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Caledonian Sleeper

norbitonflyer

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Tbh I would only use the sleeper for leisure and a delay for us was more of an adventure.
Even if travelling for leisure a delay can be a problem, if for example you have an onward connection, or you are returning from holiday and expecting to go straight to work.

I have used the sleeper to get to Inverness to catch a flight to Orkney. Missing that flight would have been more than a slight annoyance.
 
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RailUK Forums

side effect

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20 Jul 2015
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Exactly. The first time I took my kids on the sleeper our final destination was the Isle of Lewis so we had a coach and ferry to get.

When I buy a home on the Isle of Lewis and my daughter and grandkids come to visit it will have to be plane all the way as there be no hotel bills .

Also I would love to live between Pitlochry and Inverness in view of the railway and keep hoping railcam will get a host there one day.

I'm a bit bored today if I lived up there I'd have a nice walk to the station for a cuppa.

Infact I'm bored most days but my kids need me so until then I'm stuck in East London in airshot and sight of City Airport.
 

47421

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7 Feb 2012
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london
Also I would love to live between Pitlochry and Inverness in view of the railway and keep hoping railcam will get a host there one day.
“Station House” is a traditional stone and slate detached property situated on the main railway line in the centre of Kincraig.

 

Bald Rick

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ajrm

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1 Feb 2019
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223
Although over the years I have had more than one 100% refund on CS, it really doesn't matter if it's up to 30 minutes late, but it can go really badly wrong. I think Longfellow had it about right (mutatis mutandis, as they say):

There was a little girl,
Who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good,
She was very very good,
But when she was bad she was horrid.

GZ
Indeed. Of course, because the sleeper is slackly timed for the most part it can soak up minor delays fairly easily. So if something does go wrong it's more likely to be a significant delay.
 

Scotrail84

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I don't think you understand how reliability works. You don't get just to pick 2 days and then extrapolate that for a whole year

I know fine well how reliability works, theres been many many delays and cancellations over the course of 2024. Those 73 locos are not in the slightest reliable, especially during the colder weather. This is the first, fairly minor cold snap of temperatures around -2/-3 and they're dropping like flies. It will get worse, they are dreadful.
 

Scotrail84

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They get £200 back, although that is scant compensation.
4 hour minimum bus journey to Edinburgh, poor driving conditions on that A9 as well. Arguably more at risk on a bus in this weather in truth. They should be getting a full refund.
 

185143

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3 Mar 2013
Messages
5,334
They've managed to balls up and advertise the Fort William portion as cancelled earlier on their service update page.

Followed by two text messages to say that contrary to what they and some other journey planners were reporting, the train is NOT cancelled. Good job as I'm just supping up in Dumbarton!
 

Scotrail84

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They've managed to balls up and advertise the Fort William portion as cancelled earlier on their service update page.

Followed by two text messages to say that contrary to what they and some other journey planners were reporting, the train is NOT cancelled. Good job as I'm just supping up in Dumbarton!
It's still showing as cancelled on their website, you'd think they'd have removed it as soon as they noticed the error. Amateur hour.
 

185143

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1M16 failed just North of Cheddington this morning and limped into Euston at 08:29 according to RTT. The delay was explained onboard as a loco fault, and I was awoken by a fairly harsh stop.

But the train didn't stop until 08:30 (and yes, I do have evidence of that). And of course by the Proper Working Timetable the scheduled arrival at Euston is 07:47. I assume my chances of Delay Repay are pretty low? :D
 

side effect

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20 Jul 2015
Messages
242
It's still showing as cancelled on their website, you'd think they'd have removed it as soon as they noticed the error. Amateur hour.
They don't even put it on twitter. I thought that was the idea of having an X account to keep passengers in the now.
 

JamieL

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6 Aug 2022
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UK
Why, when they're able to speak to everyone that's affected directly?
Exactly this - you get the details sent direct to your phone on amy delays or related issues (including for the lounges). If those criticising used the service, they would know this.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==

4 hour minimum bus journey to Edinburgh, poor driving conditions on that A9 as well. Arguably more at risk on a bus in this weather in truth. They should be getting a full refund.
I suspect the individuals were offered the choice whether they still wished to travel. But at least the CS offered the option for people to travel - far too many TOCs would just leave you stranded.
 
Last edited:

Tom

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19 Jan 2008
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35,000ft
But the train didn't stop until 08:30 (and yes, I do have evidence of that). And of course by the Proper Working Timetable the scheduled arrival at Euston is 07:47. I assume my chances of Delay Repay are pretty low? :D
CS do have a way of getting actual timings off the train themselves and its relatively well known the berth offsets for the sleeper can be quite poor (RTT has it arriving at 08:29:51). Worth a shot, particularly on appeal if rejected at first.
 

paninaro

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Genuine question; where's your data for
theres been many many delays and cancellations over the course of 2024
?

If I look at https://www.recenttraintimes.co.uk/ as suggested above, for the last 6 months (the longest I seem to get it to do) for the Fort William line, just because it's the one I occasionally take, it says 88-89% arriving within 5 minutes. That doesn't sound like what you're describing. Am I looking at the wrong line?
If I restrict it to the last 3 months it drops to about 80%, but when I look at the graph of actual arrival times, the majority of the delays are between 5 and 15 minutes. Again, this doesn't match my expectation of "many, many delays" for something that runs over hundreds of miles.
From my personal experience the data there is correct - the two Sleepers I caught (1 on time and 1 delayed by 40 minutes) are both correct in there.

1732195931475.png
 

Scotrail84

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Why, when they're able to speak to everyone that's affected directly?
They're not though because bookings through 3rd party agents don't always have contact details.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==

1M16 failed just North of Cheddington this morning and limped into Euston at 08:29 according to RTT. The delay was explained onboard as a loco fault, and I was awoken by a fairly harsh stop.

But the train didn't stop until 08:30 (and yes, I do have evidence of that). And of course by the Proper Working Timetable the scheduled arrival at Euston is 07:47. I assume my chances of Delay Repay are pretty low? :D
It just gets better, these locos are so poor in the colder weather.
 

Scotrail84

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Are there many bookings through third party agents?
There can be, especially those from overseas, also anyone who books via a ticket office can opt not to leave contact information.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==

Genuine question; where's your data for

?

If I look at https://www.recenttraintimes.co.uk/ as suggested above, for the last 6 months (the longest I seem to get it to do) for the Fort William line, just because it's the one I occasionally take, it says 88-89% arriving within 5 minutes. That doesn't sound like what you're describing. Am I looking at the wrong line?
If I restrict it to the last 3 months it drops to about 80%, but when I look at the graph of actual arrival times, the majority of the delays are between 5 and 15 minutes. Again, this doesn't match my expectation of "many, many delays" for something that runs over hundreds of miles.
From my personal experience the data there is correct - the two Sleepers I caught (1 on time and 1 delayed by 40 minutes) are both correct in there.

View attachment 169658
You probably cant do this online, but if you could look at the delays and cancellations over the course of the last 10 months it will add up to many thousands of delay minutes so far across all sleeper services.
 

paninaro

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You probably cant do this online, but if you could look at the delays and cancellations over the course of the last 10 months it will add up to many thousands of delay minutes so far across all sleeper services.

Well the data show it's not that much for Fort William. Are you thinking it's worse for the other lines?
 

43096

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It just gets better, these locos are so poor in the colder weather.
So is that 73s and 92s that don't like cold weather? Any actual evidence of this - such as you knw what caused the failure - or are you just making this stuff up?
 

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