• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

Will the Caledonian sleeper be axed during the Covid-19 Coronavirus crisis?

Status
Not open for further replies.

Trackbedjolly

Member
Joined
27 May 2016
Messages
81
Location
Ballast Pit siding
The risk of spreading or contracting the virus must be much higher travelling in an open railway coach than in a sleeper compartment-obviously one must also keep to that compartment and not walk around. What you do after arriving in London is a different question.
BTW how did my original statement become altered to include underlining and emboldening? I did not write "a lot"
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

Bletchleyite

Veteran Member
Joined
20 Oct 2014
Messages
97,537
Location
"Marston Vale mafia"
The risk of spreading or contracting the virus must be much higher travelling in an open railway coach than in a sleeper compartment-obviously one must also keep to that compartment and not walk around. What you do after arriving in London is a different question.
BTW how did my original statement become altered to include underlining and emboldening? I did not write "a lot"

I altered it to emphasize that I was specifically replying to that part.
 

Ianno87

Veteran Member
Joined
3 May 2015
Messages
15,215
https://www.sleeper.scot/caledonian-sleeper-reduces-services-during-covid-19-outbreak/

CS have suspended services to Aberdeen and Fort William so there will be a lot of disappointed people in the West Highlands. They are running a single train from Glasgow and from Inverness which join/split at Waverley.

Frankly the folk of the West Highlands should count themselves lucky to still have a sleeper service at all after numerous considerations in years gone by of canning it entirely.

Given the amount of subsidy it requires, I'm sure living without it for a few weeks isn't a big deal.
 

TimboM

Established Member
Joined
12 Apr 2016
Messages
3,732
CS have suspended services to Aberdeen and Fort William so there will be a lot of disappointed people in the West Highlands. They are running a single train from Glasgow and from Inverness which join/split at Waverley.
Not sure about a lot of disappointed people... there were 2 (TWO!) passengers on the last FTW service before it was pulled.
 

py_megapixel

Established Member
Joined
5 Nov 2018
Messages
6,642
Location
Northern England
I wonder if they could still run it, but closed to passengers, and attempt to iron out the various problems with the Mk5 coaching stock, so that when it returns, it returns smoothly.
But it will soon get to the point where there are not enough staff to do that.
 

Peter Sarf

Established Member
Joined
12 Oct 2010
Messages
5,633
Location
Croydon

PG

Established Member
Joined
12 Oct 2010
Messages
2,809
Location
at the end of the high and low roads
I wonder if they could still run it, but closed to passengers, and attempt to iron out the various problems with the Mk5 coaching stock, so that when it returns, it returns smoothly.
But it will soon get to the point where there are not enough staff to do that.
Excuse my ignorance but what problems are there that can be 'ironed out' by running ECS for 400+ miles per night?
Surely the problems require the stock to be in a depot so they can be fixed or am I missing something here?
 

HSTEd

Veteran Member
Joined
14 Jul 2011
Messages
16,633
Excuse my ignorance but what problems are there that can be 'ironed out' by running ECS for 400+ miles per night?
Surely the problems require the stock to be in a depot so they can be fixed or am I missing something here?
I think he means that the trains would be run as if they had passengers but without passengers in an attempt to work out what things break.
So they can be fixed.
 

Peter Kelford

Member
Joined
29 Nov 2017
Messages
903
Likewise Aberdeen.
Aberdeen has 8 daytime trains, so admittedly the Caledonian sleeper is a little unnecessary, Glasgow and Edinburgh have essentially hourly+ train services, but Fort William has no direct train to the south and Inverness one a day.

I think he means that the trains would be run as if they had passengers but without passengers in an attempt to work out what things break.
So they can be fixed.
But with no or minimal use of the kitchen, cabins, toilets, plumbing, wiring etc. Apart from major faults or problems with the carriage's mechanical side, there is little that can be done, as far is I'm aware
 

HSTEd

Veteran Member
Joined
14 Jul 2011
Messages
16,633
But with no or minimal use of the kitchen, cabins, toilets, plumbing, wiring etc. Apart from major faults or problems with the carriage's mechanical side, there is little that can be done, as far is I'm aware

Well the other alternative is to quarantine a bunch of people on the train and just run them back and forth over and over.
 

LeylandLen

Member
Joined
28 Oct 2013
Messages
779
Location
Leyland Lancs
I see that West Coast Railways are adamant that the Jacobite/Harry Potter train will still make a daily return trip from Fort William to Mallaig. Its departure is timed to leave after the sleep is due to arrive in FTW.(1015 , sleeper due 0955). I assume many passengers use the sleeper then the Jacobite. I can not see the Jacobite running, esp with the governments social spacing policy.I did read somewhere that residents of Mallaig do not want more day trippers whilst this covid-19 is about. That applies to the Highlands in general .
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top