The sleeper allows me a full day of meetings in Glasgow / Edinburgh without having to get up at 4am to fly. It is too far to do for the day by train plus too expensive to get a peak hour service from London. I use it regularly for work and if it was scrapped would travel to Scotland less often.
Agreed. I am going to use the sleeper to get from London to Klimarnock the weekend after next. I can maximise my time in Scotland, and minimise the time off that I need to take from work.
Coming back on Sunday night, I can leave Kilmarnock as late as 20:57 and still be in London for the next morning.
Having used it before, it certainly seems to be busy enough, at least on Friday and Sunday nights, but I guess on other nights of the week it may be less busy.
If the lowland sleeper were to be scrapped, then they would have to introduce earlier trains from Kings Cross, Euston, Glasgow and Edinburgh (there is already a 04:28 from Glasgow Central arriving Euston 09:07) but it would be difficult for anyone to get to the station in time to catch such a train.
With the referendum coming up in September, there may well be political reasons for retaining the service.