Caledonian Sleeper

[Bald Rick]

Interesting - any published information/speculation?

I gather there are a couple of letters floating around in the public domain, but I don’t have a link.

Subject for another thread if anyone finds them.

 

[Terry Williams]

Looking at the Caledonian Sleeper website there dosen't appear to be any 'contact us' facility.
On the National Rail Enquiries CS are showing no services to/from Aberdeen up to and including October 2nd.
Does anyone know if CS are likely to resume operations to/from Aberdeen after October 2nd, subject of course to the line at Carmont/Stonehaven being cleared please?

MTIA

 

[alistairlees]

Looking at the Caledonian Sleeper website there dosen't appear to be any 'contact us' facility.
On the National Rail Enquiries CS are showing no services to/from Aberdeen up to and including October 2nd.
Does anyone know if CS are likely to resume operations to/from Aberdeen after October 2nd, subject of course to the line at Carmont/Stonehaven being cleared please?

MTIA

It's here: https://www.sleeper.scot/contact-us/

 

[Terry Williams]

It's here: https://www.sleeper.scot/contact-us/

Many thanks

 

[SlideintomyTMs]

I used to work on the Sleeper as a host so maybe i can shed some light to what has changed re. Staff rest areas.

I worked 3 years with the MK3's and on them there was what is called a Pantry which you could set up and had a comfy seat with plenty of power points, boiler, sink, microwave (and a vent you could smoke a cigarette out of) and it was lockable. it had the attendant alarms and fire alarms in there too so it was very common that once you were set up for the evening you would go to your pantry and "read your rule book".

Also was very common to hang out and play cards in the lounge car, we had a mean hearts tournament going at one stage.

I was trained on the new stock but never got to actually work one because of all the delays

They've replaced these pantrys with set up areas, which are visible to the public, a lot smaller and no seat or lockable door available. The staff room is also tiny, its a four seater on your standard train crammed into a spac behind the kitchen with one power point. the way the seating is layed out it would be totally unsuitable for a full crew to be crammed in there.

Essentially all it takes is one cashed up tourist staying in the lounge car all night or one insomniac and the crew would essentially be standing for the entirety of the night taking shifts sitting in the lounge car

I do think there was some wiggle room to help staff have some reprieve through the night when designing the new stock but Serco management made it very clear they wanted away with the pantrys and staff sleeping on duty for the entirety of my time there. Also management were staunch anti union so i would be pretty sure RMT have been antagonised to this decision.

 

[philthetube]

Not disputing that staff have a grievance but if serco are brought to their knees then staff will have plenty of rest time.

 

[Bald Rick]

I used to work on the Sleeper as a host so maybe i can shed some light to what has changed re. Staff rest areas.

I worked 3 years with the MK3's and on them there was what is called a Pantry which you could set up and had a comfy seat with plenty of power points, boiler, sink, microwave (and a vent you could smoke a cigarette out of) and it was lockable. it had the attendant alarms and fire alarms in there too so it was very common that once you were set up for the evening you would go to your pantry and "read your rule book".

Also was very common to hang out and play cards in the lounge car, we had a mean hearts tournament going at one stage.

I was trained on the new stock but never got to actually work one because of all the delays

They've replaced these pantrys with set up areas, which are visible to the public, a lot smaller and no seat or lockable door available. The staff room is also tiny, its a four seater on your standard train crammed into a spac behind the kitchen with one power point. the way the seating is layed out it would be totally unsuitable for a full crew to be crammed in there.

Essentially all it takes is one cashed up tourist staying in the lounge car all night or one insomniac and the crew would essentially be standing for the entirety of the night taking shifts sitting in the lounge car

I do think there was some wiggle room to help staff have some reprieve through the night when designing the new stock but Serco management made it very clear they wanted away with the pantrys and staff sleeping on duty for the entirety of my time there. Also management were staunch anti union so i would be pretty sure RMT have been antagonised to this decision.

Really helpful, thank you.

I think most regular passengers on the sleeper would be a bit surprised to hear that the dispute is, at least in part, because the staff find it difficult to sleep on duty on the new stock.

Presumably the 16 1/2h shifts quoted are when there are delays?

 

[Pumbaa]

The RMT are having what might be politely termed ‘artistic differences’ at high level, so their current messaging may be a little disjointed or unrepresentative.

Very gracefully put! Conscious uncoupling, different ends of the lounge car etc. Just surprised that it took this long. A bumpy ride awaits that’s for sure.

 

[Bald Rick]

Very gracefully put! Conscious uncoupling, different ends of the lounge car etc. Just surprised that it took this long. A bumpy ride awaits that’s for sure.

Or in the context of this thread, some are in the seated coach trying to sleep, whilst others are sitting in the lounge car insisting on state ownership of all means of production drinking Laphroaig.

 

[SlideintomyTMs]

Really helpful, thank you.

I think most regular passengers on the sleeper would be a bit surprised to hear that the dispute is, at least in part, because the staff find it difficult to sleep on duty on the new stock.

Presumably the 16 1/2h shifts quoted are when there are delays?

The longest turn we had was the Fort William run, book on at 1900 and book of at 1030 then 6hrs in a hotel before turning around and doing another monster shift back down to London. If it we’re running east coast main line it would add a couple hours so they could be quoting that

 

[Fishplate84]

I used to work on the Sleeper as a host so maybe i can shed some light to what has changed re. Staff rest areas.

I worked 3 years with the MK3's and on them there was what is called a Pantry which you could set up and had a comfy seat with plenty of power points, boiler, sink, microwave (and a vent you could smoke a cigarette out of) and it was lockable. it had the attendant alarms and fire alarms in there too so it was very common that once you were set up for the evening you would go to your pantry and "read your rule book".

Also was very common to hang out and play cards in the lounge car, we had a mean hearts tournament going at one stage.

I was trained on the new stock but never got to actually work one because of all the delays

They've replaced these pantrys with set up areas, which are visible to the public, a lot smaller and no seat or lockable door available. The staff room is also tiny, its a four seater on your standard train crammed into a spac behind the kitchen with one power point. the way the seating is layed out it would be totally unsuitable for a full crew to be crammed in there.

Essentially all it takes is one cashed up tourist staying in the lounge car all night or one insomniac and the crew would essentially be standing for the entirety of the night taking shifts sitting in the lounge car

I do think there was some wiggle room to help staff have some reprieve through the night when designing the new stock but Serco management made it very clear they wanted away with the pantrys and staff sleeping on duty for the entirety of my time there. Also management were staunch anti union so i would be pretty sure RMT have been antagonised to this decision.

Sorry, is the gripe here that you used to be able to get away with having a night-shift job, where the reasonable expectation might be that during the day you rest / sleep, but when on shift you should be awake and alert. Is sounds like for years there has developed a very cushy culture of turning up, doing bit of set up, a couple of hours work then sleep (while on shift "reading the rule book" in your cosy cabin), before getting up again to prep for breakfast. When I've used the sleeper it's been all to obvious that you're often following the staff down the platform on arrival as they are the first off. Looked at as a hospitality business which is mostly what it is, most low paid hotel workers would embarrass the sleeper staff in their dedication to doing a good job. I'd certainly not be looking to railway people to fill roles on this service as far far better value would be had by attracting people from other hospitality sectors used to long hard unsocial hours on modest pay - they'd snap your arm off for the sort of money Sleeper probably pays and be knocked sideways at the low bar of expectation.
It does make me wonder how many staff also had or have day jobs which would explain why they would be to tired to actually do what they are paid for during the night. If I were Serco my expectation would be not to be paying staff to sleep for a good part of the shift. Accepting it is likely to be very quiet during periods, I'd be planning to fit in staff training and all manner of other things in the period when there isn't many customers about.
I'm just a bit staggered that anyone might take exception to an employer actively doing things to stop staff sleeping on duty. What is this, the 1970's!?

 

[47271]

It's a shame that the discussion here has been diverted by, on one hand, hot air of the RMT, and on the other the musings of one less well motivated ex employee.

The reality is that the internal fit out of the trains was specified and overseen by people with little knowledge of sleeper operations, and even less interest in asking those who did know what they were talking about. Disputes with staff are the inevitable price to be paid for this approach, and the current one isn't the first.

 

[EssexGonzo]

Sorry, is the gripe here that you used to be able to get away with having a night-shift job, where the reasonable expectation might be that during the day you rest / sleep, but when on shift you should be awake and alert. Is sounds like for years there has developed a very cushy culture of turning up, doing bit of set up, a couple of hours work then sleep (while on shift "reading the rule book" in your cosy cabin), before getting up again to prep for breakfast. When I've used the sleeper it's been all to obvious that you're often following the staff down the platform on arrival as they are the first off. Looked at as a hospitality business which is mostly what it is, most low paid hotel workers would embarrass the sleeper staff in their dedication to doing a good job. I'd certainly not be looking to railway people to fill roles on this service as far far better value would be had by attracting people from other hospitality sectors used to long hard unsocial hours on modest pay - they'd snap your arm off for the sort of money Sleeper probably pays and be knocked sideways at the low bar of expectation.
It does make me wonder how many staff also had or have day jobs which would explain why they would be to tired to actually do what they are paid for during the night. If I were Serco my expectation would be not to be paying staff to sleep for a good part of the shift. Accepting it is likely to be very quiet during periods, I'd be planning to fit in staff training and all manner of other things in the period when there isn't many customers about.
I'm just a bit staggered that anyone might take exception to an employer actively doing things to stop staff sleeping on duty. What is this, the 1970's!?

Well said, I agree entirely. At a time when there *may* be an opportunity for the Sleeper service to gain market share vs the airlines as people go back to work, any torpedo from the unions based on such a tenuous non-issue in the eyes of so many night shift workers, let alone those who work only in the daytime, would be some sort of spectacular own goal.

The sleeper has so much going for it vs the whole airline and airport experience in the somewhat cautious and nervous Covid world in which we find ourselves.

It's a shame that the discussion here has been diverted by, on one hand, hot air of the RMT, and on the other the musings of one less well motivated ex employee.

The reality is that the internal fit out of the trains was specified and overseen by people with little knowledge of sleeper operations, and even less interest in asking those who did know what they were talking about. Disputes with staff are the inevitable price to be paid for this approach, and the current one isn't the first.

However, this I also get. I cannot opine on the actual issue with the new stock as I've never seen it, but *if* there is not sufficient accommodation for staff to work, rest and undertake admin/learning when they're not serving customers, then I can see why there might be something to grumble about.

 

[John Bishop]

I used to work on the Sleeper as a host so maybe i can shed some light to what has changed re. Staff rest areas.

Essentially all it takes is one cashed up tourist staying in the lounge car all night or one insomniac and the crew would essentially be standing for the entirety of the night taking shifts sitting in the lounge car

I do think there was some wiggle room to help staff have some reprieve through the night when designing the new stock but Serco management made it very clear they wanted away with the pantrys and staff sleeping on duty for the entirety of my time there. Also management were staunch anti union so i would be pretty sure RMT have been antagonised to this decision.

Hasn't the lounge car been out of use for passengers for months now? So for the last few months there has been ample room for the crew to distance and rest. Seems a strange time to be bringing this up by the RMT?

Surely this issue would have been flagged up long before now?

 

[MrEd]

Sorry, is the gripe here that you used to be able to get away with having a night-shift job, where the reasonable expectation might be that during the day you rest / sleep, but when on shift you should be awake and alert. Is sounds like for years there has developed a very cushy culture of turning up, doing bit of set up, a couple of hours work then sleep (while on shift "reading the rule book" in your cosy cabin), before getting up again to prep for breakfast. When I've used the sleeper it's been all to obvious that you're often following the staff down the platform on arrival as they are the first off. Looked at as a hospitality business which is mostly what it is, most low paid hotel workers would embarrass the sleeper staff in their dedication to doing a good job. I'd certainly not be looking to railway people to fill roles on this service as far far better value would be had by attracting people from other hospitality sectors used to long hard unsocial hours on modest pay - they'd snap your arm off for the sort of money Sleeper probably pays and be knocked sideways at the low bar of expectation.
It does make me wonder how many staff also had or have day jobs which would explain why they would be to tired to actually do what they are paid for during the night. If I were Serco my expectation would be not to be paying staff to sleep for a good part of the shift. Accepting it is likely to be very quiet during periods, I'd be planning to fit in staff training and all manner of other things in the period when there isn't many customers about.
I'm just a bit staggered that anyone might take exception to an employer actively doing things to stop staff sleeping on duty. What is this, the 1970's!?

This is, quite honestly, one of the most ignorant and ill-informed posts I’ve read on this thread. I’m sorry, but everything you say comes across as a massive insult to the extremely dedicated and hard-working people who work this train on back-to-back shifts. Working the Fort William and Inverness sleepers as a host is an exhausting job because of the shift length and the amount of walking through narrow corridors. When the lounge car is in action, that adds a lot of hard work for all the staff (especially as the current menu is too complicated and time-consuming to deliver, but that’s academic now as lounge cars are closed for the foreseeable). The staff don’t sleep on duty, I’m absolutely sure that’s illegal, but they deserve (like any other worker) to be able to have a place where they can sit and have a civilised rest break during their shift. It can’t exactly be an unreasonable expectation- even the poorest hotels with the poorest working conditions must offer some facility for this.

Working these trains requires a lot of understanding of railway safety and safety critical procedures, and I personally do not think that routine cafe/pub/hotel/restaurant work prepares you for it. I’m sure Serco might be looking to recruit some former baristas to stick two fingers up at the union, but they’d be a frightening liability in the job. The primary responsibility of the sleeper staff is safety, then customer service, with catering coming third. Staff need to be able to be in the right frame of mind to perform safety-related tasks (e.g assist in the evacuation of a train, respond to a fire alarm); they are not just waiters/waitresses as some people might think. The sleeper is first and foremost a National Rail service, not a hospitality business (although Serco’s business model and pricing invites us to think differently; hopefully they will soon learn that they’re doing everything wrong). Some of the crews (especially at the London end of the line) can come across a wee bit surly sometimes, yes, but that’s perhaps because the job needs to be taken seriously and they’re more interested in ensuring passenger safety than making small talk/fawning over customers. There are a great many very lovely people who work on the sleeper who are great friends of mine and whose dedication to the job is outstanding, far more so than any worker in Costa or a Premier Inn I’ve ever come across.

I’m sorry, but your post strikes me as a tendentious rant against the RMT, rather than a considered understanding of a very difficult and demanding job. They’re paid what they are for a reason! By paying peanuts you’ll get monkeys. You can’t just get any old kid off the street to be a sleeper host.

I would rather, of course, that there wasn’t a strike, because this train is an important public service. But Serco need to realise, sooner rather than later, that they can’t just treat their staff like dirt and get away with it.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Sep 2020 ==

Really helpful, thank you.

I think most regular passengers on the sleeper would be a bit surprised to hear that the dispute is, at least in part, because the staff find it difficult to sleep on duty on the new stock.

Presumably the 16 1/2h shifts quoted are when there are delays?

I swear that sleeping on duty would be a ground for summary dismissal? While I don’t think sleeper host is a safety-critical grade (train manager is), they nonetheless need to react quickly in an emergency, and they surely have some safety responsibilities.

My solution would be (if/when lounge cars do reopen to the public) to insist that (on the Highlander, at least) there was no public access to the lounge car between 00.30 and 05.30 or similar, and give staff the right to ask courteously any passenger still in there at 00.30 to finish their drink/snack/meal promptly and return to their berth. It’s a sleeper train- no one needs to be in the lounge car between those times.

 

[philthetube]

Staff have legally mandated breaks, what they do in their time is up to them, I would be surprised if none have a nap and I see no reason why they shouldn't.

 

[Speed43125]

My solution would be (if/when lounge cars do reopen to the public) to insist that (on the Highlander, at least) there was no public access to the lounge car between 00.30 and 05.30 or similar, and give staff the right to ask courteously any passenger still in there at 00.30 to finish their drink/snack/meal promptly and return to their berth. It’s a sleeper train- no one needs to be in the lounge car between those times.

At 00:30 some passengers will only have boarded within the last 15 minutes, that is in my view, an unviable solution for maintaining the service benefits that the sleeper may have over the plane.

 

[35B]

This is, quite honestly, one of the most ignorant and ill-informed posts I’ve read on this thread. I’m sorry, but everything you say comes across as a massive insult to the extremely dedicated and hard-working people who work this train on back-to-back shifts. Working the Fort William and Inverness sleepers as a host is an exhausting job because of the shift length and the amount of walking through narrow corridors. When the lounge car is in action, that adds a lot of hard work for all the staff (especially as the current menu is too complicated and time-consuming to deliver, but that’s academic now as lounge cars are closed for the foreseeable). The staff don’t sleep on duty, I’m absolutely sure that’s illegal, but they deserve (like any other worker) to be able to have a place where they can sit and have a civilised rest break during their shift. It can’t exactly be an unreasonable expectation- even the poorest hotels with the poorest working conditions must offer some facility for this.

Working these trains requires a lot of understanding of railway safety and safety critical procedures, and I personally do not think that routine cafe/pub/hotel/restaurant work prepares you for it. I’m sure Serco might be looking to recruit some former baristas to stick two fingers up at the union, but they’d be a frightening liability in the job. The primary responsibility of the sleeper staff is safety, then customer service, with catering coming third. Staff need to be able to be in the right frame of mind to perform safety-related tasks (e.g assist in the evacuation of a train, respond to a fire alarm); they are not just waiters/waitresses as some people might think. The sleeper is first and foremost a National Rail service, not a hospitality business (although Serco’s business model and pricing invites us to think differently; hopefully they will soon learn that they’re doing everything wrong). Some of the crews (especially at the London end of the line) can come across a wee bit surly sometimes, yes, but that’s perhaps because the job needs to be taken seriously and they’re more interested in ensuring passenger safety than making small talk/fawning over customers. There are a great many very lovely people who work on the sleeper who are great friends of mine and whose dedication to the job is outstanding, far more so than any worker in Costa or a Premier Inn I’ve ever come across.

I’m sorry, but your post strikes me as a tendentious rant against the RMT, rather than a considered understanding of a very difficult and demanding job. They’re paid what they are for a reason! By paying peanuts you’ll get monkeys. You can’t just get any old kid off the street to be a sleeper host.

I would rather, of course, that there wasn’t a strike, because this train is an important public service. But Serco need to realise, sooner rather than later, that they can’t just treat their staff like dirt and get away with it.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Sep 2020 ==



I swear that sleeping on duty would be a ground for summary dismissal? While I don’t think sleeper host is a safety-critical grade (train manager is), they nonetheless need to react quickly in an emergency, and they surely have some safety responsibilities.

My solution would be (if/when lounge cars do reopen to the public) to insist that (on the Highlander, at least) there was no public access to the lounge car between 00.30 and 05.30 or similar, and give staff the right to ask courteously any passenger still in there at 00.30 to finish their drink/snack/meal promptly and return to their berth. It’s a sleeper train- no one needs to be in the lounge car between those times.

The sleeper is a hospitality business, and needs to be run with hospitality in mind. When travelling with family, friends and colleagues, I have been up late in the hotel bar many times; it is the mark of a poor and anti social hotel that tries to close the bar early. What I need to do is not the question, but what i wish to do.

 

[MrEd]

At 00:30 some passengers will only have boarded within the last 15 minutes, that is in my view, an unviable solution for maintaining the service benefits that the sleeper may have over the plane.

Yes, but I have a feeling that most passengers boarding the Highlander at e.g. Crewe/Preston northbound or Dunblane/Stirling/Falkirk southbound will already have had something to eat and will just want to get to sleep. As long as you advertise the lounge car’s opening times properly in the timetable and stick to these advertised times, no one will have an issue. Most people from Crewe/Preston/Stirling etc will be understanding I’m sure. It was fairly standard in the days when restaurant cars were widespread for these to have restricted service times.

 

[Bald Rick]

I swear that sleeping on duty would be a ground for summary dismissal?

You’ll be hard pushed to find a night shift worker that has significant quiet periods in that night shift who hasn’t had a nap in that time.

 

[BRX]

I agree with what MrEd has said - easy to make presumptions about how easy or difficult a job is, that you've never done yourself. The Highlander sleepers are on the go for around 12 hours; that's a long shift and it seems entirely reasonable to me that there should be facilities to take a rest in some form, during the quiet part of that.

 

[SlideintomyTMs]

I mean you would never be fully asleep, more like resting because show me a person alive who be able to full REM sleep sat upright on a rattly old train. And it certainly wasn’t every night but the fact there is no private area to rest away from passenger and colleagues.

the colleague thing especially as you spend so much time with these people in hotels etc. Nobody gets along that well that you can exist in each other’s space in a work environment for almost 24 hours in a turn to Scotland.

100 percent think it is not unreasonable to have time away for yourself on a 13hour turn, also for clarity there is no break pre assigned in the diagrams, Serco wants the staff to be working that whole time, often with the adage of ‘if you can lean, you can clean’

Like I said my knowledge is only limited on the specific issues because I didn’t work the new stock

I’m not trying to justify or defend any side, just adding a perspective of how the shift would turn out.

In regards to the lounge car being not for use so why can’t staff be lounging around resting there, it’s not a lockable space for safety reasons and the passengers can easily walk into the lounge car. All it takes is one passenger complaint then Serco can check cameras and it just becomes a whole thing.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Sep 2020 ==

Yes, but I have a feeling that most passengers boarding the Highlander at e.g. Crewe/Preston northbound or Dunblane/Stirling/Falkirk southbound will already have had something to eat and will just want to get to sleep. As long as you advertise the lounge car’s opening times properly in the timetable and stick to these advertised times, no one will have an issue. Most people from Crewe/Preston/Stirling etc will be understanding I’m sure. It was fairly standard in the days when restaurant cars were widespread for these to have restricted service times.

A big selling point of the sleeper is the lounge car, and trust me it didn’t matter what time they boarded people were going to come down and sample whiskeys. Especially if they’re off to fort William where they can get a lie in. The latest I ever had pax in the lounge car was about Carstairs and first breakfast in the lounge car for a passenger for Leuchars which meant probably 1hr to do paperwork and cash up. The thing is you never know who is a lord or a super rich guest that can cause fuss with big wigs and next thing you know you are out the door

 

[trebor79]

You’ll be hard pushed to find a night shift worker that has significant quiet periods in that night shift who hasn’t had a nap in that time.

Absolutely. Even on a week of nights, I remember "the wall" at around 4am. The factory control room used to get very quiet in the small hours, but we were still able to respond quickly if anything disastrous occurred (though curiously, nightshifts always seemed to run quite smoothly). Those were 8 hour shifts too. I can't see how people can do 16 hours (especially after only a little sleep after the previous night) without a nap.

 

[Bletchleyite]

My solution would be (if/when lounge cars do reopen to the public) to insist that (on the Highlander, at least) there was no public access to the lounge car between 00.30 and 05.30 or similar, and give staff the right to ask courteously any passenger still in there at 00.30 to finish their drink/snack/meal promptly and return to their berth. It’s a sleeper train- no one needs to be in the lounge car between those times.

That seems fair. Indeed, if you're on the FW southbound you get kicked out then before it's detached!

As a trade-off, could we ask staff not to try getting people to leave the train on arrival before the published time, perhaps?

 

[Fishplate84]

The sleeper is a hospitality business, and needs to be run with hospitality in mind. When travelling with family, friends and colleagues, I have been up late in the hotel bar many times; it is the mark of a poor and anti social hotel that tries to close the bar early. What I need to do is not the question, but what i wish to do.

Yep, I agree. If it is not developed as a hospitality business then it has no future. It may be a National Rail service but there is almost no business case for it to exist if its sole purpose is to provide a no-frills commodity transport link between Scotland and London overnight. If there were, there would be a lot of other overnight trains between places that have limited capacity and by definition can only ever be woefully inefficient in a financial sense to run. People have many choices and the market is hugely competitive; Day trains, flights, driving, hotel overnight / travel the day before etc, each is easy to do with operators who are fighting to attract the business and have upped the game year on year. i accept there may be a tiny handful of people in the Highlands where the sleeper matches their need fairly precisely. But this tiny handful of people cannot ever justify in themselves a dedicated and hugely expensive personal rail link.
Under Scotrail it was functional but, frankly, just a bit rubbish because it was an oddball service that didn't fit with the rest of ScotRail's business and you could just tell they did as little as possible to keep it running and pretty much no effort to make anything of it. Ancient stock, indifferent staff, some pretty dire food, hard to book, almost invisible promotion to the extent I'm sure most people were surprised it even still existed. Over time standards just sank lower and lower.

The sleeper if it is to have any future needs to establish itself as a desirable, even 'bucket list' type offer along the lines of the Ghan, Orient Express and similar leisure focused rail links and this, by and large, was the idea behind the Scottish Government carving it out of Scotrail and firmly encouraging bidders to think of it as part of the national tourism portfolio. There's little other reason why they should both spending a fortune subsidising it unless it is part of destination Scotland.
I'm sorry if I offended the hard working staff and I accept there are some. But there does appear a mentality that 90% of the role is safety and the rest and inconvenient add on. In my view, Safety should absolutely be central but it should also be a given, not an excuse why the stuff customers are looking for and paying for 90% of the time can't be delivered. Rail is almost unique in this weirdly antiquated view of the world and I can never fathom why in the airlines, where presumably passenger safety is equally a high priority for in-flight crew, they are universally much better at combining it with creating a great experience.

 

[SlideintomyTMs]

That seems fair. Indeed, if you're on the FW southbound you get kicked out then before it's detached!

As a trade-off, could we ask staff not to try getting people to leave the train on arrival before the published time, perhaps?

Funnily enough the pressure to get passengers off at Euston used to mainly come from the virgin dispatch staff!

apparently the sleeper is booked to leave about 5 mins after the advertised passenger time or was some days according to the station staff at Euston!

that being said there was a rule that once the last passenger is off of your coach you could go home or to the hotel (Again I’m talking all about Euston and to an extent Edinburgh, the other stations were alright) so definitely were tricks to get the passengers off, the classic was to turn the aircon and power off and the announcements from the station would usually be enough to wake people up. I know a few people who would turn the fire alarms on and off

 

[MrEd]

@SlideintomyTMs What you say about the super rich guest worries me. Presumably, as with any other TOC, as long as you are following company policy you are doing nothing wrong, and no passenger should expect preferential treatment (beyond the benefits of a first class ticket over standard to which he is ordinarily entitled as a first class ticket holder)?

But what actually is (or was?) company policy on the lounge? Not that it matters now. A lot of hosts I travelled with were keen for everyone to finish and pay their bills between Crewe and Preston, and I distinctly remember on several trips being asked very politely if I could finish my drink and start heading back to my berth. I seem to remember this was in the Warrington-Wigan area, probably between 00.20 and 00.40, usually with an Aberdeen or Inverness crew. Is that policy, though, or is that perhaps a crew trying to make life easier for themselves? I didn’t mind as I totally understood (as any reasonable person would) that the crew needed to cash up, take stock and prepare for the morning, and I had been in there 3 hours already.

I seem to recall a staff member telling me that it was against policy for members of the public to sit in the lounge all night, but perhaps that wasn’t a formal rule.

 

[SlideintomyTMs]

@SlideintomyTMs What you say about the super rich guest worries me. Presumably, as with any other TOC, as long as you are following company policy you are doing nothing wrong, and no passenger should expect preferential treatment (beyond the benefits of a first class ticket over standard to which he is ordinarily entitled as a first class ticket holder)?

But what actually is (or was?) company policy on the lounge? Not that it matters now. A lot of hosts I travelled with were keen for everyone to finish and pay their bills between Crewe and Preston, and I distinctly remember on several trips being asked very politely if I could finish my drink and start heading back to my berth. I seem to remember this was in the Warrington-Wigan area, probably between 00.20 and 00.40, usually with an Aberdeen or Inverness crew. Is that policy, though, or is that perhaps a crew trying to make life easier for themselves? I didn’t mind as I totally understood (as any reasonable person would) that the crew needed to cash up, take stock and prepare for the morning, and I had been in there 3 hours already.

I seem to recall a staff member telling me that it was against policy for members of the public to sit in the lounge all night, but perhaps that wasn’t a formal rule.

Serco was always adamant the lounge should be Available all the way up till an hour prior to arrival (that is when they wanted Team Leaders to cash up) in reality this was totally impractical so many team leaders did all the power work and had basically cashed up and pressed the end of shift button an hour prior to arrival.

The operation of the lounge car was entirely dependent on the Team leader and some operated VASTLY different policies. I have a pretty good idea of the Inverness team leader you may have had.

So to answer the question definitely not policy to close the lounge car, more it was far easier for everyone.

in regards to the rich people, the problem is the policy was so unreasonable thatevery shift we were working against some bit of policy that could be brought to us for disciplinary, but so long as no complaints came in the line managers looked the other way (most if not all of the line managers had been onboard crew at some stage so they understood)

The biggest rich wig that would cause by far the most trouble was Rupert Soames and his entourage, the head of Serco, and they would drink the bar dry and demand the world

Serco always wanted us to prioritise the first class passengers but very rarely would that be reality as by the time team leader found out a guest was standard, they’ve sat down an ordered so it was easier just to first come first serve.

 

[MrEd]

The biggest rich wig that would cause by far the most trouble was Rupert Soames and his entourage, the head of Serco, and they would drink the bar dry and demand the world

Serco always wanted us to prioritise the first class passengers but very rarely would that be reality as by the time team leader found out a guest was standard, they’ve sat down an ordered so it was easier just to first come first serve.

I think the first come first served policy is very sensible to be honest, unless you have a system whereby first class passengers can pay a deposit and have a table reserved for them. Serco did try this for the first three years that they ran the service using the Mk2 lounges, then gave up (perhaps because it didn’t work as well as hoped, and I think no-shows were a frequent cause of annoyance).

Rupert Soames always struck me as a very arrogant, brash and classless man. I don’t envy anyone having to deal with a person like that. Being courteous and understanding costs nothing. The sleeper staff often do have to deal with some particularly cantankerous and entitled passengers, and they have my full support. I think they all do a great job in often very difficult circumstances. Not everyone can cope with a 12-hour shift filled with cantankerous members of the public, rolling stock faults, train delays, staffing issues etc, and I take my hat off to the sleeper crews who have to do this day in, day out.

 

[Bald Rick]

I take my hat off to the sleeper crews who have to do this day in, day out.

Strictly speaking, night in, night out. But “Chapeau” all the same.