The Caledonian Sleeper website now notes that the seated carriage is unavailable until 2nd October (previously 1st September).
I can’t find a notice regarding the Club carriage.
I believe that the changes to the catering offering (including the suspension of all catering in the evenings until further notice) are detailed on the website under the ‘Covid-19 changes’ heading. It does not give a specific date for when evening catering or the Club Car will return, but the suggestion is that the Club Car is suspended until further notice. I’m getting the impression that it is unlikely to be reinstated any time soon (as physical distancing will still be needed for the foreseeable future, and the Club Car becomes entirely uneconomical/practically impossible to run if physical distancing is needed in it). I’m not one for speculation, but I would be very surprised if we saw a Club Car open to the public before the summer of 2021, if not later. Of course, CS may decide to make further changes to the catering offering in the meantime- perhaps, for instance, they may keep the simpler breakfast offering (which makes things a *lot* easier for the crew, and means that those daft menu cards can be done away with), or they might decide to come up with a simpler evening menu (perhaps more like the sort of buffet menu that you’d have got on LNER or Greater Anglia Norwich services pre-Covid) that is relatively easy to deliver to passengers in their rooms. It depends how long the Covid restrictions last, I suppose, and how annoyed/inconvenienced passengers are by the lack of evening catering at the moment. I must say I personally found the new Club Car somewhat soulless whenever I used it, and I would not be likely to miss it if I needed to use the sleeper during these times, but I do feel that on a journey of this length, some evening catering provision (even if it is just a very pared-down room service buffet menu) ought to be made, especially as evening meal options at or around Euston are currently also restricted. Perhaps simplifying the on-train catering provision might not be a bad thing- before Covid, it always struck me that the dinner and breakfast service in the Club Car had become quite labour intensive by modern railway standards, far more so than it had been in First Group days.
As for the seated coach, CS have said that this will remain out of action until the end of September/beginning of October but they may well extend this date further. I think that they simply review their Covid policy at the end of each month, and that the end of September is simply when they will review it next. I don’t personally see the issue with reopening the seated coach but it may be the case that it is not an attractive option for as long as face coverings remain mandatory, or perhaps physical distancing is difficult due to the seated coach layout?
