Caledonian Sleeper

[enginedin]

Someone travelling to Fort William books a different seat for each leg of their journey. The total number of seated passengers for Aberdeen and Fort William can't exceed the number of seats between London and Edinburgh, although spare seats between Edinburgh and Fort William are made available for internal Scottish travel.

ah ok, thanks (and yeh, I'd forgotten about the internal scotland travel even though I know plenty of people who've done it!) - there are probably some interesting edge cases though; e.g. in theory I guess it's possible for the whole Fort William seated coach to be booked up all the way through to London before any Aberdeen seats have been sold (yeh yeh, I said edge case), so in that case the Aberdeen seated coach would travel empty...

 

[JonathanH]

ah ok, thanks (and yeh, I'd forgotten about the internal scotland travel even though I know plenty of people who've done it!) - there are probably some interesting edge cases though; e.g. in theory I guess it's possible for the whole Fort William seated coach to be booked up all the way through to London before any Aberdeen seats have been sold (yeh yeh, I said edge case), so in that case the Aberdeen seated coach would travel empty...

If that happened, the Aberdeen coach would only be empty between Edinburgh and Aberdeen, but I think it is unlikely in practice.

 

[SuspectUsual]

ah ok, thanks (and yeh, I'd forgotten about the internal scotland travel even though I know plenty of people who've done it!) - there are probably some interesting edge cases though; e.g. in theory I guess it's possible for the whole Fort William seated coach to be booked up all the way through to London before any Aberdeen seats have been sold (yeh yeh, I said edge case), so in that case the Aberdeen seated coach would travel empty...

If you want the edgier edge case, the FTW seats could be block booked to Dalmuir or Glasgow couldn't they?

 

[Harlequinuk]

After a few days to recover from the lack of sleep...

The beds on the Mk5s are quite comfortable. The bedding was actually possibly better than that provided on the Riviera. Also, having the option to book a room with an ensuite is a very welcome change from the Riviera, where the Mk3s do not have any ensuites available. I'd booked a club rate sharing with a different family member, seeing as we're likely to only do this once.

The killer, however, is the horrendous ride quality. I don't think I've had a bumpier ride on a railway in my life, than I did on the Cally (and bear in mind I've done some heritage lines over some properly rough bits of track at, ahem, "25 miles an hour wink wink". The Mk5s ride diabolically poorly, to the point where I kept being jolted awake and hearing "dun-dun, dun-dun" at pretty much every station, every junction, practically every piece of pointwork. It boggles the mind that a comparatively ancient Mk3 can somehow ride far better than a more modern coach does. I am not a light sleeper, not by any stretch, and even for me it was a struggle to stay asleep.

Breakfast in the morning was a much better affair than what I had on the other sleeper. Getting a proper hot-cooked breakfast on a plate is certainly a step up from a sausage bap served in a bag!

I think Cally should try and arrange for some form of lounge sharing at Birmingham International. It's an important stop that they were very excited about adding, but it could be so much more. Providing lounge access at BHI would be very welcome considering the extremely early arrival time into Brum.

Finally, I'm not sure what happened, but I awoke to discover that we were running over 45 minutes late, having apparently lost nearly 50 minutes in Edinburgh.

All in all, it was an interesting experience, but I much preferred the Riviera over the Cally. It's just a shame that I have no real reason to go to Cornwall regularly, whereas I have much more reason to go to Scotland.

Isnt there a programme to improve the ride quality on the mk5as?

 

[Caleb2010]

Not only that but to have the extra 2 coaches work all the way though would cause problems, length wise 16 + 2 locos (one at each end) only just fits in Euston - two more would be a real problem.

Though not just there - I imagine there are lots of other places where 18 coaches plus a loco would foul points, signals, platforms, sections within platform areas.

 

[Tetragon213]

Not only that but to have the extra 2 coaches work all the way though would cause problems, length wise 16 + 2 locos (one at each end) only just fits in Euston - two more would be a real problem.

Though not just there - I imagine there are lots of other places where 18 coaches plus a loco would foul points, signals, platforms, sections within platform areas.

You'd think they'd be running additional services if the demand is so high a lot of the time. Surely Euston can't be that overcrowded at 9pm, that an extra platform or 2 couldn't be had for running extra services.

 

[Cheshire Scot]

You'd think they'd be running additional services if the demand is so high a lot of the time. Surely Euston can't be that overcrowded at 9pm, that an extra platform or 2 couldn't be had for running extra services.

They don't have stock - and probably not staff either - to run extra services,

 

[rower40]

How/where do the Fort William day coaches get maintained? It would appear that they run from Fort William to Edinburgh in the evening with the Up Sleeper coaches, then get attached to the Down Sleeper in the early hours of the morning to go back to Fort William. How do they get to Polmadie or Wembley for maintenance?

 

[miami]

Anyone know why 1S25 to INV today was stuck in Moy PL for an hour this morning? One would think it would have made it onto the double track...

We were at a passing place, two trains passed us (one freight I think which overtook us, the other being the London bound day train?). Had no information from the guard until after we started moving, a few seconds after the SMS arrived. We moved a couple of times (a few inches or whatever) during the stoppage.

Alas they'd already cleared up in the club car so was stuck in my room rather than wide open views and coffee. Amusingly we broke down just after the "arriving in 10 minutes" announcement.

At least it triggered delay repay

 

[godfreycomplex]

How/where do the Fort William day coaches get maintained? It would appear that they run from Fort William to Edinburgh in the evening with the Up Sleeper coaches, then get attached to the Down Sleeper in the early hours of the morning to go back to Fort William. How do they get to Polmadie or Wembley for maintenance?

Swapped out occasionally by empty moves to/from Polmadie

 

[JModulo]

How/where do the Fort William day coaches get maintained? It would appear that they run from Fort William to Edinburgh in the evening with the Up Sleeper coaches, then get attached to the Down Sleeper in the early hours of the morning to go back to Fort William. How do they get to Polmadie or Wembley for maintenance?

Its usually every 2 to 3 weeks they are swapped. The "replacement" coaches usually go through on the back of the Edinburgh portion empties on the night of a swap.

 

[Bald Rick]

You'd think they'd be running additional services if the demand is so high a lot of the time.

The sleepers lose a phenomenal amount of money; in the region of £100 per passenger. No Government is going to run more sleepers to throw money in the bin.

 

[leightonbd]

The sleepers lose a phenomenal amount of money; in the region of £100 per passenger. No Government is going to run more sleepers to throw money in the bin.

Whilst I broadly knew that and am nevertheless a keen buyer of CS tickets I must say that maybe 50% of the times that I went to travel, I can’t. Not always at peak times, either.

Provocatively- I do perhaps 12 trips a year - but look at 24 and end up going by day train for many of them - I would actually be happy paying at a price point (broadly, across classes and days of the week) higher. It’s about time of day and the freedoms you cannot price to allow that. And the fact they are sold out, broadly, supports that.

 

[JamieL]

The sleepers lose a phenomenal amount of money; in the region of £100 per passenger. No Government is going to run more sleepers to throw money in the bin.

The railway as a whole requires huge Government subsidy so I think the idea of singling out the sleeper is unhelpful. We run the railways at a loss because the service is needed for broader economic, transportation and environmental benefits. The key issue then is not the subsidy required for the sleeper but whether it provides an important service to the areas it serves - for the CS the argument is one of boasted tourism and time efficient travel - and this is really what should determine whether the service is considered for scaling up or not.

 

[H F Stephens]

The sleepers lose a phenomenal amount of money; in the region of £100 per passenger. No Government is going to run more sleepers to throw money in the bin.

At a Network level, either the sleepers carry very few people, or they lose a phenomenal amount of money.

Both cannot be true, relatively.

And, apparently curiously, the per capita loss consistently quoted appears to be constant, and discrete from both recent variations in costs and revenues of the operations.

 

[35B]

The railway as a whole requires huge Government subsidy so I think the idea of singling out the sleeper is unhelpful. We run the railways at a loss because the service is needed for broader economic, transportation and environmental benefits. The key issue then is not the subsidy required for the sleeper but whether it provides an important service to the areas it serves - for the CS the argument is one of boasted tourism and time efficient travel - and this is really what should determine whether the service is considered for scaling up or not.

That decision also requires an assessment of economics, together with a review of whether the private gains you point to justify subsidy through tax money.

With very high up front capital costs for doing that, the case is further weakened - if the capacity were doubled, the operational costs would also be more or less doubled. And given the hefty per journey subsidy, this would not support lower fares unless there were an appetite to increase subsidies still more.

 

[Bald Rick]

At a Network level, either the sleepers carry very few people, or they lose a phenomenal amount of money.

They do both.

 

[Scotrail344Lad]

Does The Cale Only Stop If Required? (Excluding Edinburgh, terminus's etc)

 

[JonathanH]

Does The Cale Only Stop If Required? (Excluding Edinburgh, terminus's etc)

Yes, it does seem it now will only stop where someone is booked to get on or off, or where there is a need for an operational stop.

 

[Scotrail344Lad]

Yes, it does seem it now will only stop where someone is booked to get on or off, or where there is a need for an operational stop.

Thanks

 

[SuspectUsual]

Arrival time for the Fort William portion this morning looks to have been amended from 10:00 to 10:30 - anyone know when this was done and why?

At what point does someone step in and stop this nonsense, and accept that a risk of running long distance trains is that they arrive late and you have to deal with delay repay claims?

 

[800002]

Arrival time for the Fort William portion this morning looks to have been amended from 10:00 to 10:30 - anyone know when this was done and why?

At what point does someone step in and stop this nonsense, and accept that a risk of running long distance trains is that they arrive late and you have to deal with delay repay claims?

Created at 20:07 yesterday evening.

Train 1Y11 Edinburgh to Fort William Mon 02/03/2026 | Rail Record

Live Train Times for Train 1Y11 Edinburgh to Fort William departing on Mon 02/03/2026 | Rail Record

live.rail-record.co.uk

Not in a position to speculate on why it lost 25 minutes to Crianlarich. Others may be able to.

 

[MontyP]

Created at 20:07 yesterday evening.


Not in a position to speculate on why it lost 25 minutes to Crianlarich. Others may be able to.

So I think what I would do if travelling to Fort William and worried about retimings affecting delay/repay would be to book to Spean Bridge and then add a single for the 1 stop to FW. All of the padding seems to be added to the last bit of the journey

 

[Scotrail344Lad]

Might be a bit of disruption to the Sleeper on Sunday nights, fort William portion.
Over the next few weeks Engineering works at bathgate so may affect running of the sleeper.

 

[VT 390]

Might be a bit of disruption to the Sleeper on Sunday nights, fort William portion.
Over the next few weeks Engineering works at bathgate so may affect running of the sleeper.

When the route through Bathgate is shut (and usually when the Sleeper is delayed) it will operate via Falkirk High.
The only affect this has is that it can not call at Glasgow Queen Street (low level) for seated passengers travelling to/from Fort William.

 

[Cheshire Scot]

When the route through Bathgate is shut (and usually when the Sleeper is delayed) it will operate via Falkirk High.
The only affect this has is that it can not call at Glasgow Queen Street (low level) for seated passengers travelling to/from Fort William.

It can, but obviously they choose not to presumably as routing via Springburn and Bellgrove would no doubt extend the journey time - although it could perhaps leave Edinburgh earlier if there was a will and it is route cleared that way.

 

[Scotrail344Lad]

I suppose so

 

[VT 390]

It can, but obviously they choose not to presumably as routing via Springburn and Bellgrove would no doubt extend the journey time - although it could perhaps leave Edinburgh earlier if there was a will and it is route cleared that way.

It could call at Queen Street if it went via Springburn, but given the alternative route for the sleeper is via Maryhill it is not possible to call at Queen Street (without changing direction in the high level).

I don't think the timings could be amended much more without affecting reliability with the recent changes to accommodate Birmingham International.

 

[JonathanH]

It could call at Queen Street if it went via Springburn, but given the alternative route for the sleeper is via Maryhill it is not possible to call at Queen Street (without changing direction in the high level).

I don't think the timings could be amended much more without affecting reliability with the recent changes to accommodate Birmingham International

The southbound services no longer goes via Glasgow Queen Street / Bathgate (other than on Sunday night) because of the Birmingham International change.

 

[Scotrail344Lad]

Why not? And where does it go. RTT still suggests via BHG