Could the Sleepers be made self-funding?

[Tetragon213]

The challenge is the 5 destinations and 4 trains.

If you make it 5 destinations and 3 trains (likely with a dedicated Edinburgh train) or “6” destinations and 3 trains and two of those being Edinburgh then you are in a better place.

The other question is whether really you need to have 16 car long trains in general. If they are shorter you have more flexibility about where they terminate - and also you can add more intermediate stops and get more passengers.

After East West rail starts being able to get off in Milton Keynes would be quite good.

I suppose you could try this:
Set #1: Dedicated between London and Edinburgh via any route (preferably WCML). Electric only.
Set #2: Dedicated between London and Glasgow Central via any route (preferably WCML). Electric only.
Set #3: London to Edinburgh via ECML, but the whole unit continues to Dunblane where it then splits with one half for Aberdeen and the other half for Inverness (and merges on the return. I don't think you can do this at Perth as the station is beyond the junction). 2x diesel locomotives, and using a pair of DTs in the centre, you wouldn't even need to reverse. You do lose Inverkeithing, Kirkcaldy, and Leuchars though.
Set #4 London to Edinburgh via ECML, but the whole set continues on to Glasgow Queen Street and Fort William as one cohesive unit. This adds some capacity to the London-Edinburgh and London-Glasgow runs, and requires no shunting at all. Diesel required.

Total crayon fantasy, but a man can dream!

 

[Krokodil]

From the demand side, we don’t know how much untapped demand there is, but surely CS could know as they’ll have data on the number of people who search a date on their website, get a “full” message and then don’t book a different date?

According to a post upthread CS believe that demand on the Edinburgh portion exceeds capacity threefold.

 

[MatthewHutton]

I suppose you could try this:
Set #1: Dedicated between London and Edinburgh via any route (preferably WCML). Electric only.
Set #2: Dedicated between London and Glasgow Central via any route (preferably WCML). Electric only.
Set #3: London to Edinburgh via ECML, but the whole unit continues to Dunblane where it then splits with one half for Aberdeen and the other half for Inverness (and merges on the return. I don't think you can do this at Perth as the station is beyond the junction). 2x diesel locomotives, and using a pair of DTs in the centre, you wouldn't even need to reverse. You do lose Inverkeithing, Kirkcaldy, and Leuchars though.
Set #4 London to Edinburgh via ECML, but the whole set continues on to Glasgow Queen Street and Fort William as one cohesive unit. This adds some capacity to the London-Edinburgh and London-Glasgow runs, and requires no shunting at all. Diesel required.

Total crayon fantasy, but a man can dream!

I think you probably want to do an Edinburgh-Thames Valley or Edinburgh-Bristol service if it is the top destination. Then it can run as a flighted pair with the existing train and split off.

 

[Brubulus]

Running a dedicated Edinburgh service enables efficiencies to be made, therefore it should happen, with the Mk5 fleet. I accept that depowered 222s couldn't make it up or down the HML north of perth or the WHL, so instead keep the engines (maybe remove 1 or 2 to save weight) but have them turned off between London and Perth. Cheaper than flirts, almost as flexible. Then you can run 17 cars to Fort William/Glasgow and 17 cars to Aberdeen/Inverness. Total capacity of Caledonian Sleeper 50 coaches. Rotate fleet so only 2 services run on Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday nights, since those have lowest demand. (1 service for highlander, 1 for Edinburgh+Glasgow) No shunting required. Send half the Mk5 fleet to Night Riviera.

I think you probably want to do an Edinburgh-Thames Valley or Edinburgh-Bristol service if it is the top destination. Then it can run as a flighted pair with the existing train and split off.

The old Scotland-South West sleeper was highly dependent on military traffic which no longer exists.

 

[Bletchleyite]

That sounds suspiciously like a FLIRT!

Curiously the only Sleeper FLIRTs I know of, the Scandinavian ones, are not articulated and have conventional 26m vehicles. They can do that too!

 

[MatthewHutton]

The old Scotland-South West sleeper was highly dependent on military traffic which no longer exists

If you can fill 3 trains from London to Edinburgh it’s difficult to imagine you cannot fill one shorter one from Birmingham, Banbury, Oxford and Bristol.

6:30am Birmingham, 7:25am Banbury, 7:45am Oxford, 8:15am Swindon, 8:45am Bristol would work from a timing perspective.

 

[Brubulus]

Curiously the only Sleeper FLIRTs I know of, the Scandinavian ones, are not articulated and have conventional 26m vehicles. They can do that too!

The variable floor heights would cause havoc on a sleeper, I'm guessing

If you can fill 3 trains from London to Edinburgh it’s difficult to imagine you cannot fill one shorter one from Birmingham, Banbury, Oxford and Bristol.

6:30am Birmingham, 7:25am Banbury, 7:45am Oxford, 8:15am Swindon, 8:45am Bristol would work from a timing perspective.

You can't fill 3. You can fill 1.5 at peak times because only 8 coaches run to Edinburgh currently. Furthermore if the prices are in the realm of vaguely reasonable, that'll lead to subsidy expansion, especially with only 8 cars or so to spread the costs on. I'm sure the timings could work, but it wouldn't reduce the subsidy one bit.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I wonder if there are significantly different loadings between the portions on different nights, which could mean it being worth considering different destinations on different nights/at different times of year? I suspect Glasgow is more business oriented than Edinburgh for example, so maybe that is more of a priority on a Monday and a Thursday/Friday night? Would it be worth having the full train go to Edinburgh some nights during the Fringe for instance?

 

[HSTEd]

Is there anywhere in London where a sleeper train could concievably be formed by shunt moves?

I guess you could try and build a dedicated terminal at Kensington Olympia or somewhere, but that seems rather isolated for London.

If the train length at Euston limit could be bypassed then potentially we could run full formations to every destination with only a single Highland or Lowland driver/guard in each direction.

 

[Bill57p9]

I once asked about this on the dedicated Night Riviera stock thread, and apparently the electrical systems are incompatible. The Class 43s provide power at 415V, but the Mk3A stock of the Night Riviera accepts power at a nominal 1000V instead.

If you could use normal Mk3 coaches with HST-grade electrical switchboards etc for the Cally's Highlander portion, one could potentially use either Class 43 or Class 68 locomotives to haul them (perhaps with a DVT or similar), and then have the locomotive be available for hauling daytime services.

All mark 3 coach variants use the same 415v 3 phase electrical distribution internally. The difference is that HST Mk3s have 415v 3 phase ETS supplied by the power cars whereas the LHCS variants have the standard BR 700-1000v DC or single phase AC connectors and then convert this to 415v 3 phase using a motor alternator set. This “MA” set is what makes the whining noise on LHCS Mk3s. Conversion between the two should be straightforward, especially if a ready supply of connectors and through cabling were available from withdrawn examples of the other variant.
The other key difference between LHCS and HST Mk3s being the absence of buffers on the latter, and I suspect having buckeye only couplings. Plus of course HST mk3s having the multiple working through wiring.

Still, the class 43 no longer offers commonality.

 

[irish_rail]

The old Scotland-South West sleeper was highly dependent on military traffic which no longer exists.

Yes but the world is a very different place to what it was in the early 1990s when the SW to Scotland sleeper was binned. Back then everyone holidayed in the Costa del sol / blanca / brava etc etc. Nowadays more and more people are taking more frequent , but shorter breaks, and more frequently within the UK. Scotland ( and the South west) are both popular staycation destinations and both ends of the route are worthy of a reintroduced sleeper service. At present anyone making this journey (ie south of Bristol to Scotland) just flies. This also ignores the many people who simply choose not to visit Scotland from the south west (or vice versa) because they don't fancy having to fly. There is untapped demand.

 

[NCT]

Do the sleepers need to be made self funding? They offer journey opportunities for pre 8am arrivals without losing daytime or getting up at ungodly hours in an environmentally sustainable way (assuming a diesel hauled Riviera is greener than a Newquay - City flight). The social benefit (time saved and carbon avoided) most likely exceeds the net cost to government of providing this service.

There are certain aspects of sleeper finances that are pretty fixed
- The fare can't be (much) more than a flight + hotel or a day train plus hotel
- Each carriage is only used for one journey every 24-hour period.

One daytime trainset can do (approximately) 3 London - Glasgow one-way journeys in a standard 16-hour day (Avanti interworks their Glasgow with other routes, but in stylised terms 3 journeys a day looks about reasonable). Given that each Caledonian sleeper car carries a maximum of 20 (?) people (28 in a Mk 3?), even at Sleeper fare one coach probably generates only as much revenue as one ~80-seat Pendolino carriage. So in broad terms the revenue each sleeper coach generates per day is probably one third that generated by a Pendolino carriage in a day. How much food and drink 'profit' does the lounge car generate per day? I suspect a small % of its operating cost (depreciation, energy, variable track access etc).

UK sleeper carriages will always be bespoke mini orders so probably forget about sleeper sets ever being cheap to procure.

Finding efficiencies in shunting will probably only make differences in the margins. The lowland sleeper could conceivably be operated by something like the new OBB nightjet sets. At Carstairs the two sets automatically decouple and the Edinburgh driver gets on the rear portion and away they go. This means between Euston and Carstairs you use two locos. Is this more efficient than one loco then shunting at Carstairs? Is there a technical reason the Lowlander can't be top and tailed today? If that's possible and cheaper than shunting, surely they'd do it now already?

The problem with the highlander is that the Fort William sleeper passengers need access to one of the other two lounge cars. Maybe have Nightjet2-style units but with gangway driving trailers? Between London and Edinburgh the Fort William portion would be a 3-car trailer 'unit' with gangway driving trailers both ends. At Edinburgh a souped up gangway DMU with seating and lounge cars attaches to the 'trailer unit' and drags it to Fort William. The other two sets go to Aberdeen and Inverness without shunting. This requires the Inverness or Aberdeen portion to be always the right way round so that the Fort William unit gangway doesn't meet a loco. Trouble is the daytime Fort William DMU would be a bespoke train.

 

[zwk500]

Is there anywhere in London where a sleeper train could concievably be formed by shunt moves?

I guess you could try and build a dedicated terminal at Kensington Olympia or somewhere, but that seems rather isolated for London.

If the train length at Euston limit could be bypassed then potentially we could run full formations to every destination with only a single Highland or Lowland driver/guard in each direction.

Are you suggesting running a 32 car single sleeper train? That's 730m ish, without locos.

 

[Krokodil]

Do the sleepers need to be made self funding?

At the prices charged at the moment (seats excepted) the social benefit is questionable. Caledonian Double and Club accommodation are very much luxury products and should only be a thing if it is profitable (and hence cross-subsidise the rest of the train). If anyone knows if they are profitable or not, I'd be interested to hear - in fact if anyone knows the operating costs of an individual train taken in isolation (crew, rolling stock, network access) it would be very interesting, is the Edinburgh portion profitable in itself for example? A fully occupied sleeper coach must have about £2.5k worth of revenue which adds up to around £25-30k in total. To fulfil the social benefit criteria there really should be some kind of sleeping accomodation that is priced affordably. I paid 90EUR for a berth in a couchette on European Sleeper recently, a company that does not receive any direct subsidy. Couchette accommodation on the Caledonian Sleeper would be a game-changer, allowing affordable travel for the masses.

Finding efficiencies in shunting will probably only make differences in the margins

Removing the Plymouth portion turned the Night Riviera from a lossmaker to breaking even (though the economics have gone downhill since).

 

[HSTEd]

Are you suggesting running a 32 car single sleeper train? That's 730m ish, without locos.

I'm not necessarily suggesting a 32 car single sleeper to all five Caledonian destinations, but removing length restrictions to allow more capacity, especially seating capacity.

In any case, given that a Class 92 or similar locomotive is capable of hauling rather heavy trains, and the comparatively lax timetable, is there any particular reason it can't be done?

ETS may be a limiting factor, but worst case you have to include a second pantograph vehicle for another supply.

If you aren't planning on looping the train, what is the actual length limit?

There are no timetabled passenger stops between London and the trains dividing in any case.

 

[zwk500]

I'm not necessarily suggesting a 32 car single sleeper to all five Caledonian destinations, but removing length restrictions to allow more capacity, especially seating capacity.

In any case, given that a Class 92 or similar locomotive is capable of hauling rather heavy trains, and the comparatively lax timetable, is there any particular reason it can't be done?

If you aren't planning on looping the train, what is the actual length limit?

There are no timetabled passenger stops between London and the trains dividing in any case.

The practical length limit will be the length that the dividing and attaching trains can fit in to have the call-on moves signalled at the train marshalling points, and the lengths of available headshunts to form such trains up. At Edinburgh, this is likely to require at least one but realistically 2 draws forward as portions are detached. The first 3 portions would need to head out via the sub as the rear of the train would be locking up the west end until it can be drawn forward once short enough.
Re-signalling Euston to permit a 775m train to turnback with the loco attachment is extremely unlikely to happen, so you'd be looking at forming your trains up in Wembley and Mossend yards. While technically possible it's not offering any particular advantages in simplifying operations, especially at the Glasgow end. You would potentially have some staff savings but I'm guessing not enough to avoid needing to whack the prices up if subsidy were to be removed.