Caledonian Sleeper

[Butts]

Just noticed tagged onto the bottom of a Scotrail Latest Offers Communication..

Save 25% Off travel between Scotland and London on the CS from 6/1/25 to 9/2/25 - book by Dec 3rd.

Says it's off "Private Rooms and Seats" - Use Code Sleep 25

Is this quite unusual ?


Not quite the return of "Bargain Berths" but better than nothing !!

 

[Sun Chariot]

Just noticed tagged onto the bottom of a Scotrail Latest Offers Communication..

Save 25% Off travel between Scotland and London on the CS from 6/1/26 to 9/2/36 - book by Dec 3rd.

Says it's off "Private Rooms and Seats" - Use Code Sleep 25

Is this quite unusual ?


Not quite the return of "Bargain Berths" but better than nothing !!

Going by UK inflation, booking for a train service in 11 years' time, will net a great priced ticket. Let's hope CS is still an operator by then.

 

[800Travel]

Just noticed tagged onto the bottom of a Scotrail Latest Offers Communication..

Save 25% Off travel between Scotland and London on the CS from 6/1/26 to 9/2/36 - book by Dec 3rd.

Says it's off "Private Rooms and Seats" - Use Code Sleep 25

Is this quite unusual ?


Not quite the return of "Bargain Berths" but better than nothing !!

Enjoy an exclusive 25% discount on winter travel from 6th January until 9th February 2025

Just to confirm the dates - looks like 6/1/25 - 9/2/25.

Caledonian Sleeper | Winter Sale

Enjoy 25% off all rooms and seats on the Caledonian Sleeper between 6th January and 9th February 2025 with our winter sale. Use code SLEEP25 in the promotional code box when making your booking.

www.sleeper.scot

 

[Peter Sarf]

Met him on the sleeper once.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Nov 2024 ==


If Edinburgh and Glasgow ran as separate trains to/from Euston one extra loco would be needed, not two, as one locomotive is needed for the Edinburgh portions anyway.
If the extra carriage was a DVT you could dispense with the extra locos currently needed to operate ECS workings in and out of the terminal stations at Glasgow and Euston

For the Couchette ides I think it might be easier to just run them in a separate over night train that called at all main stations en-route with plenty of seated accommodation to help justify the service. But I think the costs of bespoke stock would kill this.

I imagine there would still be great demand for a Cornwall-Scotland sleeper too. I understand that there was one but privatisation killed it off as it would have fallen under the Cross Country franchise.

Such a service resurrected have the added advantage of leaving at a sociable hour for a reasonable morning arrival.

In terms of routing, it need not cannibalise existing sleeper demand either and could serve many cities that currently don’t have sleeper services at all.

One potential route could be:

Penzance-Plymouth-Exeter-Taunton-Bristol- Swindon-Reading [reverse] - Oxford-Coventry-Birmingham-Wolverhampton-Stafford-Stoke-Manchester [Split] then:

Portion 1 - Preston-Carlisle-Glasgow;

Portion 2 - Leeds-York-Newcastle-Edinburgh.

And I completely agree with the idea of pricing doubles/with shower at higher rates to subsidise classic/couchette/seated options.

My bold
Your going to be competing with the Birmingham and Crewe stops on the Caledonian Sleeper.

As for Exeter, Taunton, Bristol, Swindon and Reading This could work if the towns were moved further into the Southwest. The strength of sleeper services is where there is a long enough journey to give a decent length of (undisturbed sleep) so intermediate stations are pointless. Worse still if the route has undergone improvements then the now faster day services eat more and more into the viability of an overnight service. Banning domestic air travel might help but I do not see that coming soon !.

Does make me think that if HS2 ever gets far enough to wipe out demand for the Caledonian Sleeper then the Mk5s could be used on a cross country sleeper instead. I can hear those 68s throbbing through the night !.

 

[Butts]

Going by UK inflation, booking for a train service in 11 years' time, will net a great priced ticket. Let's hope CS is still an operator by then.

Whoops

 

[swaldman]

Sleepers are an awkward niche - too long, and they're not viable. Too short, and they're not viable. Journey time really needs to be not less than 6 hours and not more than 10 hours. 12 at a push, with the earliest possible departure and latest possible arrival.

Maybe this is UK-specific (though I'm not sure why). There are definitely counter-examples - e.g. the current European Sleeper service is only about 6 hours from Berlin to the earliest Dutch stations (which is about the shortest plausible useful journey, and is a bit short for a good night's sleep), but the full journey Prague -> Brussels is about 15 hours. If timetabled right you can sacrifice an evening in the starting city to still arrive for morning meetings in the destination; or, I guess you might run later if catering mostly to tourists.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 12 Nov 2024 ==

Does make me think that if HS2 ever gets far enough to wipe out demand for the Caledonian Sleeper then the Mk5s could be used on a cross country sleeper instead. I can hear those 68s throbbing through the night !.

I can't see HS2 making much of a dent in the Highlander's demand. *Maybe* the Lowlander.
With a hypothetical HS3 to the border or to the central belt, for < 3.5 hrs between Glasgow and London, that would be a different story... but that's a rather distant dream at this point!

 

[Scotrail84]

Just noticed tagged onto the bottom of a Scotrail Latest Offers Communication..

Save 25% Off travel between Scotland and London on the CS from 6/1/25 to 9/2/25 - book by Dec 3rd.

Says it's off "Private Rooms and Seats" - Use Code Sleep 25

Is this quite unusual ?


Not quite the return of "Bargain Berths" but better than nothing !!

They done this last year too. The trains still don't fill up to capacity though, folk are skint after Xmas. Plus its always cold a miserable in the UK come January.

Interesting that the add is on ScotRail email communication, perhaps its another step towards eventually merging the two?

 

[swaldman]

They done this last year too. The trains still don't fill up to capacity though, folk are skint after Xmas. Plus its always cold a miserable in the UK come January.

Interesting that the add is on ScotRail email communication, perhaps its another step towards eventually merging the two?

They've been advertising the same directly on Facebook too. I might use it to get back from my xmas break

 

[Indigo Soup]

Maybe this is UK-specific (though I'm not sure why). There are definitely counter-examples - e.g. the current European Sleeper service is only about 6 hours from Berlin to the earliest Dutch stations (which is about the shortest plausible useful journey, and is a bit short for a good night's sleep), but the full journey Prague -> Brussels is about 15 hours. If timetabled right you can sacrifice an evening in the starting city to still arrive for morning meetings in the destination; or, I guess you might run later if catering mostly to tourists.

In the UK you run out of country if you try to go much past 12 hours.... but practically speaking, a sleeper needs to leave after the evening peak, and arrive before the morning peak, unless you're running it over the outlying fringes of the network. Which is how the Fort William portion gets away with taking nearly 13 hours northbound.

 

[swaldman]

In the UK you run out of country if you try to go much past 12 hours.... but practically speaking, a sleeper needs to leave after the evening peak, and arrive before the morning peak, unless you're running it over the outlying fringes of the network. Which is how the Fort William portion gets away with taking nearly 13 hours northbound.

Ah, fair point - a limit not for the passengers, but for paths being available.

 

[A S Leib]

and arrive before the morning peak

There are some cases where I think this is taken too far; are peak services at Brisbane early enough for the sleeper from Sydney to need to get there at 04:53 / 03:53 (depending on the season)?

 

[Peter Sarf]

Ah, fair point - a limit not for the passengers, but for paths being available.

If a sleeper ends its journey at a major city - London - much after the morning rush hour then the benefit of the sleeper is lost as an early train or flight might well have beaten it.

For me the sleeper is a good way of using up a night. I would not want it using up my day too much. In the UK, certainly for the lowlander the sleeper has to go quite slow otherwise the night is too short !.

 

[Bletchleyite]

For me the sleeper is a good way of using up a night. I would not want it using up my day too much. In the UK, certainly for the lowlander the sleeper has to go quite slow otherwise the night is too short !.

The Penzance sleeper even more so - it sits around at various stations en-route for significant periods of time to waste time so the night isn't too short, despite being pathed at just 75mph.

 

[side effect]

Excuse my ignorance but was the Night Riveria going to be starting from Euston for some time or was I dreaming.

Regards

 

[A S Leib]

Excuse my ignorance but was the Night Riveria going to be starting from Euston for some time or was I dreaming.

Regards

This Sunday at least.

 

[sh24]

Excuse my ignorance but was the Night Riveria going to be starting from Euston for some time or was I dreaming.

Regards

It will sporadically when HS2 works at Old Oak Common block access to Paddington. First run this Sunday!

 

[Krokodil]

One could argue you might as well keep Crewe but if you drop it you get more flexibility of routeing, a couple of additional options via Manchester then?

What do you really gain from doing so though? The Lowlander calls at Crewe just about within normal service hours so you're unlikely to have Crewe station (or either of the throats) closed entirely (weekends are a different matter, but Crewe isn't served on weekends anyway). You can still divert via Manchester from Crewe, and can also go via Stoke and/or Birmingham if the mainline is closed.

Your going to be competing with the Birmingham and Crewe stops on the Caledonian Sleeper.

Depends upon the market. Those are/will be served by the Highlander so aren't going to be nibbled at quite as much if traffic is coming from the central belt.

As for Exeter, Taunton, Bristol, Swindon and Reading This could work if the towns were moved further into the Southwest. The strength of sleeper services is where there is a long enough journey to give a decent length of (undisturbed sleep) so intermediate stations are pointless.

I'd whittle the list down to Birmingham, Bristol, Taunton and beyond. That gives the maximum possible list of diversions. You'd probably arrive at Birmingham at the same time as the Highlander reaches Crewe (05:30) so would have a similar handful of passengers for whom it is convenient. The main demand would be Bristol (which like Edinburgh has a resident financial sector so there's some potential traffic), and the key thing is to get there comfortably before 0900 - you've definitely had enough sleep by then. The old one didn't go past Plymouth, the only reason to go beyond would be to interwork the maintenance with the set at Long Rock.

 

[side effect]

This Sunday at least.

Thank you for that.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 12 Nov 2024 ==

It will sporadically when HS2 works at Old Oak Common block access to Paddington. First run this Sunday!

Thanks for that.

 

[Bald Rick]

Or there's the (more realistic?) view that barely anybody used it.

After the forces traffic left, barely anybody used it. And that was before easyjet.

Easyjet have multiple flights from BRS to EDI - well priced and only an hours flight time. I can't see a Sleeper competing against that on a commercial basis.

There are multiple flights between London and Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Inverness...

Indeed.

There are typically 7-9 daily rotations from Bristol to Glasgow or Edinburgh.

There are typically 55-60 daily rotations from London to Glasgow or Edinburgh.

This shows the size of the respective markets; ie there’s enough for about 2 sleeper coaches an evening.

 

[JonathanH]

When did the Night Riviera ever have a public stop at Bristol?

Summer of 1991. Bath 0153, Bristol 0208-0220. Both open stops. Bristol 0302-0313, Bath 0330, Swindon 0406, Reading 0441 in the other direction. Think it was tried in one more recent timetable period as well.

Incidentally, does anyone have the timings for the last Scotland-SW/South sleeper services before they were axed?

Summer of 1991.

Glasgow 2120, Edinburgh 2250, Bristol Parkway 0555, Bristol Temple Meads 0611, Taunton 0715, Tiverton Parkway 0731, Exeter SD 0749, Newton Abbot 0814, Plymouth 0858

Also Oxford 0549, Reading 0630, stations to Poole 0832

Plymouth 2100, Newton Abbot 2139, Exeter SD 2202, Tiverton Parkway 2218, Taunton 2235, Bristol TM 2332, Bristol Parkway 2343, Edinburgh 0635, Glasgow 0815

Also Poole 2040, stations to Oxford 2319.

The Night Scot in the Winter 1993 timetable after losing the Poole portion ran in fairly similar timings.

 

[Falcon1200]

Plymouth 2100, Newton Abbot 2139, Exeter SD 2202, Tiverton Parkway 2218, Taunton 2235, Bristol TM 2332, Bristol Parkway 2343, Edinburgh 0635, Glasgow 0815

I travelled on the northbound sleeper from Newton Abbot to Glasgow Central in 1992, and that confirms my recollection that the train did not split at Carstairs but ran to Glasgow via Edinburgh; So BR were economising on the operation of the service. Thanks.

 

[Indigo Soup]

After the forces traffic left, barely anybody used it. And that was before easyjet.

Given the close link with Navy traffic (which is actually still around, but much reduced), I'm slightly surprised that the Poole portion didn't run to Portsmouth instead. Would need a weird route to not lose the Southampton call, though.

Working two origins to two destinations sounds like a perfect use case for @Peter Mugridge's sleeper EDMU... if only it didn't have a similar business case to building a bonfire with £50 notes.

 

[Cat Lechat]

Does anyone know what's going on with the ticketing engine on the Caledonian Sleeper website? It shows no availability on several dates if you want a return but has loads of seats/beds if you want to book each journey separately. It also has several dates where it's showing no availability on its own site but the seats are available on the Trainline (but nowhere else) and are giving sensible seat numbers if you click through enough to see them. I think their website did this previously and someone found a way round it in one of the prior 562 pages but I can't find it!
I'm tempted to book the Trainline seats as that's the best dates for me, but I'm not sure who I'd speak to in order to confirm it's definitely valid. I suspect Trainline will say it is or they wouldn't be selling it, CS will say they can't see Trainline booking details.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Does anyone know what's going on with the ticketing engine on the Caledonian Sleeper website? It shows no availability on several dates if you want a return but has loads of seats/beds if you want to book each journey separately. It also has several dates where it's showing no availability on its own site but the seats are available on the Trainline (but nowhere else) and are giving sensible seat numbers if you click through enough to see them. I think their website did this previously and someone found a way round it in one of the prior 562 pages but I can't find it!
I'm tempted to book the Trainline seats as that's the best dates for me, but I'm not sure who I'd speak to in order to confirm it's definitely valid. I suspect Trainline will say it is or they wouldn't be selling it, CS will say they can't see Trainline booking details.

Sleeper seat reservations are just seat reservations. If Trainline sell it with a reservation (which they should as it's flagged mandatory) then it's valid.

It does seem odd that Trainline would have it but nowhere else. You're not getting the last seat in your Trainline basket and so blocking other sites from picking it up, are you?

 

[alistairlees]

Does anyone know what's going on with the ticketing engine on the Caledonian Sleeper website? It shows no availability on several dates if you want a return but has loads of seats/beds if you want to book each journey separately. It also has several dates where it's showing no availability on its own site but the seats are available on the Trainline (but nowhere else) and are giving sensible seat numbers if you click through enough to see them. I think their website did this previously and someone found a way round it in one of the prior 562 pages but I can't find it!
I'm tempted to book the Trainline seats as that's the best dates for me, but I'm not sure who I'd speak to in order to confirm it's definitely valid. I suspect Trainline will say it is or they wouldn't be selling it, CS will say they can't see Trainline booking details.

Which dates and journeys?

 

[Cat Lechat]

It does seem odd that Trainline would have it but nowhere else. You're not getting the last seat in your Trainline basket and so blocking other sites from picking it up, are you?

No, Trainline says there's 5 tickets left, and I went to the CS website first!

Dates are 31 Jan Lon to Inverness for the Trainline issue. I think it's some other dates around then as well but I can't remember which ones I was testing it on.

The singles vs returns was on Lon to Fort William route on various dates in the last week of January, returning the first week of February, ie all in the period where they've got engineering works going on. It was happening before they introduced the 25% off for those dates as well (I've been leaving it hoping the website would fix itself)

 

[AberdeenBill]

Summer of 1991. Bath 0153, Bristol 0208-0220. Both open stops. Bristol 0302-0313, Bath 0330, Swindon 0406, Reading 0441 in the other direction. Think it was tried in one more recent timetable period as well.


Summer of 1991.

Glasgow 2120, Edinburgh 2250, Bristol Parkway 0555, Bristol Temple Meads 0611, Taunton 0715, Tiverton Parkway 0731, Exeter SD 0749, Newton Abbot 0814, Plymouth 0858

Also Oxford 0549, Reading 0630, stations to Poole 0832

Plymouth 2100, Newton Abbot 2139, Exeter SD 2202, Tiverton Parkway 2218, Taunton 2235, Bristol TM 2332, Bristol Parkway 2343, Edinburgh 0635, Glasgow 0815

Also Poole 2040, stations to Oxford 2319.

The Night Scot in the Winter 1993 timetable after losing the Poole portion ran in fairly similar timings.

I come from Aberdeen. Left in 1986 and after a few moves have lived in Poole for the last 25 years. I take the Highlander about 4 times per year from EUS back to ABD. Cant believe there was a service direct from Poole in the past and how great that would be for me now!

 

[Bald Rick]

I come from Aberdeen. Left in 1986 and after a few moves have lived in Poole for the last 25 years. I take the Highlander about 4 times per year from EUS back to ABD. Cant believe there was a service direct from Poole in the past and how great that would be for me now!

It wouldn‘t have been that much different - you‘d have had to use day trains for the Edinburgh - Aberdeen bit rather than for the Poole - London bit. (Accepting you wouldn’t have had to navigate across London, albeit navigating across Waverley can be tricky for some people!)

 

[alistairlees]

No, Trainline says there's 5 tickets left, and I went to the CS website first!

Dates are 31 Jan Lon to Inverness for the Trainline issue. I think it's some other dates around then as well but I can't remember which ones I was testing it on.

The singles vs returns was on Lon to Fort William route on various dates in the last week of January, returning the first week of February, ie all in the period where they've got engineering works going on. It was happening before they introduced the 25% off for those dates as well (I've been leaving it hoping the website would fix itself)

This is very odd. Thanks for flagging. We are getting back lots of "Requested Service not found in Reservation Service's timetable" messages for Caledonian Sleeper services from the industry's central reservation database - but not all the time. It looks like there is an issue with RARS (the central reservation database). Trainline uses a different API to connect, and it could be that the issue is specific to the API rather than the database itself. We'll have to raise this issue with RDG.

 

[fisher2511]

Summer of 1991. Bath 0153, Bristol 0208-0220. Both open stops. Bristol 0302-0313, Bath 0330, Swindon 0406, Reading 0441 in the other direction. Think it was tried in one more recent timetable period as well.


Summer of 1991.

Glasgow 2120, Edinburgh 2250, Bristol Parkway 0555, Bristol Temple Meads 0611, Taunton 0715, Tiverton Parkway 0731, Exeter SD 0749, Newton Abbot 0814, Plymouth 0858

Also Oxford 0549, Reading 0630, stations to Poole 0832

Plymouth 2100, Newton Abbot 2139, Exeter SD 2202, Tiverton Parkway 2218, Taunton 2235, Bristol TM 2332, Bristol Parkway 2343, Edinburgh 0635, Glasgow 0815

Also Poole 2040, stations to Oxford 2319.

The Night Scot in the Winter 1993 timetable after losing the Poole portion ran in fairly similar timings.

When I used it to travel from Glasgow to Bristol for a morning meeting, I used to get the sleeper to Taunton and another train back to Bristol, in order to arrive at a sensible time.