenever I have the time and money, the idea of an evening London-Lille train, with a seamless connection with sleepers onwards from there, would often suit me. But I guess the sleepers would have to also pick up somewhere else fairly major*, soon after leaving Lille, for passengers starting from northern France or Belgium, since there might not be enough Brits to fill sleepers from Lille - at least until European flights are stopped.) [*Brussels, if heading for northern Europe; a through station as close as possible to central Paris - if such still exists - for other directions. Though if sleepers became more normal again, perhaps a dedicated Paris sleeper terminal, which wasn't an actual "terminal station", could serve the Lille-originating sleepers too. Does Paris have any sort of Kensington Olympia equivalent?]
 

Geeves

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I may be looking too simply here but could a sleeper train not use some conventional high speed stock suitably converted? People will fly 19 hours in a seat so not even the whole train would need to be beds? Surely London to Barcelona is doable in 12 hours leaving at 9pm from London. Perfect!
 

urpert

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I think the key point is "in this country". Elsewhere in Europe sleepers seem not to be priced just for the luxury market, and I'm not aware that they have such a massive subsidy (any more than rail services in general deserve). And by booking ahead, fares can often be comparable with day trains on the same route. My bed from Zurich to Prague a few years back was a few tens of pounds (£40-ish I think); and similarly my bed all the way from Milan to Syracuse a few years ago.

Any subsidy is peanuts compared to the money taken from everyone's taxes to pay for roads - if you count both the direct costs and the massive indirect costs.

NB - the idea of Eurostars to Lille and sleepers from there (as mentioned above) makes some sense for many UK-Europe journeys. But I'd have thought that much of the desire for overnight trains would be from other [than London] parts of Britain direct to Paris/Brussels etc; and from London direct to places significantly further away. Both of these require sleepers through the tunnel, and all the problems (real or invented) that seems to entail. Otherwise (if the tunnel has to be a distinct segment, come what may), for journeys from "before" London to "after" Paris/Brussels you're looking at a minimum of 2 changes en route, and a more fiddly and less attractive journey. (Though personally, as a Londoner wanting to travel around Europe whenever I have the time and money, the idea of an evening London-Lille train, with a seamless connection with sleepers onwards from there, would often suit me. But I guess the sleepers would have to also pick up somewhere else fairly major*, soon after leaving Lille, for passengers starting from northern France or Belgium, since there might not be enough Brits to fill sleepers from Lille - at least until European flights are stopped.) [*Brussels, if heading for northern Europe; a through station as close as possible to central Paris - if such still exists - for other directions. Though if sleepers became more normal again, perhaps a dedicated Paris sleeper terminal, which wasn't an actual "terminal station", could serve the Lille-originating sleepers too. Does Paris have any sort of Kensington Olympia equivalent?]
Marne-la-Vallée and Massy TGV fulfil those criteria. But then you run into the “using LGV Interconnexion with classic stock” problem.
 

HSTEd

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That's for a relatively uncomplicated service running six nights a week -

I'm not entirely sure I would use "uncomplicated" to describe the operation of the Caledonian sleeper.
With its endless shunt moves and multiple splits.
 

edwin_m

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NB - the idea of Eurostars to Lille and sleepers from there (as mentioned above) makes some sense for many UK-Europe journeys. But I'd have thought that much of the desire for overnight trains would be from other [than London] parts of Britain direct to Paris/Brussels etc; and from London direct to places significantly further away. Both of these require sleepers through the tunnel, and all the problems (real or invented) that seems to entail.
That was precisely the logic that produced the original Tunnel sleeper proposal, which resulted in nothing more than some very complicated rolling stock that was eventually sold at a loss to Canada. As soon as you go north of London the stock has to be UK gauge, which increases costs both because it's non-standard and because less space in the upper and lower corners of the cross-section is much more significant for a sleeper than for a day coach, probably ruling out the various two-level configurations that have been used on the Continent. And going beyond Brussels and Paris you're hit with the costs for border formalities at all the origin stations.
I may be looking too simply here but could a sleeper train not use some conventional high speed stock suitably converted? People will fly 19 hours in a seat so not even the whole train would need to be beds? Surely London to Barcelona is doable in 12 hours leaving at 9pm from London. Perfect!
I tend to think reclining seats for the budget market and perhaps the sort of pods used on airline first class for mid-market are the way forward for sleepers, as much more space-efficient than giving everyone a private compartment. But to arrive in the morning fresh and ready for a business meeting you ideally need single compartments with en-suites, and even then I think many people would worry about having a sleepless night and being challenged about why they spent so much more when they could have had the same result from an early morning flight. For an early meeting I'd personally get the train the day before, work on the train and book into a hotel for the night.
 

Bald Rick

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Any subsidy is peanuts compared to the money taken from everyone's taxes to pay for roads - if you count both the direct costs and the massive indirect costs.

As I’ve posted on this forum elsewhere, taxes paid by road users outweigh the amount spent on roads by a very significant margin (multiples). Indirect costs are another matter of course, but it isn’t right to suggest that road users are subsidised.

I may be looking too simply here but could a sleeper train not use some conventional high speed stock suitably converted? People will fly 19 hours in a seat so not even the whole train would need to be beds? Surely London to Barcelona is doable in 12 hours leaving at 9pm from London. Perfect!

It could, but a sleeper at high speed (300km/h) is not going to be comfortable, indeed rather less comfortable than a conventional sleeper on conventional tracks. There’s also the small matter that all the high speed lines in France close for around 7-8 hours overnight. Leaving London at 2100 would get you to Calais after LGV Nord has closed, so it would be 3 hrs to Paris, another 5 to Lyon, by which point the LGVs are back open again. A couple of hours to Montpellier on the LGV, and then another 3 to Barcelona. 14 at best, assuming use of high speed sleeper stock (which doesn’t exist), and arriving Barcelona at 1200, after the first 5 flights from London have landed, and fully 2h40 after the first flight (arrives 0920).
 

jtuk

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Another point here is the market the sleepers serve. There’s no easy way to put this, but in this country at least the sleeper is the near exclusive preserve of people who have plenty of money; they choose the sleeper as an experience, or to save time, but very rarely because it is cheaper than the alternatives.

It would seem odd in this day and age to be spending significant subsidy - and were talking over £100 per passenger - to enable rich people to save a few hours or have a jolly time.

I know this may be controversial!

As someone mentioned, this is unique to the UK really. Had paid about £80 for the Rome/Vienna sleeper a couple of months ago (obv I now have an equivalent ÖBB voucher), which comparing the equivalent cost of hotel + travel seems reasonable enough ignoring the reduced airport faff

Would love to be able to use a through they'll sleeper, but realistically it's not going to happen for cost/logistical reasons, best we can really hope for is dedicated connections off of late Eurostars to connect at Brussels etc
 

Philip Phlopp

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I may be looking too simply here but could a sleeper train not use some conventional high speed stock suitably converted? People will fly 19 hours in a seat so not even the whole train would need to be beds? Surely London to Barcelona is doable in 12 hours leaving at 9pm from London. Perfect!

People will fly 19 hours in a seat because there's no alternative. They're not going to sit in a seat for 19 hours on a train when a 3-4 hour flight exists.
 

Bald Rick

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...and perhaps the sort of pods used on airline first class for mid-market are the way forward for sleepers, as much more space-efficient than giving everyone a private compartment.

This is something I’ve only just realised myself, having recently seen the drawings for the proposed pods on the Caley, and then done some thinking. Airline style first class pods wouldn’t be that much more efficient in space.

Assuming a 23m coach (the Mark 5s are 22m), the length needed for the gangways, door vestibules and toilets take up 4.75m, leaving 18.25m for accommodation. A sleeper cabin takes 1.35m, which enables 13.5 cabins in that space (which helps explain the 22m vehicles!), ie 13 cabins and 26 beds.

A BA first class pod is a little over 2m all in (1.98m bed, plus dividers either end). They are also quite wide but let’s assume you could fit them in 2+1. To enable exclusive access they would have to be staggered, which means the ‘middle’ row would have one less than the window rows. Within the 18.25m you could thus get 2 rows of 9 and one of 8, ie 26 beds. Using a typical business class pod would be 12cm shorter, but unfortunately that doesn’t help squeeze more in.

So, in terms of available beds, it’s the same number for sleeping compartments as for pods for a typical coach length. Therefore the commercial advantage of the pods can only be if you believe that you can get a higher % seat occupancy for your 26 than the beds, and at a price somewhere well north of half the price of a non-ensuite sleeper room.

From what I’ve seen of the Caley in the last year, it seems that they are doing a pretty good job of selling all the rooms at a decent price, and that the differential price reduction for a pod wouldn’t be that attractive to most customers.
 
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Chester1

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I would suggest that a well developed sleeper network is a sign of the daytime services passengers prefer to travel on failing to meet their needs, usually because they are too slow. This might be best evidenced by the article that talks wistfully of the boat train to Paris as if it was something we should aim to return to!

(In truth I love sleepers as much as anyone and actively try to find excuses to justify using them, but I'm also realistic.)

Lisbon and Madrid are separated by 350 miles but the day time train journey takes about 14 hours and 2 long changeovers. Its crazy and means its really a choice between an 8 hour coach journey, flying or a sleeper. If a direct day train could manage an average speed of 90mph it would kill the sleeper and a good chunk of the air market. The Thello sleeper will be redundant if the high speed line to Milan eventually gets completed in full.

If governments want to cut flights then legislating against point to point ticket sales between cities with train journeys of under 3 hours would be a good place to start. It would shrink the air market to feeding long haul routes. Its not really relevant to the UK though. Very few people on a Manchester to London flight are going to London. If the route was cut they would either take a direct flight to their destination or fly to an overseas hub airport and change there.
 
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gingerheid

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If governments want to cut flights then legislating against point to point ticket sales between cities with train journeys of under 3 hours would be a good place to start. It would shrink the air market to feeding long haul routes. Its not really relevant to the UK though. Very few people on a Manchester to London flight are going to London. If the route was cut they would either take a direct flight to their destination or fly to an overseas hub airport and change there.

I get that anti plane people might see this differently, but I'm for transport and for the right type of transport for the job. If you look at what's happened in the UK thanks to ECML upgrade, Channel Tunnel, WCML upgrade & HS1, the market has come as near to doing this for itself as makes no difference, and has done it so many times that it's clear what we should do if we want to reduce shorthaul flights and increase rail use?

There are two remaining times of domestic flight in the UK.

People wanting to make a longhaul journey probably will find it easier to do it by two modes (To airport, planes) rather than several (to station, train (probably with connections), planes/s). There may not be much getting around that, or benefit in doing so. At the moment Heathrow can't cope with all the longhaul connections that people could have made, and as a result acts a little like a ban on those flights because a lot of people currently make their connections in Amsterdam (which I think has flights to more UK airports than have flights to London?) or Dublin instead. There's an economic advantage in this in that it brings European flight connections to places like Teeside that otherwise wouldn't have links to Europe, but there'd also be an economic advantage (and environmental disadvantage) to the UK as a whole if Heathrow was the centre of those longhaul connections! I don't think we should want to discourage these travellers.

The other significant type of domestic flight is the low cost routes to (generally) Scotland. These people are probably flying because they find it more convenient / cheaper (and in measuring journeys from Central London people often make a mistake of ignoring the Visiting Friends and Relatives contingent who don't live in Central London and aren't going to Central Glasgow or Edinburgh). If we wanted to discourage these people from flying then a stick of taxation (or banning) attached to flights that aren't part of a long trip might work. However experience also tells that shaving a few mins off the journey to Scotland could do to those flights what the WCML did to flights to Manchester and Liverpool!

However... that brings us full circle, because then what would kill domestic flights is the same thing as kills sleepers...
 

MarcVD

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But to arrive in the morning fresh and ready for a business meeting you ideally need single compartments with en-suites, and even then I think many people would worry about having a sleepless night and being challenged about why they spent so much more when they could have had the same result from an early morning flight. For an early meeting I'd personally get the train the day before, work on the train and book into a hotel for the night.

But people traveling by plane are also expected to arrive fresh and ready to their first morning business meeting too, and all they had to travel is a cramped seat. So they achieve that by using airport facilities (showers, etc) before going to business. Why don’t we have such facilities in stations too ? That would certainly be more efficient than transporting entire bathrooms in train compartments to use them only 20 minutes every day.
 

30907

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But people traveling by plane are also expected to arrive fresh and ready to their first morning business meeting too, and all they had to travel is a cramped seat. So they achieve that by using airport facilities (showers, etc) before going to business. Why don’t we have such facilities in stations too ? That would certainly be more efficient than transporting entire bathrooms in train compartments to use them only 20 minutes every day.
You mean like at Euston....?

More of a problem on the mainland when sleepers serve multiple "business" destinations though...

Slightly OT, but I've just priced a single ensuite (needed at my age) from Vienna to Zurich for a month ahead at EUR219. I don't call that a "luxury market" price.

Thread suggesting sleeper trains timed to connect to Eurostar services at Lille:

A serious professional contributor BTW
 

MarkyT

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I think the more sensible strategy is for Brussels/Paris to act as sleeper 'hubs' with Eurostar connections.
Good idea. If Paris's sleeper services could be concentrated at Gares du Nord and de l'Est, interchange from London, and from say Benelux to Mediterranean destinations could be very easy.
 

Starmill

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Eurostar connections for sleeper trains are essentially useless unless through tickets are offered, and Eurostar are totally allergic to through tickets for reservation compulsory services.
 

Starmill

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Slightly OT, but I've just priced a single ensuite (needed at my age) from Vienna to Zurich for a month ahead at EUR219. I don't call that a "luxury market" price.
Austrian Airlines make the journey in 1h20 at £100 - £130, several times a day. So €219 is a mark up of 70 - 100%? What's the markup for? You to enjoy yourself, or the (modest!) time saving.
 

popeter45

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Eurostar connections for sleeper trains are essentially useless unless through tickets are offered, and Eurostar are totally allergic to through tickets for reservation compulsory services.
if specifically for sleeper connections that would be low numbers i feel leaving a few seats on a few services after the booked one for this could be viable, offset by charging more for said ticket (e.g. £60-70 for a early morning brussles-London leg of a thru ticket instead of £50 making a Vienna-London couchette £120-130 instead of £110 with issues if you miss your connection)
 

JonasB

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Austrian Airlines make the journey in 1h20 at £100 - £130, several times a day. So €219 is a mark up of 70 - 100%? What's the markup for? You to enjoy yourself, or the (modest!) time saving.

If you are on a trip where the night train means you save a hotel night, it becomes a very good price compared to flying.
 

AlbertBeale

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Austrian Airlines make the journey in 1h20 at £100 - £130, several times a day. So €219 is a mark up of 70 - 100%? What's the markup for? You to enjoy yourself, or the (modest!) time saving.

The percentage is rather less than that; and you get a bed thrown in for the night! (Which in some situations, depending on time of arrival needed and so on, you'd have to pay for additionally.)

[EDIT - woops - someone has made the latter point already.]
 

AlbertBeale

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Eurostar connections for sleeper trains are essentially useless unless through tickets are offered, and Eurostar are totally allergic to through tickets for reservation compulsory services.

The general issue of co-ordinated through ticketing in Europe would be solved if all the national rail systems were like they were in Europe a generation ago - all run as publicly-owned pubic services, and all happy to sell tickets and reservations on one another's services without any hassle of "different company; no profit for us; etc etc", with integrated ticket acceptance. Instead: privatisation, enforced (by the EU and others) competition, the proliferation of companies, and fragmentation of what was an integrated system, have been pushing us backwards for years.
 

jopsuk

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A few thoughts
1. there's High Speed sleeper services in China- worthwhile given the distances.
2. Spanish sleeper services use Talgo trenhotel sets that are fine at 220km/h, presumably Talgo could easily build newer sets capable of true high speed?
3. The fragmentation of European rail, in particular the rise of separated High Speed operators running as open access or pseudo open access that don't allow through tickets, is as far as I understand one of the big legacies of UK influence in the European Union.
 

Starmill

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If you are on a trip where the night train means you save a hotel night, it becomes a very good price compared to flying.
Only if one takes the view that a night of sleep in bed on a train is comparable to in a hotel...
 
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