Can a car beat the sleeper to its destination?

[paul1609]

Quite agree. I and colleagues have used the sleeper to arrive for early meetings whilst avoiding getting up at an ungodly hour for the red-eye flight from Edinburgh to City.

Evidence that I see suggests that you are very much in a minority. In the past month on a Friday night I've been one of only two customers in First Class travelling to Edinburgh. Outside of the summer season it's a busy night on the Fort William train if there's more than 10 customers in the berths. 95% of all the customers I see are leisure customers..

 

[richw]

Depends on whether you are a morning or evening person. I hate early starts but other people manage to get up at 6 am or earlier to earn a living. Some people on this forum must have to get up at near sunrise in June to get to work on time.

with 2/3s of my shifts each month, I have to get the 0608 train from Liskeard daily (ironically for this thread, the down night Riviera) so I am out of bed 0515 at the latest, and out of the house by 0550.
I will be in bed by 10 on those days.

 

[Busaholic]

I've driven from Penzance to London, and vice versa, perhaps thirty to forty times each way over the last twenty five years. My journey is usually to South or SouthEast London and I usually travel starting in the early evening. I am now 68, have a Renault Clio (before that a Renault 5) and have no co-driver. Allowing for one or two coffee/loo stops the journey usually takes about 5 and a half hours, although I have done it in 5. This is via A30, A303 and M25 to Croydon turn-off. M5 and M4 would be longer, but if you knocked off the Hammersmith to SE London bit it shouldn't be too much different i.e. the journey time is much quicker than the sleeper and, frankly, equates with the daytime service simply because I can get to Exeter in 2 hours by car whereas the train is almost 3 hours.

 

[47271]

An interesting theoretical exercise from a SE England point of view, but I know a lot of people living in Perthshire who are some of the most regular users of the Highland sleeper. They turn up at Blair Atholl, Pitlochry, Dunkeld, Perth or Gleneagles around 11pm and reliably find themselves at Euston at 8am. Any other method to get there would be crackers. Drive from Perth to London for an 8am start, you've got to be joking. Drive to Edinburgh Airport for 5am, is that much better?

I can't see why anyone as far up as Inverness would try to fly on an infrequent service, drive or take daytime trains.

Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow are a very different matter and air is king. But to make any comparison between rail or air from the Highlands, and DRIVING to London for a business trip for a day or so is nuts. You may be able to cover the ground more quickly than the sleeper driving like a loony with matchsticks under your eyelids but, apart from anything else, what would I do with my car for three days when I arrive in The Strand at 830am on a Tuesday?

 

[richw]

I think busaholic hits the nail on the head.
The train is painfully slow west of Exeter. When I used to commute Redruth to London for work, I could have an extra hour in bed and drive to Tiverton parkway and catch the same service, I'd be home an hour earlier than the train as well (at least).
Redruth to Tiverton parkway is approx 90 mins drive, train is about 170 minutes!

 

[co-tr-paul]

The down Night Riviera also doubles as a commuter train after Plymouth so 2 services in 1.... .
As a qualified,ex professional driver, can I state that anyone driving mote than 5 hours without a break is asking for trouble.....,I have seen the damage done.

 

[richw]

The down Night Riviera also doubles as a commuter train after Plymouth so 2 services in 1.... .
As a qualified,ex professional driver, can I state that anyone driving mote than 5 hours without a break is asking for trouble.....,I have seen the damage done.

Fleet is my services of choice heading to London.
Coming home I cut across from the A303 to M5 J25, to miss the horrible bit of the A303/A30, and go into Taunton sainsburys (petrol typically 10-15p a litre cheaper as well than Taunton Deane). Sainsburys at Taunton is no more than 200 yards from J25.

 

[work-traveller]

Evidence that I see suggests that you are very much in a minority. In the past month on a Friday night I've been one of only two customers in First Class travelling to Edinburgh. Outside of the summer season it's a busy night on the Fort William train if there's more than 10 customers in the berths. 95% of all the customers I see are leisure customers..

For the Highland Sleeper perhaps, I think there are more business travellers on the Lowland Sleeper however.