Caledonian Sleeper

[Cheshire Scot]

Road Replacement Travel arrangements: We will transfer all guests from Fort William, Rannoch & Bridge of Orchy to Dundee at the scheduled departure time to join the Aberdeen service southbound to London Euston. Guests booked from Dalmuir, Garelochhead & Helensburgh Upper should travel to Edinburgh Waverley via Scotrail services using their Caledonian Sleeper ticket where they will join the train in their booked accommodation. There will be no change to guest arrival into London.

Transporting passengers by coach from Fort William & Bridge of Orchy makes sense. They must have a number of bookings from Rannoch as that will take some logistics.

Rannoch potentially fairly straightforward by Taxi - albeit the nearest Taxi may well be some miles from Rannoch.

'Bridge of Orchy' - perhaps on the night nobody booked from Tyndrum or Crianlarich both of course on the route. Likewise presumably nobody booked from Ardlui Arrochar or Dumbarton.

 

[island]

And Corrour is... difficult to get road replacement transport to

 

[JamieL]

And Corrour is... difficult to get road replacement transport to

There is a nice and convenient lay-by on the A86 a mere 15miles walk from the station!

 

[InOban]

There's a estate track which can be used by off-road vehicles.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Does anyone know where in Euston the Sleeper lounge is going to be ? Have there been any construction photos ?

It's half way along platform 1, but completely hoarded off, not even with any of the viewing holes that you normally find on site hoardings, so no photos are possible unless any official ones are released at some point.

 

[Sleepy]

Classic customers are standard class. And as bowled out earlier in the thread, only club is marketed as a hotel experience. I believe standard class users of the CS can buy a shower token to use the facilities as Euston if they wish.

At least GWR will let all berth users into the lounge at Paddington. Showers at Penzance introduced a few years ago are a great improvement.

 

[Sealink]

From the CS website.
It's a sausage roll and baked beans isn't it?

 

[andythebrave]

From the CS website.
It's a sausage roll and baked beans isn't it?

Where's the chips?

 

[Sealink]

Where's the chips?

You mean sautéed pommes de terre julienne?

 

[Class15]

You mean sautéed pommes de terre julienne?

Caledonian Sleeper marketing

Cheese sandwich - a huge variety of cheese mixed into our tasty buttered bread!

 

[Peter Sarf]

Caledonian Sleeper marketing

Cheese sandwich - a huge variety of cheese mixed into our tasty buttered bread!

Eau de Anglais - fresh from the tap.
Its all I want if thirsty but I call it tap water.

 

[Class15]

Eau de Anglais - fresh from the tap.
Its all I want if thirsty but I call it tap water.

I do love some Eau de Anglais! It’s so tasty and quenches thirst immediately!

 

[Peter Sarf]

I do love some Eau de Anglais! It’s so tasty and quenches thirst immediately!

Indeed and my pallete has become rather accustomed to the fine hints of calcium I get from the Sarf Eastern variety of Eau De Tap.

 

[Sealink]

Eau de Anglais - fresh from the tap.
Its all I want if thirsty but I call it tap water.

I'm sure they'd called it eau d'Ecosse

 

[InOban]

I sincerely hope that, as far as possible, they use the much finer, publicly owned, supply from Scottish Water. None of your Sassenach recycled p**.

 

[Sealink]

CS in public ownership.

 

[JamieL]

CS in public ownership.

It is going to be interesting to see what changes as a result. Personally, I think the CS has been a pretty good offering overall. The catering options are unduly fancy IMHO but they cater to tourists who are probably the ones more likely to spend the evening in the Club Car. Crucially the quality and cleanliness of the cabins is always superb and the niceties offered (bottled water etc) are welcome. The reception team are always fairly efficient and helpful whether embarking at a terminal or a local station. Hopefully the new operator can sustain the high bar currently set.

 

[Trainguy34]

CS in public ownership.

When did this start?

 

[JamieL]

When did this start?

I think it is from midnight tonight. I got an email from CS about data sharing etc.

 

[alistairlees]

From 02.00 tomorrow (Sunday 25th) I think.

 

[zwk500]

It is going to be interesting to see what changes as a result.

Not a lot at first, although it'll be interesting to see if e.g. the call centre is maintained as a separate entity or it gets lumped in with Scotrail's general enquiries line.

 

[GordonT]

Not a lot at first, although it'll be interesting to see if e.g. the call centre is maintained as a separate entity or it gets lumped in with Scotrail's general enquiries line.

They will be within the scope of Freedom of Information legislation.

 

[jagardner1984]

They will be within the scope of Freedom of Information legislation.

How many nanoseconds after 0200 did the press, sensing a ferry debacle, ask about relevant subsidies per passenger travelled, cost per staff hour; and other such headline generating statistics.

An interesting side query - from previous OLR transfers - I imagine the 2am transfer time made sense as after the income generating activities finish one day and before they commence the next (obviously maintenance activities ongoing pretty much 24/7) as a neat way of sealing off Serco’s activities and starting of OLR’s activities. However 2am Sunday is obviously the only day CS wouldn’t be running a service at that time - have other transfers also happened then or is it coincidence ? Makes you wonder how it plays out if the Ex operator dispatches a service late due to TOC error - but arrives post the transfer time and OLR pick up the delay repay - how this is all calculated ? Or perhaps given the “basket case” economics of various transferring franchises, a few refunds here and there for the taxpayer to additionally pick up are comparatively small fry.

 

[Blindtraveler]

I give it 18 months tops before it is considered bad value for the taxpayer as it is bringing Scott rails figures down and is scrapped completely and forever

 

[jagardner1984]

I give it 18 months tops before it is considered bad value for the taxpayer as it is bringing Scott rails figures down and is scrapped completely and forever

Which would be a shame - and cut off a number of places from a direct London service for the first time. Given it still seems to be largely full - particularly in the peak - I would suggest significant price gouging will occur first.

 

[Bald Rick]

However 2am Sunday is obviously the only day CS wouldn’t be running a service at that time - have other transfers also happened then or is it coincidence ?

Yes, transfers typically happen at 0200 on the first Sunday of a Railway financial reporting period, which tomorrow is.

 

[PG]

I give it 18 months tops before it is considered bad value for the taxpayer as it is bringing Scott rails figures down and is scrapped completely and forever

I can't see that happening, certainly not that quickly. For one thing theres 75 Mk5s with circa 30 years left on them which are being paid for by the public purse. While the Night Riviera might, at some point, want newer stock they won't need the whole lot. If the fleet hadn't been replaced and it was still Mk3s running then shutting up shop may well have been on the cards but I don't think that is what will happen.

 

[JamieL]

I give it 18 months tops before it is considered bad value for the taxpayer as it is bringing Scott rails figures down and is scrapped completely and forever

I guess you don't follow Scottish politics then? The CS is regarded as an important link for key SNP voting areas.

 

[Blindtraveler]

On the contrary I follow it keenly and and basing my opinions above on the absolute car crash that has been the fit for the future timetable on the regular ScotRail network, based on an awful lot of quite often inaccurate assumptions on working and travel patterns and on figures collected in the middle of a bloody pandemic. Purely on this evidence alone the sleeper hasn't got a hope in hell and surely they will kill it quickly so that they can find the money it uses to give to a certain shipyard who will then make it magically disappear and ask for more.

On the other hand if they can indeed see as has been pointed out that it is still very important to them in certain key areas not least encouraging their mass tourism dreams which may or may not be sufficient in lucrative to fund future projects such as independence then yes it has a good chance of survival and rightly so.

I'm not going to go any further as I don't want to drift the thread away from the core topic. It will be interesting to see how the whole thing is handled operationally as we go forward and now that they are slightly more directly responsible and accountable for it if they listen to the views of those of us and there are good few in this category who want to be able to use it as a viable affordable option for overnight travel between particularly rural Scotland and London and not as a five-star hotel on wheels

 

[jagardner1984]

I'm not going to go any further as I don't want to drift the thread away from the core topic. It will be interesting to see how the whole thing is handled operationally as we go forward and now that they are slightly more directly responsible and accountable for it if they listen to the views of those of us and there are good few in this category who want to be able to use it as a viable affordable option for overnight travel between particularly rural Scotland and London and not as a five-star hotel on wheels

Don’t disagree with you in the central point at all.

However, with the service broadly full at current pricing …..

https://twitter.com/seatsixtyone/status/1672535020131450880?s=46&t=CESmL_69gjQINF_blRdVJg

Whilst charging £4.50 for a supermarket yoghurt ….

https://twitter.com/missbecsbell/status/1671760584264564739?s=46&t=CESmL_69gjQINF_blRdVJg

And still the subsidy per journey has been reported in some quarters at £164 per journey - as discussed in Parliament …

Caledonian Sleeper Service

– in the Scottish Parliament 12 January 2023

www.theyworkforyou.com

It is hard to see where the economies come at such a scale as to achieve the very laudable goal of improving the affordability of fares. Popular whilst sacking CEO’s might be - you’ll need to find an awful lot of them to bring down that £164 by much.

To be honest - much as I think some of the old school sleeper hosts were absolutely brilliant - my interaction with them now generally involves them ticking a sheet on a clipboard, and being handed a bottle of warm orange juice in the morning. Sometimes there is a hello with Either of these interactions. I’m not sure how many hosts are on a Lowlander service - and obviously the club car is I assume revenue generating - but I wonder whether a Scotrail revenue protection doing the ticket check - and a drinks voucher for some partner cafe or other - might offer some opportunities for some roles to shift to other parts of CS / Scotrail. Or indeed whether running Glasgow an hour earlier via Edinburgh (so all shunting happens in one place) might also bring some savings whilst still offering reasonable timings.

I’d hate to see it go - but clearly there are many demands on the subsidy available to Scotland’s railways more generally. I suspect however that the unique nature of the service and its appeal to tourists … that many many of them bring an awful lot more than £164 into Scotland’s economy, not all of which would seamlessly transfer to Ryanair.

“Subsidy” is always a very complex picture.