Caledonian Sleeper discussion

[TimboM]

Sorry if this has been asked before, but why is the Highland Sleeper using the ECML on Sunday nights/Monday mornings?

Engineering works on the WCML - think it's something like 6-8 consecutive Sunday nights and Bank Hols. I believe they're pretty standard possessions and happen periodically.

I don't believe there's any specific project - just an opportunity of a run of Sunday nights with no traffic so larger things that need doing can be sorted - e.g. replacing worn out points.

 

[anti-pacer]

Engineering works on the WCML - think it's something like 6-8 consecutive Sunday nights and Bank Hols. I believe they're pretty standard possessions and happen periodically.

I don't believe there's any specific project - just an opportunity of a run of Sunday nights with no traffic so larger things that need doing can be sorted - e.g. replacing worn out points.

Thanks for that. Much appreciated.

 

[Mordac]

Kind of appropriate for a sleeper train too.

 

[tsr]

Tonight's 1S25 Highlander is showing up as delayed by around 16mins at Euston (now just ~10 down) due to last night's tree vs train vs OHLE on the WCML at Brock.

I don't have much further info tonight - but given last night's Sleepers didn't arrive at Euston until just after 0900, I'd suggest this may be due to not wishing to breach Hidden recommendations, given that if the same crew has still been used for both Highlanders (or even juggled around, actually), they'd only have arrived at Euston about 12 hours before their next trains were due to leave!

 

[paul1609]

Up Westhighlander passed Garelochead on time

 

[47271]

My Easyjet flight 20.55 from Stanstead had a strong headwind all the way up to Glasgow but was still at the gate 10 mins ahead of schedule. I was in bed by 23.30 It was cold in Glasgow but there was no wind and dry by the time I arrived.
I didn't hear the Highlander go past this morning I suspect id gone to work by then. There is no evidence of snow in Garlochead today just a touch on the top of The Cobbler.

Sometimes things go wrong even when you're perfect. [emoji38]

Massive Glasgow Airport security queues spark fear among passengers

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/..._security_queues_spark_fear_among_passengers/

Security at Glasgow Airport was so overrun with thousands of passengers this morning, some feared they would miss their flights.

Frustrated customers took to social media to describe the situation at the airport as “dire” and “a farce” as one male passenger even claimed the queue was so long, it stretched into the car park.

Jamie Peacock‏ wrote on Twitter: “@GLA_Airport what the hell is going on with the queues at #glasgowairport? Security queue as far as the car park.”

Another, Alastair Paton, said: “The queue for security is absolutely ridiculous this morning at Glasgow airport. Never seen anything like this before.”

The airport apologised for the situation and said its team was “working to get things back to normal.”

Passenger Jo challenged the airport further, and said: “Genuinely scary moment at the top of the escalator when people couldn’t get off. Could’ve been carnage.”

The airport replied: “Hi Jo, we’re sorry for earlier. It’s unusual for there to be queues of this size. It was due to staff shortage which we apologise for.”

The airport has since told The Herald the situation is back to normal and, again, emphasised staff shortages.

A spokesman said: “We’d like to apologise to our passengers for any delays they experienced this morning while travelling through the airport.

“Security is our first priority, however, we accept this morning’s level of service fell below the standards our passengers have come to expect at Glasgow Airport.”

The news comes just one day after the airport was shockingly branded one of the worst in the world for passenger complaints.

A survey carried out by consumer rights website Resolver named JFK airport in New York as the world’s worst.

Glasgow came in at sixth place and was the highest ranked UK and European airport for complaints.

 

[Scotrail84]

4th coach for ft William now start on the 12th of May instead of the 22nd

 

[TimboM]

Tonight's 1S25 Highlander is showing up as delayed by around 16mins at Euston (now just ~10 down) due to last night's tree vs train vs OHLE on the WCML at Brock.!

1S25 was back on time by Crewe but suffered an hour+ delay going up Beattock for some reason though...

 

[Scotrail84]

1S25 was back on time by Crewe but suffered an hour+ delay going up Beattock for some reason though...

Got stuck behind failed postal from Warrington to shieldmuir.

 

[TimboM]

Got stuck behind failed postal from Warrington to shieldmuir.

Thanks for the info.

Could've given it a push up the hill

 

[Bletchleyite]

Sometimes things go wrong even when you're perfect. [emoji38]

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/..._security_queues_spark_fear_among_passengers/

All sorts of odd things can cause that. It happened at Luton one Monday morning when a closure on the M1 and a problem on the railway both lifted at the same time, resulting in a rush of passengers and a security queue down the stairs, round the terminal and out into the bus area. It was quite well managed, with staff checking who was on what flight and prioritising. It wasn't to do with anything the airport did (the security was fully staffed, and it was by no means normal to be like that on a Monday morning, usually with a priority ticket you were pretty much straight through, and without the wait was about 10 mins), just a series of awkward coincidences.

(The documentary from a while ago "The Day Britain Stopped" describes a far more disastrous scenario ensuing from just such a set of coincidences, worth a watch if you can find it anywhere.)

 

[Clansman]

4th coach for ft William now start on the 12th of May instead of the 22nd

What portion will compensate for this?

Inverness presumably - no chance the Aberdeen will run with 2 surely?

 

[TimboM]

What portion will compensate for this?

Inverness presumably - no chance the Aberdeen will run with 2 surely?

Pretty sure it will be Aberdeen as I would expect them to keep the 8-coach set approach (with one splitting for Aberdeen/Fort William). It'd presumably would need additional shunting to get one sleeper car out of the Inverness "8" and into the Aberdeen/Fort William part (or you'd have some odd formation) and other related additional faffing around. I may be wrong, others will know for definite...

 

[Clansman]

Pretty sure it will be Aberdeen as I would expect them to keep the 8-coach set approach (with one splitting for Aberdeen/Fort William). I may be wrong, others will know for definite...

Although I don't know for sure, I just can't see Aberdeen only getting 2 sleeper coaches. There have been times the Inverness has run with 5 instead of 6, so I can imagine all it would take is a quick 15-minute shunt at Wembley. Convenient also given that the Inverness sleepers are directly at the back, so all it would mean is removing the Aberdeen seated & lounge cars and slotting an additional Mk3 in.

 

[Wookiee]

(The documentary from a while ago "The Day Britain Stopped" describes a far more disastrous scenario ensuing from just such a set of coincidences, worth a watch if you can find it anywhere.)

Was that the thing with the traffic gridlock in London?

 

[Kendalian]

Was that the thing with the traffic gridlock in London?

From memory it was shown in about March 2003 about a future date 19/12/03 the last Friday before Christmas.

There was a national rail strike about safety concerns. It was supoosedly the busiest day on the roads of the year anyway.

There were a couple of separate major crashes on the M25 in the afternoon. Surrey and Kent Police didnt talk to each other and send diversion traffic down the same road in opposite directions.

Everyone was running seriously late into Heathrow. The character there was a pilot who got delayed arriving by road. Air traffic control was running on skeleton staff and they made a mistake...2 planes collided over central London.

Basically if it could go wrong it did. Fiction yes, but it made us think how close we are to total gridlock


Edit - on Youtube....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6BxSbx1Fm0

 

[Marklund]

From memory it was shown in about March 2003 about a future date 19/12/03 the last Friday before Christmas.

There was a national rail strike about safety concerns. It was supoosedly the busiest day on the roads of the year anyway.

There were a couple of separate major crashes on the M25 in the afternoon. Surrey and Kent Police didnt talk to each other and send diversion traffic down the same road in opposite directions.

Everyone was running seriously late into Heathrow. The character there was a pilot who got delayed arriving by road. Air traffic control was running on skeleton staff and they made a mistake...2 planes collided over central London.

Basically if it could go wrong it did. Fiction yes, but it made us think how close we are to total gridlock

Yes, was an interesting programme

[youtube]z6BxSbx1Fm0[/youtube]

 

[Scotrail84]

What portion will compensate for this?

Inverness presumably - no chance the Aberdeen will run with 2 surely?

The coach is coming off the Aberdeen portion. It will run as a load 4 until October when it goes back to a load 5

 

[Clansman]

The coach is coming off the Aberdeen portion. It will run as aloud 4 until October when it goes back to a load 5

I'm quite surprised by this. The Aberdeen sleeper must be bottom of the pecking order and short for passengers nowadays.

 

[Scotrail84]

Pretty sure it will be Aberdeen as I would expect them to keep the 8-coach set approach (with one splitting for Aberdeen/Fort William). It'd presumably would need additional shunting to get one sleeper car out of the Inverness "8" and into the Aberdeen/Fort William part (or you'd have some odd formation) and other related additional faffing around. I may be wrong, others will know for definite...

Although I don't know for sure, I just can't see Aberdeen only getting 2 sleeper coaches. There have been times the Inverness has run with 5 instead of 6, so I can imagine all it would take is a quick 15-minute shunt at Wembley. Convenient also given that the Inverness sleepers are directly at the back, so all it would mean is removing the Aberdeen seated & lounge cars and slotting an additional Mk3 in.

It's 100% coming off the Aberdeen. There's no additional shunting to take place, the shunters just split off 4 sleeper coaches at Edinburgh instead of the usual 3.

 

[Scotrail84]

I'm quite surprised by this. The Aberdeen sleeper must be bottom of the pecking order and short for passengers nowadays.

It's the quietest portion. This decision has been based on passenger loadings.

 

[Chrism20]

I'm quite surprised by this. The Aberdeen sleeper must be bottom of the pecking order and short for passengers nowadays.

I don't think it's really a surprise when you think about it.

The Aberdeen portion is mainly business passengers and the Inverness/Fort William portions carry a lot of tourists (albeit Inverness has a healthy business loading as well).

In the summer months tourist travel goes up and business travel reduces as people have holidays etc. It might be tight at times but it should cope.

 

[Scotrail84]

I don't think it's really a surprise when you think about it.

The Aberdeen portion is mainly business passengers and the Inverness/Fort William portions carry a lot of tourists (albeit Inverness has a healthy business loading as well).

In the summer months tourist travel goes up and business travel reduces as people have holidays etc. It might be tight at times but it should cope.

It may be an issue if one of the coaches has a power failure or alarm fault and can't be used. There won't be room to move people. Also if the seats fail they might not have room to relocate everyone to berths.

 

[GW43125]

It may be an issue if one of the coaches has a power failure or alarm fault and can't be used. There won't be room to move people. Also if the seats fail they might not have room to relocate everyone to berths.

Aberdeen beds leave EDB at 0443, first SR to Aberdeen is at 0530, so by the time you've faffed around sorting it it's almost time for the first service train, stick 'em on there.

 

[Muzer]

I was told by a local on a recent railtour that the traffic to Aberdeen has collapsed recently since the oil industry has taken a significant downturn in Aberdeen for various reasons, and many of the people he knows have lost their jobs as a result. Not sure exactly how much stock to put in this but it would certainly explain things.

 

[Chrism20]

It may be an issue if one of the coaches has a power failure or alarm fault and can't be used. There won't be room to move people. Also if the seats fail they might not have room to relocate everyone to berths.

Yes, I should have put a disclaimer on that one

 

[Clansman]

The timings for the sleeper doesn't exactly help the patronage either - especially onboard the Aberdeen sleeper. I've been on the Aberdeen sleeper countless times to know that Aberdeen at 7:30 is a depressing place - nothing is open and the sun is barely up. Meanwhile, the Inverness portion, which arrives an hour later than the Aberdeen, arrives to a city open for the day's business - in stark contrast to their counterparts 100 odd mile east with 4 x the population.

Places where you'd expect at least some degree of passengers are seeing barely anyone - places like Dundee, Perth, Stirling, Leuchars, Gleneagles have some ridiculous arrival and departure times that make it nearly impossible for anyone to see the benefit of paying a hunerd odd quid to get 5 hours sleep and a very early start, which kind of eliminates your typical level traveller unless they have a great degree of dedication or reason to be at their destination in that timeframe.

 

[Scotrail84]

Aberdeen beds leave EDB at 0443, first SR to Aberdeen is at 0530, so by the time you've faffed around sorting it it's almost time for the first service train, stick 'em on there.

It's not as simple as that and what if the problem occurs wnroute or at London or Aberdeen. Then what?

 

[GW43125]

It's not as simple as that and what if the problem occurs wnroute or at London or Aberdeen. Then what?

Between London and Edinburgh there'll be space in the rest of the train. Edinburgh onwards there's a service train.

 

[Scotrail84]

Between London and Edinburgh there'll be space in the rest of the train. Edinburgh onwards there's a service train.

Yes because you can guarantee there will be room elsewhere to accommodate them. Is it really fair to put them in a bed for a few hours then make them get up to get a day train? No, it's not.