Has a UK to Europe sleeper ever been considered?

[Liam_Hendry]

Quick question. Has a UK to Europe sleeper ever been tried or considered? It would be a good idea aswell.

 

[Darandio]

Yes, and the stock was even built but it never happened. Some of the stock was sold to Canada. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightstar_(train)

 

[Hornet]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightstar_(train)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Ferry

 

[yorkie]

A search for threads containing the title nightstar produces some interesting results, which should hopefully answer any questions you had:-

• Proposed Nightstar Schedule
• Nightstar Power Question
• Nightstar timetable
• Nightstar coaching stock and VIA Rail

 

[Polarbear]

Going a bit further back in time, there actually used to be such a service..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Ferry

Introduced on the night of 5 October 1936, it featured newly constructed sleeping coaches from the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits built to an adapted design to fit the British loading gauge, of the so-called type F (for Ferry). Twelve carriages (3788–3799) were built by ANF at Blanc-Misseron (near Valenciennes) in France in 1935–36, of which 1936-built Sleeping Car No. 3792 has now been preserved in the National Railway Museum in York. A further six were built in 1939 by the Compagnie Générale de Construction at St. Denis (3800–3805), but only entered service in 1946. A final seven (3983–3989) came in 1952, also built at St. Denis, to replace wartime losses. Thus, a total of 25 F-sleepers were built, all of the same design. In addition to sleeping cars, the train normally included two SNCF "Fourgon" baggage vans. Only one of those seems to be extant, and is currently stored in French rail sidings along with an unrestored F Class Sleeper Car (see also links to the irps-site below). Each overnight train carried up to five (very occasionally six) sleeping cars. When loaded onto the train ferry the train was split into sections and loaded equally on tracks on the port and starboard sides of the ship, to maintain its balance.

The Night Ferry normally departed from and arrived at platform 2 at London Victoria station. Customs checks were carried out at the station.

The (First Class) sleeping cars and the baggage vans travelled the entire journey. The British train from Victoria to Dover, and the French train from Dunkirk to Paris, conveyed normal second class coaches of their own railway. The passengers travelling by these walked on and off the ship in the standard way. In addition the British train conveyed one of a pair of standard Mk 1 Brake Composite carriages, which had been modified with a French-style gangway connection at one end. This provided the guard's compartment in Britain and enabled the guard to walk through the train.

Until the Eurostar service began on 14 November 1994, the Night Ferry had been the only through passenger train between Great Britain and Continental Europe. The carriages of the daytime Golden Arrow train did not cross the Channel.

 

[duesselmartin]

I always found it odd that one first orders rolling stock, and then thinks about viability.
I remember also a discussion if the third rail could provide enough power.

 

[Gordon]

Quick question. Has a UK to Europe sleeper ever been tried or considered? It would be a good idea aswell.

Gosh, this question makes me feel old. I never used the sleeper as I could not afford it and as a family tended to travel to Europe by car.

I did however use the Night Ferry ship several times and can remember watching the sleepers being shunted on at Dover by a BR class 09 shunter.

In the following album you will find a few pictures I took in August 1980
at Paris Nord

http://gwizz.zenfolio.com/p342741989







.

 

[theageofthetra]

I wonder what happened to those modified MK 1's? I was at The NRM yesterday & didn't notice the preserved Night Ferry coach, is it at Shildon or is it tucked away?

 

[jamesontheroad]

I've ridden on board the Nightstar stock a few times in Canada. The seated coaches are widely used on the Ontario/Québec 'Corridor' - although in my experience I found them most frequently at the northern end, operating between Montréal and Québec.

The coaches have an interesting 2+1 arrangement, with overhead racks 'shaped' in line with the seats. They are very firm, however, and I found them difficult to sleep in, even when reclined.

The sleeper stock has not had a trouble free life in Canada. Although I believe they were designed to accept wheelchair passengers in Europe, they didn't comply with Canadian regulations. They also had to have rather inelegant folding steps added to each door, as most stations don't have high level platforms. There were additional problems with components affected by the very cold (< -40º C) winters and associated ice build up.

Although it's been almost ten years since I last rode them, I remember very clearly finding components and signs throughout the trains that still bore the crossing arrow logo of British Rail. The most memorable was the microwave oven in the café car, visible from the counter.

Edit: Found those pics...

USA / Canada Rail Trip: April - May 2006 by James Benedict Brown, on Flickr

A genuine British Rail MENUMASTER

USA / Canada Rail Trip: April - May 2006 by James Benedict Brown, on Flickr

Note how the seats are on raised 'plinths' with space for feet in the reclined position, and how the overhead racks are 'sculpted' in line with the seats and are open towards the passenger, not the aisle.

USA / Canada Rail Trip: April - May 2006 by James Benedict Brown, on Flickr

USA / Canada Rail Trip: April - May 2006 by James Benedict Brown, on Flickr

USA / Canada Rail Trip: April - May 2006 by James Benedict Brown, on Flickr

USA / Canada Rail Trip: April - May 2006 by James Benedict Brown, on Flickr

The café car has had the most adaptations to it: you can clearly see where an original bulkhead wall has been cut open to create more space here.

 

[DownSouth]

I find it quite surprising that rolling stock built to the toy loading gauge of Britain is used for sleeper services in Canada, it looks to be as stuffy and cramped as an all-economy Airbus A320. BR must have been very desperate to get rid of it at any cost for it to be seen as a positive move compared to getting a more suitable new build order.

 

[davetheguard]

I find it quite surprising that rolling stock built to the toy loading gauge of Britain is used for sleeper services in Canada, it looks to be as stuffy and cramped as an all-economy Airbus A320. BR must have been very desperate to get rid of it at any cost for it to be seen as a positive move compared to getting a more suitable new build order.

I think this is the first time I've even seen pictures of the inside of these vehicles.

Those overhead "lockers" do make it look cramped and claustrophobic to my eyes. DownSouth's mention above of it looking as bad as an aircraft is interesting: why certain international train operators seem to aspire to being an airline is beyond me.

 

[jopsuk]

jamesontheroad I love this shot showing the difference between British and typical north american loading gauge!

 

[Gordon]

I find it quite surprising that rolling stock built to the toy loading gauge of Britain is used for sleeper services in Canada,.

Hasn't stopped the Class 66 polluting the whole of Europe!

 

[jamesontheroad]

jamesontheroad I love this shot showing the difference between British and typical north american loading gauge!

It's a pretty ungainly solution, but the Renaissance stock simply didn't have appropriate amenity spaces for the distances traveled / prices charged. The Nightstar would have been more akin to a motel, with late departures and early arrivals in most cities. However VIA Rail have been wise not to try and compete with bus or air services, pricing most (i.e. not government mandated essential) long distance services higher but with a relative increase in service / comfort.

 

[Liam_Hendry]

That interior looks awful! It certainly matches the criteria of your average economy class plane - cramped, dirty etc. Never mind a European sleeper train. No wonder it wasn't a success.
On the plus side, it's still a better interior than Ryanair

 

[talltim]

It never had a chance to be a success, or not.
I'm sure I read somewhere that they were offered to Canada very cheap as a sop for them buying some submarines that were rubbish, or something. Probably internet wibble

 

[Liam_Hendry]

Do you think there could be one in the future? A new and improved sleeper would be popular in my opinion - As long as it doesn't use aircraft interiors. Board in London and wake up in Munich or Nice or other big cities in Europe.

 

[30907]

I'd like to think so, but existing mainland European sleepers are steadily disappearing, and any through service from the UK would come up against the security/immigration concerns of government which are familiar to forum users.

 

[gazthomas]

Agreed. Sleepers far too costly that flights. Stock has poor utilization too.

 

[Oscar]

Given the population of London and the South East and the demand for Eurostar travel, I don't think it's unreasonable to think that overnight services would be well used. Various hurdles to overcome would include:
- inbound security and border controls (the only feasible solution I suppose would be security checks at each departure station and passport control at St Pancras)
- paths on HS1, assuming the rolling stock was not built to a British loading gauge and ran at 160 km/h maximum. How much capacity is there in the evening (departure) and morning (arrival) peaks? After 20:30 I understand several freight trains use HS1 eastbound; do they run westbound later on in the evening or in the morning?
- obtaining permission for the rolling stock to run through the Channel Tunnel

Another problem is that many potential destinations are too far to run in a night given the slower speed of the overnight train and the engineering possessions it would encounter. I suppose somewhere in the south of France (with a morning connection to Barcelona) or Berlin/Hamburg/Frankfurt/München might be feasible. Other destinations such as Amsterdam/Köln are too close by daytime train for this to be a realistic possibility.

At the moment I think improving fare and timetable co-ordination between Eurostar and other services and making booking easier is an area where improvements could be made more realistically. The Railteam alliance has been deeply disappointing.

Third party sites like Capitaine Train and LoCo2 are trying to make booking easier, but they are hindered by not being the official websites of operators and therefore not being well-known by the public. Innovation in communicating timetable and fare information is great but most passengers who aren't particularly interested will gravitate towards a few well-known official sites and it's essential that all information is available there. Perhaps these sites will become established in the way air ticket search engines have but the relative lack of popularity of international rail travel makes this less likely.

Through ticketing initiatives between Eurostar and various other operators following the model of the London-Spezial for London to Germany journeys could reduce prices for through journeys.

Co-ordinating timetables on, for example, the Brussels-Netherlands/Germany routes to provide hourly services with no gaps with good connections to/from Eurostar routes could make a huge difference on the attractiveness of those routes. The 30 minute check-in time doesn't fit well with hourly services between of the widespread continental European standard of timetables in both direction being (at least roughly) symmetrical around the xx.00 minute. So to avoid passengers having to wait over an hour when travelling towards London or having waits of over 30 minutes in the other direction, through passengers need to be put through check-in in Brussels as fast as possible. Let's say that Eurostar continues to arrive around xx.05 and depart around xx.55, though we should be willing to amend this if it's beneficial for other services and possible. One suggestion might be to run an hourly Paris - Amsterdam Thalys (as will soon happen) stopping at Brussels around xx.30 in each direction. Then run a Bruxelles-Midi - Central - Nord - Leuven - Liège - Aachen - Köln service leaving from the opposite or a nearby platform platform around xx.35 and arriving around xx.25, possibly running to/from the Belgian coast replacing the Oostende - Eupen service or complementing it. The Fyra fiasco has shown the passenger in the Belgium/Netherlands area are not willing to book ahead for short international journeys (where the car is competitive) and prefer a train which works like a domestic InterCity. I would much prefer to see reasonably priced walk-up fares than a yield management system on these routes and wish that governments would tender out such services rather than relying on open access.

 

[Gordon]

Do you think there could be one in the future? A new and improved sleeper would be popular in my opinion - As long as it doesn't use aircraft interiors. Board in London and wake up in Munich or Nice or other big cities in Europe.

In an ideal world, lovely - but practically speaking not much (=zero...) chance. The remaining overnight trains in Europe are even now struggling to survive, even with donkeys years of experience in their operation. Add in the UK border situation which killed off Nightstar and there is even less chance.




.

 

[daikilo]

In an ideal world, lovely - but practically speaking not much (=zero...) chance. The remaining overnight trains in Europe are even now struggling to survive, even with donkeys years of experience in their operation. Add in the UK border situation which killed off Nightstar and there is even less chance.
.

Ah, if only the UK would join Shenghen (or v.v.).

That said, the issue is how to combine a hotel train experience with what the passenger is willing to pay. For a start, not everyone flies. Secondly, if you want to go from central x to central y, and don't particularly like the hassle of airports, night trains can do it.

Personally, I hate getting out of bed at 05h to go to the airport to be in a European city at say 10h. I go to bed early, I don't sleep well and I walk, drive and sit around for say 2h when many people are still asleep. I then arrive for my meeting stale.

Don't mention the fog.

I do however like a nice dinner at say 20h21h the previous evening.

Also, I use the term hotel train and not hotel bedroom. I'm OK to have a bed, a small shower-room and a space to stow my baggage, in a lockable compartment, if I can use a hotel lobby and restaurant coach for the time I am awake.

Emirates or Virgin, come forward please.

 

[RT4038]

The chances of the UK joining Schengen in the foreseeable future are practically zero.

The overnight sleeping car trains within Europe are dying on their wheels. There may well be a market for them, but it is nowhere near big enough at the fares that need to be charged to be economic.

Why would Emirates or Virgin even consider operation of such trains - their operation constantly at the mercy of belligerent track owners and incumbent operators. Never mind the fog, what about overhead line problems, equipment failures of other company's trains and overnight engineering works all playing havoc with reliability? (Just look at the punctuality record of the Caledonian Sleeper ).

To be economic, any sleeper train service would have to attract significant (50%+) revenues from Business passengers paying high fares - but how many of these potential passengers really want to spend another night away from home (no matter how comfortable that may be) , when they can get a flight at 7am?
I do a fair amount of business travelling both within the UK and Europe. I live very close to a main railway station not far from London, which also has a frequent local service to a main regional airport. I would always prefer to travel fully by train, yet often I chose aeroplane because it is less time away from the office travelling, fewer nights away from my wife and (certainly as far as European travel is concerned) often cheaper. I guess many other potential Business passengers will be in a similar situation.

 

[daikilo]

The chances of the UK joining Schengen in the foreseeable future are practically zero.

The overnight sleeping car trains within Europe are dying on their wheels. There may well be a market for them, but it is nowhere near big enough at the fares that need to be charged to be economic.

Why would Emirates or Virgin even consider operation of such trains - their operation constantly at the mercy of belligerent track owners and incumbent operators. Never mind the fog, what about overhead line problems, equipment failures of other company's trains and overnight engineering works all playing havoc with reliability? (Just look at the punctuality record of the Caledonian Sleeper ).

To be economic, any sleeper train service would have to attract significant (50%+) revenues from Business passengers paying high fares - but how many of these potential passengers really want to spend another night away from home (no matter how comfortable that may be) , when they can get a flight at 7am?
I do a fair amount of business travelling both within the UK and Europe. I live very close to a main railway station not far from London, which also has a frequent local service to a main regional airport. I would always prefer to travel fully by train, yet often I chose aeroplane because it is less time away from the office travelling, fewer nights away from my wife and (certainly as far as European travel is concerned) often cheaper. I guess many other potential Business passengers will be in a similar situation.

The problem is the flight at 7am which means leaving home at say 5am. I hate. That night is disruptive, and I would much prefer a more civilsed experienece.

 

[RT4038]

As a rail enthusiast, so would I prefer the sleeper, but would I actually use it if available (apart from an odd occasion)? The answer is no, because my firm wouldn't pay (it probably would be at least twice as expensive as a flight) and my family would object to the extra nights away [going to bed a bit early and getting up at 4am is preferable to being away the whole evening]. I guess most Business travellers will be in a similar position, and it is the high revenue per passenger from them (or lack of it) that will make or break the finances.

 

[Oscar]

As a rail enthusiast, so would I prefer the sleeper, but would I actually use it if available (apart from an odd occasion)? The answer is no, because my firm wouldn't pay (it probably would be at least twice as expensive as a flight) and my family would object to the extra nights away [going to bed a bit early and getting up at 4am is preferable to being away the whole evening]. I guess most Business travellers will be in a similar position, and it is the high revenue per passenger from them (or lack of it) that will make or break the finances.

I completely understand the situation, but it is ecologically and therefore in the long term socially disastrous. We shouldn't be allowing night trains and flights to compete on a level playing field. The Caledonian Sleeper with its 1 and 2-berth compartments and 3 short trains hauled by diesel locos in Scotland may not be ecologically sound but the same does not apply to most continental night trains which have much higher passenger numbers and a better energy mix [1]. Perhaps at some point in the future we will develop alternative technologies for flying such as solar-powered planes or hydrogen-powered airships (two suggestions I have heard of) but because kerosene contains such great energy density it is extremely difficult to replace. Biofuels take up land required to grow food and when combusted also emit greenhouse gases. The alternatives will probably take a very long time to develop and will be slower, carry fewer passengers and be much more expensive. Since fossil fuels are currently abundant and therefore cheap and the long-term damage they cause cannot be seen by "the invisible hand" of the market and is not taken seriously, there is currently little incentive to stop using them.

[1] Rail energy mix found in http://ecopassenger.hafas.de/hafas-res/download/Ecopassenger_Methodology_Report.pdf, page 12

 

[edwin_m]

All that is probably true but would require international governments to agree to tax aviation at a rate that reflects the environmental damage it causes (unilateral action won't work as airlines will simply fuel up in another country, increasing the load and therefore the emissions of each flight). But also threatens their voters' right to cheap holidays...

I think a sleeper from London to, say, Berlin via HS1 might work, if standard European stock could be made compliant to Channel Tunnel rules. It could probably get to 225km/h on HS1 so no more difficult to path than a Javelin, and then maybe go onto the classic network in France if it needs to avoid an inconvenient early morning arrival.

Going beyond London would require UK gauge stock (at least until HS2 is built and linked to HS1), and the smaller cross-sectional area is a particular problem for sleepers.

 

[Western Lord]

Trying to make money out of sleeper trains is rather like trying to make money with a 50 seat interior in a 737-800. Yes, it will be more comfortable, but the fares will be astronomical and the load factor would need to be permanently 100%.

 

[gordonthemoron]

once we are ruled by Russia, there will be a daily sleeper to Moscow

 

[jopsuk]

One of the interesting things is that China, which has been massively expanding its high speed network, has had built high-speed sleeper trains.