Caledonian Sleeper

[Roger B]

They do sometimes shunt sleepers at Wembley. On 25th Oct I was at Stonebridge Park station at around 13.00, and saw 92043 shunting sleepers, adding 15333 to a rake that already included 15004, 15101, 15201, 15307, 15304, 15308, 15307, 15007, 15330, 15331, 15332, 15314, 15304, 15303 and 15305 ( not necessarily in that order, seen as was shunted to and fro).

 

[BRX]

Another day, another late arrival on the Highlander.

FW currently 84L
Inverness 44L
Aberdeen 32L

Yesterday’s southbounds seem to run okay though.

Looks like it was running about 30 mins late all the way from Euston, with the FW portion picking up additional delay on leaving edinburgh.

 

[John Bishop]

Looks like it was running about 30 mins late all the way from Euston, with the FW portion picking up additional delay on leaving edinburgh.

Indeed, but I’ve just noticed it went from 25L to 69L at Preston for some reason?

 

[TimboM]

They do sometimes shunt sleepers at Wembley. On 25th Oct I was at Stonebridge Park station at around 13.00, and saw 92043 shunting sleepers, adding 15333 to a rake that already included 15004, 15101, 15201, 15307, 15304, 15308, 15307, 15007, 15330, 15331, 15332, 15314, 15304, 15303 and 15305 ( not necessarily in that order, seen as was shunted to and fro).

15333 had been knocked out of that rake a couple of nights previously and was being put back on the rake.

I believe the point the previous poster was making was that ordinarily the two “Units” making up a 16-coach rake don’t get split/swapped etc at Wembley. Ordinarily the whole rake stays together and just switches over from the Highlander to the Lowlander and vice versa.

 

[TimboM]

Indeed, but I’ve just noticed it went from 25L to 69L at Preston for some reason?

More interference with the overhead power supply believed to be caused by CAF 331s in the Preston/Blackpool area.

1S25 was 35 Late into Edinburgh, so the late start from Euston would’ve been recovered had it not been for the further 44 min delay at Preston.

 

[Kite159]

I was on the lowlander to Edinburgh on Friday and for the first couple hours it was quite nice temperature wise, until Preston when the AC went into "height of Spanish Summer" mode

At least the lights above the windows were turned off with the roof lights on instead

 

[Peter Sarf]

They do sometimes shunt sleepers at Wembley. On 25th Oct I was at Stonebridge Park station at around 13.00, and saw 92043 shunting sleepers, adding 15333 to a rake that already included 15004, 15101, 15201, 15307, 15304, 15308, 15307, 15007, 15330, 15331, 15332, 15314, 15304, 15303 and 15305 ( not necessarily in that order, seen as was shunted to and fro).

That is rather a lot of ordinary sleeper coaches (153xx) - total 12, should be 9 iirc. I believed there should be one PRM sleeper (152xx) in one half and two PRMs in the other half so three. Oh and there is a missing 151xx. Things do seem to be up in the air !.

Just noticed 15307 appears twice - is one of them a 151xx perhaps ?.

15333 had been knocked out of that rake a couple of nights previously and was being put back on the rake.

I believe the point the previous poster was making was that ordinarily the two “Units” making up a 16-coach rake don’t get split/swapped etc at Wembley. Ordinarily the whole rake stays together and just switches over from the Highlander to the Lowlander and vice versa.

It certainly seems things are not too settled at the moment. What was wrong with 15333 I wonder ?. And I note that Polmadie seems not to have been involved. I would have expected Polmadie to have had a spare coach that could have been added earlier in Scotland ?.

 

[JonathanH]

On 14 October the formations of these sets were:
15004-15101-15201-15308-15307-15303-15304-15206
15007-15105-15205-15314-15333-15332-15331-15330

It certainly seems things are not too settled at the moment. What was wrong with 15333 I wonder ?. And I note that Polmadie seems not to have been involved. I would have expected Polmadie to have had a spare coach that could have been added earlier in Scotland ?

Not if they are trying to keep the sets formed with a fixed eight coaches and any issue means a coach gets dropped, fixed and restored to the same set.

 

[Peter Sarf]

That is rather a lot of ordinary sleeper coaches (153xx) - total 12, should be 9. I believed there should be one PRM sleeper (152xx) in one half and two PRMs in the other half. Oh and a missing 151xx.

Just noticed 15307 appears twice - is one of them a 151xx perhaps ?.

On 14 October the formations of these sets were:
15004-15101-15201-15308-15307-15303-15304-15206
15007-15105-15205-15314-15333-15332-15331-15330



Not if they are trying to keep the sets formed with a fixed eight coaches and any issue means a coach gets dropped, fixed and restored to the same set.

Those formations make sense.

And yes I agree things will get messy if formations change too much. I imagine they want a full 8-car set to have all vehicles become due for servicing at the same time. That way a full 8-car set gets swapped.

Although, given that the "spare" 8-car set has to be formed as either of the above two in your reply, there has to be a bit of fluidity. I mean 36 153xx's are required in service and there are only 4 spare, total 40. So if the second half (e,g, 15007-15105-15205-15314-15333-15332-15331-15330) is being replaced then five 153xx's are needed. Therefore a single 153xx has to be serviced quickly and formed back into the replacement set. It is as though there really needed to be 41 of the 153xx's built ?.

I have probably misunderstood something of the formations and their uses.

 

[Chew Chew]

Another day, another late arrival on the Highlander.

FW currently 84L
Inverness 44L
Aberdeen 32L

Yesterday’s southbounds seem to run okay though.

I live in Portlethen so get on a Scotrail the stop before Aberdeen.

Pretty much all trains into the city this morning running late due to slippy rails.

 

[cb a1]

Went to London on Sunday night (Highlander)
Back to Scotland last night (Lowlander)
Everything on time.
Was in berth over wheels heading south - that was fairly clattery - needed ear plugs. Key card didn't work.
Better berth heading north but loud rattle in the connecting door - needed ear plugs.
Key card worked though.

 

[option]

No it's not but as I said they're prepared to accept it just as many on here are prepared to accept the c*** coming from Hitachi for example!

If it is a choice between accepting low quality horse s*** and not travelling, they have to accept the s***.

if those specifying the stock are proud of their work, shouldn't we know who they are, so they can be congratulated?

There are of course other modes of transport. It's only really London commuting where driving is not a feasible option, for instance, and for longer journeys you've got air too, often at a very competitive price.

been to Birmingham recently?

 

[BRX]

Here's what CS have just told me by email



"Things are only going to get better".

A subtle step away from saying "things can only get better".

 

[option]

Stopped for dragging brakes issues (on the coaches) several times this morning which were then overcome, then a door opened upon departure at Perth.

Is this new stock or 60year old stock maintained by SDR?

 

[John Bishop]

Looks like the down Highlander has run into some problems last night.

Inverness running 120L
FW 115L
Aberdeen 97L

Inverness portions now back to 2x73 again.

 

[side effect]

I'm sure someone on here or fb Twitter was due to use this service hoping to make the 8.50 service to wick.

 

[John Bishop]

I'm sure someone on here or fb Twitter was due to use this service hoping to make the 8.50 service to wick.

I think your right. Was it not the 8.55 to Kyle?

 

[Chrism20]

Looks like problems at Preston and Carlisle going by RTT

I’m on it Friday night so have everything crossed although southbound last Thursday was ok.

 

[d9009alycidon]

Someone should send that email back to CS with a corrected last paragraph

Of course, one thing that hasn't changed is the incredibly poor timekeeping of our trains. Providing you are not needing to get where you are going by any particular time, there's no better way to get there than the Caledonian Sleeper",

 

[jfowkes]

"Our trains are notoriously late, so there's a good change of a partial of full refund on the otherwise pretty extortionate prices!"

 

[Chrism20]

To be fair with the exception of a few calamities the Lowlander seems to have settled down timekeeping wise. A bit of work is needed to ensure boarding commenced at the advertised times though.

The Highlander clearly needs to get sorted and they need to address whatever the issue is at Preston along with the split/attach at Waverley. If they solve those two they are pretty much there with the timekeeping.

 

[side effect]

I think your right. Was it not the 8.55 to Kyle?

Yep, my memory is poor and your right.

 

[MrEd]

I think your right. Was it not the 8.55 to Kyle?

I was on last night’s Highlander to Inverness and did have an onward connection with the 08.55 to Kyle (as indeed did several other passengers). There seemed to be some confusion among staff as to whether ticket acceptance had been organised for the 10.56 Kyle train, which resulted in a couple of stressed passengers. The train manager assured me that it had, but one or two of the hosts were unsure. Thankfully the crews who work the 10.56 Kyle train are so used to the sleeper arriving very late that they don’t bat an eyelid- their exact words being ‘don’t worry, that’s a daily occurrence’. An unenviable reputation for poor timekeeping it seems! Oh well, another free first class journey.

The Mk5s are very impressive and I greatly enjoyed the club car breakfast and the en-suite facilities. The quality of the breakfasts seems much better in the new lounge cars than in the old stock. I find the new lounge cars to be much more spacious and inviting, although the service at times seemed a little disorganised both last night and this morning (to be fair, a number of the crew members last night looked to be new or in training). The room service facility is excellent and hot food in the evenings can now be brought to your room on a tray (at least in first class) on proper crockery, which is a nice touch. The ride quality is not great in the berths over the bogies, but it wasn’t in the Mk3s either, so nothing much has changed there. I did book a berth in the centre of the carriage (L5) but was moved to P1 over the bogies; no reason was given for this on check-in, but it may well have been the case that there was no water or something. I didn’t sleep particularly well because of the constant stopping and starting (sometimes sudden) between Preston and Carlisle- was the loco (92033) at fault, or was this due to overhead wire problems? I seem to remember that the ETS went on and off a number of times too. This must have been responsible for the considerable delay to the train.

All in all, possibly the world’s greatest free train ride

 

[Steddenm]

I used the Caledonian Sleeper touchscreen thing today at Preston station to find out what platform my train is due in on (a VT service to GLC) and all the trains listed were for Aberdeen station not PRE albeit it said "Departures from Preston". Also the next Caledonian Sleeper service to "Scotland" was due at 0933! Somebody needs to sort that out!

 

[Richard P]

There's been much made of the poor communication from Caledonian Sleeper over these pages when trains are delayed. You'd have thought with the ongoing delays virtually every morning on the Northbound Highlander that by now they'd have robust social media arrangements in place to keep both passengers and those picking them up from intermediate stations up to date with developments. Clearly not. This morning the FW service was 2 hours late making it's final destination, the Inverness portion missed out several stops due to being prohibitively late too and yet checking the CS Twitter pages there was nothing whatsoever advising of the delays and even now there's still no a mention. Frankly that is abysmal customer service - it seems like they think if they don't mention it maybe it won't be noticed

 

[Bletchleyite]

I was on last night’s Highlander to Inverness and did have an onward connection with the 08.55 to Kyle (as indeed did several other passengers). There seemed to be some confusion among staff as to whether ticket acceptance had been organised for the 10.56 Kyle train, which resulted in a couple of stressed passengers. The train manager assured me that it had, but one or two of the hosts were unsure.

It doesn't need to be arranged, because it happens by default - with contiguous split tickets you have the same rights as with a through ticket. You'd think staff would know that, or check it rather than confusing people!

 

[TimboM]

I didn’t sleep particularly well because of the constant stopping and starting (sometimes sudden) between Preston and Carlisle- was the loco (92033) at fault, or was this due to overhead wire problems? I seem to remember that the ETS went on and off a number of times too. This must have been responsible for the considerable delay to the train.

Neither of those reasons.
ETS going off/on is usually the sign of a reboot - and not always because the loco needs one.

 

[Hipster Dashie]

It doesn't need to be arranged, because it happens by default - with contiguous split tickets you have the same rights as with a through ticket. You'd think staff would know that, or check it rather than confusing people!

Is there somewhere where this is written down in black and white? Not that I'm doubting you, it's just handy to have it as a backup if one of the TOCs tries to pull a fast one. Have a journey from Bitterne to Liverpool Lime St. coming up soon which I've split into multiple legs, and it would be handy to have as a reference. Especially considering the 27 days of SWR strikes just announced!

Sorry to go slightly off topic!

 

[_toommm_]

Is there somewhere where this is written down in black and white? Not that I'm doubting you, it's just handy to have it as a backup if one of the TOCs tries to pull a fast one. Have a journey from Bitterne to Liverpool Lime St. coming up soon which I've split into multiple legs, and it would be handy to have as a reference. Especially considering the 27 days of SWR strikes just announced!

Sorry to go slightly off topic!

Condition 14:1 of the National Rail Conditions of Travel (NRCoT):

Unless shown below, you may use a combination of two or more Tickets to make a journey provided that the train services you use call at the station(s) where you change from one Ticket to another

The key bit is that two or more tickets can be combined to make a journey i.e. a full trip. Some TOCs don't like it, so you may get a few funny staff members who seem to think you can't do this. It helps a lot if you can get an itinerary by booking through an accredited split ticketing site like TrainSplit.

 

[Scotrail84]

There's been much made of the poor communication from Caledonian Sleeper over these pages when trains are delayed. You'd have thought with the ongoing delays virtually every morning on the Northbound Highlander that by now they'd have robust social media arrangements in place to keep both passengers and those picking them up from intermediate stations up to date with developments. Clearly not. This morning the FW service was 2 hours late making it's final destination, the Inverness portion missed out several stops due to being prohibitively late too and yet checking the CS Twitter pages there was nothing whatsoever advising of the delays and even now there's still no a mention. Frankly that is abysmal customer service - it seems like they think if they don't mention it maybe it won't be noticed

Whats the obsession with Twitter? Its not compulsory for passengers to have Twitter is it? Anyway I doubt theres anyone able at Cal Sleeper to routinely monitor Twitter throughout he night when the proverbial has hit the fan.