Caledonian Sleeper

[alangla]

Wow, there's the not-at-all-joined-up railway in full customer-unfriendly mode. I can't believe anyone seriously suggested the XC route, which wouldn't get you to Paddington until 13:52 (13:37 if you made a 3 minute connection at Reading). What use is that to someone who needed to be in London at 8 a.m.? Plus by that time there will have been several earlier arrivals via the ECML.

Even a full refund wouldn't really compensate anyone whose planned day has been ruined.

Kind of a surprise them doing that. I thought First policy where there had been a total shambles overnight & you hadn’t got south of Glasgow or Edinburgh by the morning was to offer a bus to Glasgow/Edinburgh airport and a complimentary ticket to Heathrow, at least you might then be in London by around 10, assuming flight ok & HEx to Paddington

 

[jagardner1984]

This problem is going be amplified going forward (since the First Scotrail days), by:

1. Much Higher Ticket Prices.
2. The targeting therefore of passengers with a greater likelihood of onward travel / business arrangements (tourists heading to the highlands, business people with early morning meetings / conferences).

There is some validity in the "you get what you pay for". As miffed as people were by Ryanair's staff issues (and therefore cancellations) last year, amongst disgruntled passengers, there was a sense of, "we paid £14.99 for this 1500 mile flight, what did we expect" - i.e. an expectation of almost 0 customer service.

With all these issues, the fact passengers are coughing up the equivalent of most of my monthly mortgage payment* for the privilege of 7 hours sleeping on a train, when they are presented with either a very late arrival, cancellation or waiting for some hours on a station concourse (to use a few recent examples), there is perhaps understandably the expectation of better customer service than seems to be on offer in some recent examples.

Whilst its dangerous to gauge public opinion based on those who shout loudest on twitter, the picture a quick search paints is far from pretty ...

(*And yes, I live in a cheap area !)

 

[TimboM]

Regarding the coupling issues, they've spent months testing the new stock, could they have tried coupling/uncoupling then, to iron out any problems, same with the rest of the new stock.

Do you think this wasn't done?

 

[Kite159]

Yay the sleeper has reached Carstairs so the over powerful "height of Spanish summer"* AC has been turned off in the seats. Makes the AC on a Desiro sound quiet. At least the old stock had its moments where it would pump out heat.

Also seems this time the bright lights above the windows were left on with the lights in the ceiling turned off. A rough scan up & down, only one or two of the little lockable lockers is down.

(* Or "carriage of fresh fish" setting)

 

[bigmoose]

Talking of aircon, I had the opposite problem on the inaugural southbound run. My room was too warm until well into the night. I see others have commented on this too. Does anyone know if that’s been fixed yet?

And more importantly, are the services arriving on time now? Looks like there are still decoupling issues northbound - what about services going south?

I’m back on it next Tuesday night so I’m hoping some of the initial niggles have been worked out. Realistically, it’s still early days and I know it’ll take a while longer to get it all working smoothly.

 

[221129]

Talking of aircon, I had the opposite problem on the inaugural southbound run. My room was too warm until well into the night. I see others have commented on this too. Does anyone know if that’s been fixed yet?

And more importantly, are the services arriving on time now? Looks like there are still decoupling issues northbound - what about services going south?

I’m back on it next Tuesday night so I’m hoping some of the initial niggles have been worked out. Realistically, it’s still early days and I know it’ll take a while longer to get it all working smoothly.

The down Edinburgh portion arrived on time this morning.

 

[robertbishop]

Evening all - has anyone had any experience travelling on the Fort William sleeper during the 'day'?

I would like to do the 1B01 19:50 Fort William as far as Crianlarich (22:06) which according to the website would mean making a reservation in the seated coach ("We also accept National Rail tickets, valid on all operators...With these tickets or passes you can travel in Caledonian Sleeper seated accommodation if you make a reservation through our Guest Service Centre." at the bottom of the tickets page). However, I have just called them and the person I spoke to said she was unable to make a reservation at all and that I should instead just turn up on the day having bought a ticket and hope there are unreserved seats to sit in. She did say 15 of the seats were taken, which was apparently half of the coach, so I'm tentatively thinking it won't be a problem. She suggested going to a station and trying to reserve a seat at a counter there, which I'm guessing won't work (but I'm happy to try).

However, in any case this doesn't line up with what's on the website so I'd like to know whether anyone has done this type of short 'day' journey successfully or if anyone has run into any problems.

 

[sdrennan]

Evening all - has anyone had any experience travelling on the Fort William sleeper during the 'day'?

I would like to do the 1B01 19:50 Fort William as far as Crianlarich (22:06) which according to the website would mean making a reservation in the seated coach ("We also accept National Rail tickets, valid on all operators...With these tickets or passes you can travel in Caledonian Sleeper seated accommodation if you make a reservation through our Guest Service Centre." at the bottom of the tickets page). However, I have just called them and the person I spoke to said she was unable to make a reservation at all and that I should instead just turn up on the day having bought a ticket and hope there are unreserved seats to sit in. She did say 15 of the seats were taken, which was apparently half of the coach, so I'm tentatively thinking it won't be a problem. She suggested going to a station and trying to reserve a seat at a counter there, which I'm guessing won't work (but I'm happy to try).

However, in any case this doesn't line up with what's on the website so I'd like to know whether anyone has done this type of short 'day' journey successfully or if anyone has run into any problems.

This has been discussed previously. It is apparently not possible to reserve a seat so just do as they say and turn up. It won't be an issue. Not all seats can be reserved as the people from this seated car have to move to the Aberdeen section and they all share one carriage

 

[BRX]

You should be fine. However, if you have the energy, make a complaint about the conflicting information as I'm sure it must put some people off using this service, and I don't think CS should be allowed to get away with it.

 

[Mag_seven]

Not all seats can be reserved as the people from this seated car have to move to the Aberdeen section and they all share one carriage

But surely they must be able to reserve the remaining seats for those not going to London?

 

[leightonbd]

Sold out again next Wed northbound (Edinburgh)

LNER are doing very well out of me just now ...

 

[MadCommuter]

73968 took a rake of mark 5s through Hamilton at 16.48 today. Was this just to turn stock? It ran as 5Z74

 

[leightonbd]

73968 took a rake of mark 5s through Hamilton at 16.48 today. Was this just to turn stock? It ran as 5Z74

Might this have been the set which was at Craigentinny when my train passed by at about 1300? I wondered why a CS set would have been sitting there.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It would have made sense to get a Mk5 TSO for this purpose...

 

[BRX]

Inverness lounge car out of action tonight's highlander.

 

[_toommm_]

Any problems with the Fort William section so far?

 

[BRX]

Don't think so

 

[_toommm_]

Don't think so

Cheers BRX

 

[BRX]

Cheers BRX

Still hasn't left Euston though!

 

[_toommm_]

Still hasn't left Euston though!

I'm watching it with bated breath only got 20 mins to connect at Fort Bill onto the Jacobite.

 

[_toommm_]

And it's now 24 down, just left Euston.

 

[Statto]

Should pick up time, plus the Highland Fort William portion has at least 55 minutes wait in Edinburgh anyway, normal arrival time in Edinburgh is 03.54, the Fort William section leaves 04.50.

 

[Scotrail84]

Inverness lounge car out of action tonight's highlander.

Are you on it? Inverness staff are usually a decent lot.

 

[BRX]

Are you on it? Inverness staff are usually a decent lot.

Yup, doesn't affect me though as I'm not in the Inverness portion on this occasion. Not sure if they're letting folk use the Aberdeen one.

 

[BRX]

I'd have hoped the constantly broken mk2s business might have stopped now that they presumably have twice as many to choose from. And we're fast heading towards peak season...

 

[TimboM]

Should pick up time, plus the Highland Fort William portion has at least 55 minutes wait in Edinburgh anyway, normal arrival time in Edinburgh is 03.54, the Fort William section leaves 04.50.

FTW is the last portion to leave in a significant multi-part shunt manoeuvre (BRX can link to his informative video if necessary) - it’s not exactly a 55 min wait with lots of opportunity to make up lost time.

Needless to say with the comfortable timings on the beds, the Highlander is already back on time by Crewe.

 

[_toommm_]

Seated coach isn't too bad to be fair - glad it's in a 2+1 configuration.

Just out of curiosity, is it a completely new train from Edinburgh (where we have to wait on the platform until then), or do we have to get off because of how complicated the shunting is?

 

[BRX]

The FTW sleeper carriages run through - but a 'new' seated coach and lounge car are added on (having run down on the southbound portion from fort william a few hours previously).

 

[MrEd]

Yup, doesn't affect me though as I'm not in the Inverness portion on this occasion. Not sure if they're letting folk use the Aberdeen one.

Normally, if one of the lounge cars is out of action, they will let all the sleeper passengers use the one in the train which is operational. However, it will mean a very busy lounge car, so it's possible that it will be restricted to First Class (with standard allowed to take food and drink back to their rooms), particularly if the train is busy. I seem to remember that when I was travelling to Fort William on a Friday night last October, the Aberdeen lounge car was dead, so all the sleeper passengers had to use the one at the end of the Inverness portion- that was quite a walk for the Fort William passengers! It ended up being restricted to first class because of how busy it was, not helped by the obnoxious so-and-so who insisted on having the table for three to himself (claiming, absurdly, that because passengers were no longer required to share berths with strangers, they should not be expected to share tables with strangers in the lounge either!) Thankfully the staff dealt with him firmly but professionally, explaining how busy the train was (in case he couldn't guess...), and we all got our haggis in the end

 

[TimboM]

Instructional video re northbound shunt operation courtesy of Cambria Junction/BRX: