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Overnight trains

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NSEFAN

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Apart from the sleepers, are there any "normal" passenger services which run in the middle of the night? I define this to be between midnight and about 4am.

I can think of the 0136 from King's Cross to Peterborough, and some services between York and Manchester Airport, but are there any others?
 
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PaxVobiscum

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Apart from the sleepers, are there any "normal" passenger services which run in the middle of the night? I define this to be between midnight and about 4am.

I can think of the 0136 from King's Cross to Peterborough, and some services between York and Manchester Airport, but are there any others?

Here's one I happened across while checking on the progress of the Caley Sleepers one night:

Depart 03:33 Blackpool North [BPN] to Manchester Airport [MIA] arrive 05:57
 

JonathanP

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This has been covered before I think but off the top of my head there's Paddington to Reading, the night Fishguard Harbour service and possibly Victoria to Gatwick Airport.
As an extra sometimes when there is work on preventing the 0400 Guildford to Waterloo running via Woking SWT run an 0330 Guildford to Woking and return!

Sent from my HTC Desire S using Tapatalk 2
 

SWTCommuter

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0005 Waterloo to Bournemouth, arrive 0215
0105 Waterloo to Southampton Central, arrive 0256
 

hairyhandedfool

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FCC have three trains from Bedford to London St Pancras in that time frame (0002, 0102, 0202) and seven from London St Pancras to Bedford (0002, 0015, 0018, 0032, 0102, 0134, 0232), not sure what runs south of the river though (presumably some of those trains go to or from places south of London).
 

heart-of-wessex

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Done a few of the Bedford's overnight, and also done south of the river too. Southern and FCC do hourly runs from Victoria/London Bridge respectively to Three Bridges. FCC run via Dulwich/Streatham/Selhurst in the early hours of the morning, unless it's up for overnight works of course.

Other favourite overnight turns is the Swansea - Fishguard boat train returning as the 0150 to Swansea.

Holyhead may count too, I think there's a silly O'clock one over the North Wales Coast?
 

sonic2009

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2255 Birmingham New Street to Holyhead via Stafford, Crewe, Chester (dep0040) arr Holyhead 0215.
 

Skoodle

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FGW run Reading services throughout the night, usually 0134 and 0334 from Paddington.
 

tsr

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You find a number of Southern/GatEx services through the night - they generally run between Victoria and Gatwick Airport or Three Bridges, and are generally for late-night airport customers and infrastructure workers. These trains will have staff calls at Selhurst, Redhill etc. These trains are often diverted around during engineering works, and the service can appear to be somewhat sparse.

As has been mentioned, we also have FCC services running on a very-nearly-24-hour schedule.

A word of warning that these sorts of services are often listed on LDBs and sites like OpenTrainTimes, but don't always seem to be!
 

Tommy3000

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Southeastern run a service from Victoria to Gillingham (depart 00:35, arrive 01:35).

Edit: And looking ahead on Open Train Times, FCC will run hourly services between Bedford and Three Bridges in the early morning once the core works are finished in late May. It'll be all stops from Bedford to Blackfriars (except City Thameslink) then East Croydon, Gatwick and Three Bridges. Presumably London Bridge will be closed at night for the next several years.
 
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LE Greys

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Stansted Express starts 03:40 from Liverpool Street (MO), Gatwick Express runs 00:30 and 03:30 from Victoria, there's also an 01:00 and 04:00 to Brighton, and an 02:00 and 03:00 to Three Bridges, or going the other way 00:36, 00:50 and 01:35 up Gatwick Expresses, 01:05 up Southern from Gatwick, and 01:59 and 02:59 from Three Bridges (nothing from Brighton). Oddly, the down Heathrow Express doesn't start until 04:42 (finishing 23:35), and up until 05:07 (finishing 00:01). Not sure when the first arrivals and departures are, or the last ones, but some people might have to overnight at the airport or get very expensive taxis.

<EDIT> All from the NRTT

<EDIT 2> I meant flight arrivals ans departures
 
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philjo

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FCC also have the 03:25 (via Hertford North) and 04:10 (via Welwyn) Peterborough to Kings cross services.
 

fgwrich

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0005 Waterloo to Bournemouth, arrive 0215
0105 Waterloo to Southampton Central, arrive 0256

Unless either of them are diverted - Ive once been on the 0105 which has ran via the joint District line via Putney, then back onto the mainline down at Wimbledon, Then off again at Raynes Park towards Guildford, back up to Woking, then onto Basingstoke where i arrived at 03:30! So i would certainly class the 01:05 as an overnight service because it's frequently diverted!
 

swt_passenger

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Unless either of them are diverted - Ive once been on the 0105 which has ran via the joint District line via Putney, then back onto the mainline down at Wimbledon, Then off again at Raynes Park towards Guildford, back up to Woking, then onto Basingstoke where i arrived at 03:30! So i would certainly class the 01:05 as an overnight service because it's frequently diverted!

Although the 0105's normal Mon - Thur route as far as Wimbledon is shown as always via East Putney. It's one of a very small number of passenger services (4 or 5 when I last checked) that run that way normally, the 0042 to Strawberry Hill is another one...
 

Beveridges

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TPE's between Blackpool and Manchester, and Manchester and Leeds, include some overnight trains, but they are not frequent. There is one that leaves Blackpool at 03:33.
 

Whistler40145

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Please correct me, I always thought that the overnight Blackpool North to Manchester Airport & return are Staff trains that members of the public could travel on, hence the reason that Preston & other stations are Set Down only & in the other direction Pick Up only.


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heart-of-wessex

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Although the 0105's normal Mon - Thur route as far as Wimbledon is shown as always via East Putney. It's one of a very small number of passenger services (4 or 5 when I last checked) that run that way normally, the 0042 to Strawberry Hill is another one...

The one to Waterloo at silly O'clock is more likely to run that way apparently, maybe I should try the 0105 though, as I've tried to do the 0042 over 10 times, and it keeps going through Earlsfield, though it's probably gone the other way when I'm not there :lol:
 

ex-railwayman

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You can go from London Victoria to Gatwick Airport 24 hours a day, there's an hourly service past midnight until 4am, then it's about every 30 mins iirc. I caught the 02.02hrs service several months ago, it was cold and I was fed up hanging around London, the train wasn't really warm either and by the time I'd hotted up a bit we'd arrived, so, had to go back out into the cold again, pity I wasn't jetting off to some hot sunshine destination either.

As an extension to the OP, in the upcoming summer timetable, are there any long haul overnight train journeys these days, like Bradford - Newquay, Penzance to Liverpool, etc, etc.

Cheerz. ex-railwayman.
 

MidnightFlyer

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As an extension to the OP, in the summer timetable, are there any long haul overnight train journeys these days, like Bradford - Newquay, Penzance to Liverpool, etc, etc.

Cheerz. ex-railwayman.

Nope, closest you get is daytime summer extensions to Newquay ex-Plymouth and some diverted to Paignton in lieu.
 

Ivo

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A large number of commuter routes around London still run after midnight, not just those to Reading and Peterborough (although those are the best two examples). To give an example, the last arrival at Southend Victoria is just before 0200 - the first departure is at 0400. The LTS route has a slightly longer interval.

I've lost count of the number of times I've arrived in Southend after 0100. I've boarded the last departure from Fenchurch Street (0025) at Benfleet before now.
 

Beveridges

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The overnight TPEs ex Blackpool are booked to stop at Bolton so think it only goes Wigan way for engineering works, but they do seem to get diverted via Wigan a lot, so there must be a lot of engineering works at night on that line

Also answers the above question, that the 03:33 Blackpool-Manchester cant be just a staff train due to booked stop at Bolton which is not somewhere staff would go.

Also there are Manchester-Blackpools that get into Blackpool at around 01:30 and 05:45 respectively so they can also be classed as overnight trains, that 05:45 arrival must leave Man Airport at around 04:00 at a guess. The fact that a 03:33 ex Blackpool to Manchester exists confirms that this can be called an overnight service, but its an infrequent one.
 
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VTPreston_Tez

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The overnight TPEs ex Blackpool are booked to stop at Bolton so think it only goes Wigan way for engineering works, but they do seem to get diverted via Wigan a lot, so there must be a lot of engineering works at night on that line.
via westhoughton allows calls at both.
 

heart-of-wessex

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Barking Flyover C2C services to Liverpool Street run from 20:00, and I've had one on a Saturday AM at around 5am I think it was to Liv St
 
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