The Aberdeen portion seems to be the sacrificial lamb during this week's staffing difficulties!
Probably because it's easier to get from Edinburgh to Aberdeen by day train than it is to Fort William. The first Scotrail service is only 35 minutes or so behind the sleeper.
Sounds like a good reason to permanently can it!
More likely because Aberdeen is not a tourist market from London and the south east and the business market has long been lost to air. Ive been travelling regularly on the West Highland sleeper for30 years and I honestly cant recall meeting anybody travelling to the Aberdeen stations in the Aberdeen Lounge car. I did once travel to Inverkeithing on the Aberdeen section when I had an early start for trials at Rosyth. Basically it was so early the station was shut and I ended up walking to the dockyard because none of the taxi firms were open.
The problem on the northbound is the arrival times are far too early to be of much use to tourists at St Andrews.
Though that would mean that passengers to Aberdeen would have to be woken up around 4:45am to be sure of being dressed and out of their berths and on the other train by its 5:30 departure time. Which is a bit on the early side for a lot of people.
0445? More likely 0400 so that passengers can be off by around 0430 before departure of the stock to Fort William at 0450. I'm not sure there would be many takers even if the Scotrail 0530 departure was available for boarding immediately.
I had originally written 4:00 and thought "Nah, that's too generous".
They could use the Lowland sleeper instead, connecting at Edinburgh for Aberdeen.
Some long suffering sleeper passenger discovered they had no running water again and lost the plot?
Or got a rude awakening & told that breakfast & a long wait was to be in a delightful western suburb of Clydebank? To be fair, if you were told you were getting offloaded there you’d probably kick off as well.
Any regular passengers should be well used to water issues by now!
I use it quite regularly, but i would agree that the people disembarking at Aberdeen appear to be families or individuals returning home (judging by the local accents) for a visit or back from a trip to London. Certainly doesn't seem to be many SE tourists. I would imagine the service was busy back in the late 80's / 90's when oil was in full flow, although i used to fly up in those days.
5Y11 arrived in platform 1 at 0617 and left at 0726
Presumably the disturbance was not on the sleeper, looks like all their "Guests " were turfed out at Queen Street. (And had been notified of that treat last night.)
My first draft to Rosyth was in 1989 and by then I was already flying standby ba up and down to London. My experience of oil industry workers on the trains was that they mostly came from north of Doncaster. Getting on at Inverkeithing you had a choice of selling your duty free beers at a huge profit or just letting them drink all your beers for free knowing that they would feel obliged to keep you well supplied from the buffet car once it opened after Edinburgh. I doubt there would have been much business for the sleeper though.
It would have been busier through oil business, though it wouldn't be your run-of-the-mill rig workers as their shift change tends to be in the afternoon. It would have been contractor employees, people who needed to get a full day's work done so the early arrival/late departure was a blessing. Not millions of them, but enough to keep things ticking over. They will mainly fly these days, or be able do a lot of stuff remotely.
I am drifting a bit off topic for a railway forum, but that is a valid point. I am not involved in oil but have met a number of guys over the years who on hearing i come from Aberdeen recount their experiences when working on the rigs. A high proportion are from the north of England, particularly NE or Teeside, presumably because of the traditional engineering skills. They definitely enjoy a drink when they return onshore. The pubs in Aberdeen used to be packed with tables of guys with kit bags stacked at the side. I'm sure some of the local workers used to spend the 'off' bit of 2 weeks on / 2 weeks off just camped in the pub every day.
Well that is indeed an interesting development!
I can imagine it is a bit galling to be woken up around 05:00 when you are expecting to sleep for longer and then know your train is running empty to the original destination while you have to use alternative transport.
Let's hope not.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if this "Guest " was to treat us all to a trip report!
