Idea for Overnight Cheap Slow Anglo-Scottish Train

[matacaster]

The current Anglo-Scottish rail offering is either west coast or east coast and includes
- very expensive early morning trains which may offer the chance to get back home at a pinch without a London hotel bill
- trains that are cheaper, set off later but arrive at such a time that after some work or pleasure you can't get back and certainly require expensive overnight stay
- expensive sleeper both ways, but no hotel stay

Megabus - slow, but affordable overnight transport, which may dispense with hotel accomodation if you don't mind sleeping on the coach

Plane - fast, but environmental credentials for short-haul worsening. Some people don't like to fly. Some prefer scenery.

Now could an operator run an overnight train similar to what was the Thames-Clyde or even to the likes of Aberdeen, using slower routes such as MML, Settle-Carlisle and call at places that don't currently get a direct service such as Nottingham, Derby, Luton? This would be timed to leave at say 23.59 so that people could visit shows etc. It would avoid hotel / sleeper costs and be rather more relaxing than the plane. The target market would be young people on a budget and older folks who have plenty of time and don't like changing trains. Stock might be refurbished (perhaps short-formed) HST. Speed would not be a priority though.

Thoughts?

 

[ChiefPlanner]

The current Anglo-Scottish rail offering is either west coast or east coast and includes
- very expensive early morning trains which may offer the chance to get back home at a pinch without a London hotel bill
- trains that are cheaper, set off later but arrive at such a time that after some work or pleasure you can't get back and certainly require expensive overnight stay
- expensive sleeper both ways, but no hotel stay

Megabus - slow, but affordable overnight transport, which may dispense with hotel accomodation if you don't mind sleeping on the coach

Plane - fast, but environmental credentials for short-haul worsening. Some people don't like to fly. Some prefer scenery.

Now could an operator run an overnight train similar to what was the Thames-Clyde or even to the likes of Aberdeen, using slower routes such as MML, Settle-Carlisle and call at places that don't currently get a direct service such as Nottingham, Derby, Luton? This would be timed to leave at say 23.59 so that people could visit shows etc. It would avoid hotel / sleeper costs and be rather more relaxing than the plane. The target market would be young people on a budget and older folks who have plenty of time and don't like changing trains. Stock might be refurbished (perhaps short-formed) HST. Speed would not be a priority though.

Thoughts?

In the past , BR had the "Starlight Express" from Marylebone to Scotland , and in the 1980's "The Nightrider" - both good ideas and both did not last long.

Basically , much easier to deal with the relatively low volumes by running a coach or two , or three - as opposed to a 8 or 10 car train.

Not something you see either in Mainland Europe any more , maybe regrettably....

 

[Bletchleyite]

There is a quite late Euston-Manchester, such a thing (a Pendolino running Euston-Brum-Preston-Glasgow departing at 2300) might well have a market, similarly a southbound departure around 0300. Mind you, the Sleeper seated coach is available and is not exactly pricey.

 

[Dr Hoo]

I can't imagine that timings at intermediate station would encourage much business, quite apart from the disturbance (and risk of luggage theft) for Anglo-Scottish passengers.

 

[Bald Rick]

Personally I'd argue that 6-7hours+ on a seated train overnight is rather less relaxing than flying. I'd also expect that 99% of the travelling public would say the same.

There simply aren't enough people doing the trip to make this remotely economic.

Even if it was all seated, and the train did something else worthwhile in the day time, it would need to charge an average of £30-£40 one way (ie twice the mega bus price, the same as the cheapest seated trains now, and broadly the same as airline prices at more than a day or two notice*) and have at least 300 occupied seats just to cover its costs.

Does anyone know the typical loadings on the seated parts of the existing overnight trains?

* just checked, I can fly to Glasgow tomorrow morning for less than £40.

Also, you can get early morning trains from London to Scotland for the lowest tier of advances, and back late in the lowest tier, quite feasible to do 7-8 hours in Glasgow or Edinburgh, although you'd be pretty whacked at the end of the day. Not as whacked as the morning after 7 hours in an overnight seat though.

It's only coming south where the lower tier advances aren't available on the very earliest services, but even then you can get reasonable (sub £50 one way) fares and still be in London by 11ish; then 7-8 hours and home on a late day train.

 

[JonathanH]

Coaches are much better than trains for cheap overnight travel because
a) the lights can be turned down
b) everyone has a seat and people don't move around
c) they take about the right amount of time to leave London late and arrive not too early at their destination
d) they don't disrupt overnight engineering works.

While there is a market to arrive in Bristol, Birmingham, Swansea, Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester etc in the early hours, it is really limited to people who live in those places.

Everywhere that needs one has an overnight coach service from London by either National Express or Megabus or both.

 

[Mag_seven]

and in the 1980's "The Nightrider"

I remember that - it was massive train made up of entirely first class mark 2 ac vehicles with strange dim orange lighting although obviously it was a standard class (second class in the day) only train.

(a Pendolino running Euston-Brum-Preston-Glasgow departing at 2300)

There was an east coast equivalent of that in the mid eighties - an overnight HST that ran from Kings Cross to Edinburgh via Leeds.

 

[TheAlbanach_]

a) the lights can be turned down

Quick question .Why can't train lights be turned down? They're always so bright...

 

[Flying Snail]

Quick question .Why can't train lights be turned down? They're always so bright...

They can be turned down but not to the level typical of a road coach, which should be virtually no lighting except individual reading lights.

Presumably the main reason is people injuring themselves and holding the train operator accountable while moving about, a road coach has less people walking and the very reasonable exception that internal lights need to be off for the driver to see the road.

It is just a fact that demand for overnight trains has gone down while demand for daytime has soared, there used to be an extensive list of such trains and they have almost all disappeared.

OP wants a slower cheaper option than CS? It is already available, it just happens to use the M1/M6 rather than the S&C. As already said there are NX/Megabus options for most major destinations from London, while some may want a train the market for coach like fares on rail at night is just not there and the demand for rail instead of coach is to a large extent anti-bus snobbery.

 

[yorksrob]

Only a couple of days ago I was lamenting the demise of newspaper trains etc which formed a handy way to get back home at night. (as a youth I remember seeing a fascinating article on such services in an old copy of the railway magazine).

I'd love someone to try such a service, perhaps on an open access basis. I have a couple of things coming up where setting off late at night and arriving in the morning would be handy.

I have considered the CS as an option, however that seems to get in for 8:00 which is a bit late for railtours.

I came to the conclusion that the reason such trains no longer exist has less to do with demand, and more to do with the inconvenience of not having handy newspaper/mail trains etc that miscellaneous passenger carriages can be added to.

 

[al78]

Coaches are much better than trains for cheap overnight travel because
a) the lights can be turned down
b) everyone has a seat and people don't move around
c) they take about the right amount of time to leave London late and arrive not too early at their destination
d) they don't disrupt overnight engineering works.

While there is a market to arrive in Bristol, Birmingham, Swansea, Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester etc in the early hours, it is really limited to people who live in those places.

Everywhere that needs one has an overnight coach service from London by either National Express or Megabus or both.

Megabus overnight sleeper to Scotland ended last year. I can't find the same service by another operator. Shame, as it is ideal for a long weekend backpacking trip.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Megabus overnight sleeper to Scotland ended last year. I can't find the same service by another operator. Shame, as it is ideal for a long weekend backpacking trip.

They ended the service with beds, but there are still ample seated services, which is what this thread is on about. (If you want beds, there's the CS, albeit pricey).

 

[Deafdoggie]

Only a couple of days ago I was lamenting the demise of newspaper trains etc which formed a handy way to get back home at night. (as a youth I remember seeing a fascinating article on such services in an old copy of the railway magazine).

I'd love someone to try such a service, perhaps on an open access basis. I have a couple of things coming up where setting off late at night and arriving in the morning would be handy.

I have considered the CS as an option, however that seems to get in for 8:00 which is a bit late for railtours.

I came to the conclusion that the reason such trains no longer exist has less to do with demand, and more to do with the inconvenience of not having handy newspaper/mail trains etc that miscellaneous passenger carriages can be added to.

I think that is the point though, it was only viable if there was a train already running anyway. It just isn't viable to run a service in its own right.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

I think that is the point though, it was only viable if there was a train already running anyway. It just isn't viable to run a service in its own right.

Exactly - when BR had the paper traffic , plus a viable parcels operation - it was quite feasible to put some second rate carriages on for the (few) overnight travellers who needed an essential service. The 0055 Paddington to West Wales via Temple Meads was a massive train on departure , up to 14 bogies , but down to about 5 leaving Swansea for Carmarthen.

It was partly replaced by a 2330 or so HST to Swansea , in at the pretty miserable time of 0330 , and lightly loaded west of Cardiff. (at which point it was cut back to) ...

 

[Dougal2345]

They can be turned down but not to the level typical of a road coach, which should be virtually no lighting except individual reading lights.

Presumably the main reason is people injuring themselves and holding the train operator accountable while moving about, a road coach has less people walking and the very reasonable exception that internal lights need to be off for the driver to see the road.

Are there any plans for lights on trains to be made motion-sensitive, as they already are on many stations?

 

[skifans]

Are there any plans for lights on trains to be made motion-sensitive, as they already are on many stations?

To be honest if I was trying to sleep in a train I'd imagine I'd prefer the lights to just be on rather then turning off and on.

 

[al78]

They ended the service with beds, but there are still ample seated services, which is what this thread is on about. (If you want beds, there's the CS, albeit pricey).

Thanks for the info, I didn't realise there was still an overnight coach service.

 

[ac6000cw]

Megabus overnight sleeper to Scotland ended last year. I can't find the same service by another operator. Shame, as it is ideal for a long weekend backpacking trip.

..which also nicely illustrates the economics of overnight travel - if a coach operator (with a much lower cost base than any train) can't make a profit at running a more upmarket (than seated coaches) operation, how do you expect an overnight train to pay it's way?

The revenue from the mail and parcels traffic that old-BR era non-sleeper overnight trains carried was crucial to their economics - effectively the passengers were 'marginal cost' traffic.

In the USA, the loss of mail and parcels traffic from the US Post Office is what almost completely killed off the long-distance passenger train in 1960s - it turned marginally profitable trains into major loss-makers.

 

[4-SUB 4732]

Interesting. What of the redundant HSTs running something akin to 2+9 and one or two coaches being converted to carry mail or high-value parcels e.g. Amazon?

With the value of that goods market as well as the seated sleeper, nice and cheap but with good seating (for once), it arguably has a market.

Question would be which station you would centre the trains on. Euston would make the most sense.

Some routes might include:

Euston - Bedford - Leicester - East Mids Parkway - Sheffield - Leeds - York - Newcastle - Edinburgh
Euston - Coventry - Birmingham - Wolves - Crewe - Preston - Carlisle - Glasgow
Euston - Stoke - Manchester - Leeds - York - Newcastle - Edinburgh

 

[Bletchleyite]

Thanks for the info, I didn't realise there was still an overnight coach service.

Very much so, including on shorter journeys (e.g. there's one to Manchester). Nat Ex have some as well.

It's the "middle ground" beds service that didn't work out. The seated services are busy and profitable.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Interesting. What of the redundant HSTs running something akin to 2+9 and one or two coaches being converted to carry mail or high-value parcels e.g. Amazon?

With the value of that goods market as well as the seated sleeper, nice and cheap but with good seating (for once), it arguably has a market.

Question would be which station you would centre the trains on. Euston would make the most sense.

Some routes might include:

Euston - Bedford - Leicester - East Mids Parkway - Sheffield - Leeds - York - Newcastle - Edinburgh
Euston - Coventry - Birmingham - Wolves - Crewe - Preston - Carlisle - Glasgow
Euston - Stoke - Manchester - Leeds - York - Newcastle - Edinburgh

The Parcels Deck above Euston station , now disused , was a major hub for the distribution of much printer material and other parcels. It has been disused for traffic purposes since the early 1990.s and may not survive the rebuilding of the station under HS2 . In any case , night time access will be a real nightmare.

There are however underused rail facilities to hand at Willesden ..

I do not see much options frankly - as even the bespoke Royal Mail network , put in at great investment failed , and even some ex EWS Walsall - Aberdeen were given up.

Even the SNCF with huge distance advantages threw in the towel. Road and air are generally far more flexible , or quicker.

 

[BigCj34]

Getting a seat on the Caledonian Sleeper is cheap in comparison to even the daytime services. Or is even that too expensive? Unless they make the seats even cheaper, it's difficult to see a market for any other journeys that are sufficiently long enough to justify an overnight service.

 

[telstarbox]

Another factor is budget hotels and Airbnb - accommodation can be cheaper than it used to be and more flexibly located in the case of Airbnb. You might not build a 50 bed hotel somewhere but a few people offering spare rooms can provide sufficient accommodation for the localised demand.

 

[cuccir]

As noted, there remain overnight regular coach services. National Express leave Victoria for Glasgow and Edinburgh at 22:30. Services up to Northern England depart a bit later eg Newcastle at 23:00. I found the latter useful when I used to travel down to London for England football matches at Wembley. I was usually able to sleep quite well once leaving London, stirring perhaps when we stopped at Milton Keynes and then on the run-in to Darlington.

In principle, something like this might work on the rail but the challenges would be:
(1) Costs associated with needing to keep infrastructure open, including both rail and non-rail infrastructure (eg I presume a TOC with services running needs someone in a control room somewhere to be working, and potentially customer service staff on Twitter etc too)

(2) Interacting with engineering work; the Caledonian Sleeper gets around this with minimal calling points in England, but as soon as you add in stops in the Midlands or Yorkshire then you complicate things

(3) Challenges of drunkenness. If you're leaving London at midnight and proposing to call at places such as Luton, Leicester, Nottingham, then you're creating a realistic opportunity for people to travel back after an evening at the pub, or later after a concert or sports event or whatever. It was drunkenness that helped put an end to the 02:15 departure from Newcastle to Manchester. The CS avoids this as it leaves relatively early and not being the last train back to its first stops (Crewe, Watford).

None of that's to say it's impossible, just that it'd have to overcome these challenges to offer a service similar to that described.

 

[DavidGrain]

Late night trains must relate to demand so if the demand is low the TOC will not put on the service. In my youth, I could leave work in Birmingham, have an evening in London and be on the 0010 train back to Birmingham. Even if the train were still running I would not be physically or mentally capable of doing that today.

Back in 1999 I was on a train from Brussels to Cologne. I don't think there were sleeper coaches on it but the final destination of the train was Vienna about 7.00am the next morning. I have no idea if that train is still running. I do remember that it was very old stock e.g. you could look down the toilet pan and see the track.

 

[ac6000cw]

Interesting. What of the redundant HSTs running something akin to 2+9 and one or two coaches being converted to carry mail or high-value parcels e.g. Amazon?

With the value of that goods market as well as the seated sleeper, nice and cheap but with good seating (for once), it arguably has a market.

Question would be which station you would centre the trains on. Euston would make the most sense.

Some routes might include:

Euston - Bedford - Leicester - East Mids Parkway - Sheffield - Leeds - York - Newcastle - Edinburgh
Euston - Coventry - Birmingham - Wolves - Crewe - Preston - Carlisle - Glasgow
Euston - Stoke - Manchester - Leeds - York - Newcastle - Edinburgh

Why would major parcels logistics and mail-order companies be interested in using a service that runs between passenger stations in the centre of cities, when their warehouses and sorting hubs are at out-of-town sites near major road junctions?

I think the extra handling and transfer trip costs would make it an expensive option for them (and as the roads are less congested at night, I doubt the train would have much/any overall speed advantage either versus trucking, let alone air transport).

 

[Bletchleyite]

Late night trains must relate to demand so if the demand is low the TOC will not put on the service. In my youth, I could leave work in Birmingham, have an evening in London and be on the 0010 train back to Birmingham. Even if the train were still running I would not be physically or mentally capable of doing that today.

There is still a 2330 to New St from Euston on a weekday, as well as a 2300 to Manchester (arr 0213). From experience neither is particularly busy but I guess they are worth having or they wouldn't be there. They aren't, except on a Friday evening particularly near Christmas, particularly raucous; most of the passengers are normally asleep by MKC.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

There is still a 2330 to New St from Euston on a weekday, as well as a 2300 to Manchester (arr 0213). From experience neither is particularly busy but I guess they are worth having or they wouldn't be there. They aren't, except on a Friday evening particularly near Christmas, particularly raucous; most of the passengers are normally asleep by MKC.

The 2330 to Leeds from Kings Cross is a good comparison to those. I last used it in October and there didn't seem to be much rowdiness on board though it loaded reasonably well, a rough guesstimate would be 60-70% of seats occupied (on the short 2+8 HST set). I imagine if this service ran beyond Leeds to Newcastle or even Edinburgh it would load pretty well all the way.

I was travelling on a Tuesday night though, I imagine Fridays might be a bit more lively. I'd have liked to have slept on board having awoken at 4am then lost an hour under the channel, but a combination of a slight wheelflat on the bogie directly beneath me, and knowing I needed to order a taxi before arrival at Leeds, meant I had to stay awake! Arrival back at Leeds at 0230ish meant that by the time I got home I'd been awake for 24 hours.

This service was the subject of a thread in the allocations and diagrams section regarding the omission of a Wakefield stop, which I'd link to if I wasn't on my mobile.

 

[PeterC]

Why would major parcels logistics and mail-order companies be interested in using a service that runs between passenger stations in the centre of cities, when their warehouses and sorting hubs are at out-of-town sites near major road junctions?

I think the extra handling and transfer trip costs would make it an expensive option for them (and as the roads are less congested at night, I doubt the train would have much/any overall speed advantage either versus trucking, let alone air transport).

As I commented on another thread the rail based facilities for this sort of handling have mostly been repurposed or sold off entirely. If all the old goods yards, parcels facilities and the rest had just been mothballed and were standing ready for reuse with updated technology then a lot of the fanciful ideas for putting traffic back on the rails could (ignoring capital costs) be feasible.

 

[Holly]

I can't imagine that timings at intermediate station would encourage much business, quite apart from the disturbance (and risk of luggage theft) for Anglo-Scottish passengers.

There is definitely a need for a late departure from Euston that lets theatre-goers avoid an overnight stay in London. 23:59 departure would be ideal for theatre-goers.
Perhaps the obvious thing, now that Chat Moss electrification has been completed, is to extend the last Euston-Manchester service to continue on to Scotland. As to drunkenness, simply designate it as a dry train.