Caledonian Sleeper

[Class15]

92043 was leading the sleeper through Camden Road this morning making an almighty racket (hope the people on board weren’t disturbed!) - was there work on the WCML?

 

[Scotrail84]

92043 was leading the sleeper through Camden Road this morning making an almighty racket (hope the people on board weren’t disturbed!) - was there work on the WCML?

ECML because of engineering works at Carnforth I think. Same tomorrow as well.

1M16 is also routed via Aberdeen tomorrow as well with an earlier departure from Inverness of 20:15, no mention of that on their website. (that I can see)

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Jan 2025 ==

It is marketed as a "unique way to travel". An alternative to a hotel, not a hotel in itself.

View attachment 172993

There is CS lounge at Euston.

Its nuts, put showers on a train (bad idea in the first place), then open a lounge where you can get a shower anyway.

 

[Class15]

ECML because of engineering works at Carnforth I think. Same tomorrow as well.

1M16 is also routed via Aberdeen tomorrow as well with an earlier departure from Inverness of 20:15, no mention of that on their website. (that I can see)

Thank you, certainly caused quite the surprise on my commute in this morning!

 

[Scotrail84]

This conversation has been had before - you have your opinion, I suspect most others will disagree. This doesn't change the material that CS publish that set expectations for their passengers.

The timetable clearly states the time that berths must be vacated. All those who chose to travel by sleeper train weigh this consideration into their choice of overnight train vs daytime travel and hotel.

Caledonian Sleeper has been marketed for a good few years (if not at the present moment), as a boutique hotel on wheels. It's always been the case that sleeper trains have an arrival time and a disembarkation time - so it's hardly unreasonable to expect the operator to honour them.

Thats the beauty of opinions, everyone has one and not everyone will agree and I'm cool with that.

It is most certainly not boutique imo.

 

[BRX]

What's not a matter of opinion is that they state a time until which you're allowed to remain in your cabin, on the timetables.

 

[GordonT]

What's not a matter of opinion is that they state a time until which you're allowed to remain in your cabin, on the timetables.

A long established practice even in the days well before today's higher profile marketing.

 

[OliverH68]

I was on last night's 1M11 in a berth. First time on the mk5s since they came into play and good god the ride quality over the ECML was awful to say the least. I barely slept!!

 

[Egg Centric]

It's nuts, put showers on a train (bad idea in the first place), then open a lounge where you can get a shower anyway.

If you shower on the train you don't have to choose between:

1. Wearing your dirty clothes from the previous day to walk to station showers
2. Wearing your clean clothes for rest of day while you are still dirty to walk to station showers

Or less likely:

1. Wearing dressing gown/pyjamas/birthday suit* to walk to station showers
2. Bringing a set of clothes purely for walk to station showers
3. Washing in the sink on train
4. Not washing at all

These are all bad options compared to an en-suite on train shower. It's an excellent thing to have.

*Judging by the saga of the naked rambler, birthday suit only legal at English stops

 

[35B]

If you shower on the train you don't have to choose between:

1. Wearing your dirty clothes from the previous day to walk to station showers
2. Wearing your clean clothes for rest of day while you are still dirty to walk to station showers

Or less likely:

1. Wearing dressing gown/pyjamas/birthday suit to walk to station showers
2. Bringing a set of clothes purely for walk to station showers
3. Washing in the sink on train
4. Not washing at all

These are all bad options compared to an en-suite on train shower. It's an excellent thing to have.

Quite. Fancy a hospitality provider trying to meet what it's customers want!

 

[D6130]

I was on last night's 1M11 in a berth. First time on the mk5s since they came into play and good god the ride quality over the ECML was awful to say the least. I barely slept!!

It's pretty horrendous on the WCML too.... especially if you're on top of a bogie! It's the poor quality of the suspension rather than the poor quality of the track, IMO. For all their other faults, the Mark 3s gave a much smoother ride.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

It's pretty horrendous on the WCML too.... especially if you're on top of a bogie! It's the poor quality of the suspension rather than the poor quality of the track, IMO. For all their other faults, the Mark 3s gave a much smoother ride.

I think it may vary somewhat between the individual carriages - I got a pretty solid night in on my November trip, both ways, and I was ( deliberately ) in an end berth each time - the ride I had was very similar to that of the Mk3s.

Might be worth noting which carriages we sleep in to see if there is any consistency in this... I was in 15203 and 15314 on the November trip.

 

[Steve Harris]

A long established practice even in the days well before today's higher profile marketing.

Indeed. And they used to try and turf you off early too (can certainly remember being "hurried along" back in 2001), probably because it was a Scottish crew and they wanted to get off to their digs for some zzzzz.

 

[OliverH68]

It's pretty horrendous on the WCML too.... especially if you're on top of a bogie! It's the poor quality of the suspension rather than the poor quality of the track, IMO. For all their other faults, the Mark 3s gave a much smoother ride.

Yep this was my downfall - I was on top of a bogie I definitely recall the mk3s were smoother.

 

[Christmas]

It is marketed as a "unique way to travel". An alternative to a hotel, not a hotel in itself.

View attachment 172993

There is CS lounge at Euston.

Someone better tell their marketing department then. A quick look at the Caledonian Sleeper website shows that they are still pushing it as a hotel experience.

 

[JamieL]

Someone better tell their marketing department then. A quick look at the Caledonian Sleeper website shows that they are still pushing it as a hotel experience.

That is a good spot - although only pushed that way to business customers I note - the privacy aspect being important for most such customers.

 

[Scotrail84]

Someone better tell their marketing department then. A quick look at the Caledonian Sleeper website shows that they are still pushing it as a hotel experience.

The sleeper is ultimately aimed at rich tourists. A lot of users are one time only passengers.

**there are exceptions to that rule of course

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Jan 2025 ==

I was on last night's 1M11 in a berth. First time on the mk5s since they came into play and good god the ride quality over the ECML was awful to say the least. I barely slept!!

Try the WCML with a Birmingham and Northampton diversion, you'll think that a marching band is playing in your berth.

 

[enginedin]

The sleeper is ultimately aimed at rich tourists.

I disagree. I know a lot of both private and public sector workers in Glasgow and Edinburgh who use it on a not infrequent basis to travel to London.

 

[Jimini]

I disagree. I know a lot of both private and public sector workers in Glasgow and Edinburgh who use it on a not infrequent basis to travel to London.

Commuting the other way, I know four Scottish geezers from work who are Celtic season ticket holders and fly up after work / use the sleeper back to London for midweek games. Small sample size, granted, but I’ve always admired their dedication!

 

[johnr57]

An even smaller sample size ( me ! Though at 6ft 5, well ……) . While I was living in Edinburgh and had a spate of events to attend in the south east , mainly east London and Kent , the sleeper was perfect , into Euston before 7 most days I used it, slept reasonably well (except at Crewe) dash across to STP and onward to Kent destinations, I was at my location well before others who were much much closer. Used to return on the 1900 kgx Edb , yes a long day but worked well for me. Didn’t lose a days work through travelling south . Yes I was travelling for work but still enjoyed the journey as an event and experience in itself. Walking down princes street steps , the anticipation of the journey never failed me, yes some reservations on reliability from what you read and hear but thankfully I’ve never been on a delayed CS , maybe 50+ trips

 

[zwk500]

I disagree. I know a lot of both private and public sector workers in Glasgow and Edinburgh who use it on a not infrequent basis to travel to London.

Who it's aimed at and who uses it don't have to be the same, of course.

Commuting the other way, I know four Scottish geezers from work who are Celtic season ticket holders and fly up after work / use the sleeper back to London for midweek games. Small sample size, granted, but I’ve always admired their dedication!

Four people works out as about 1.5% of the maximum train capacity, so it's not as small a sample size as you might think!

Spoiler: For the maths teachers on here, here's the working out:

https://www.revolutiontrains.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/CS-formations-1.pdf suggests the typical formations are 2x Seated Car, 2x Club Car, 3x Accessible Sleeping Car, and 9x Standard Sleeping car across the 4 portions a night
https://www.sleeper.scot/about/our-trains/#2 lists the max capacity for the Seated Cars at 30 seats ('guests' - very hotel marketing), Accessible Car at 12 berths across 6 rooms, and standard sleeping car at 20 berths across 10 rooms.

That comes to a capacity range of 168-276 per train, or 672-1104 per night, if my maths is right. (Min capacity assumes 1 person per room, Max capacity assumes all berths occupied).

4/276 = 0.014 rounded to 3 decimal places, converts to 1.44 and round to 1.5%.

 

[philosopher]

The sleeper is ultimately aimed at rich tourists. A lot of users are one time only passengers.

For travel between London and Fort William or other destinations along the West Highland Line I think it does seem the most logical choice from a practical perspective, due mainly to it being only direct service between these destinations.

Price wise, if in a cabin, it seems to be similar to a hotel + daytime trains or hotel + coach to Glasgow Airport + flight, however you save most of a day travelling and avoid having to change trains between different stations in Glasgow or all the hassle associated with flying. Any daytime option between these two destinations seems to take most of the day, even using a flight will probably take 8 or so hours with good connections due to Fort William being a two a half hour coach journey from Fort William.

I do appreciate though that to / from London to Inverness or Aberdeen and definitely Glasgow or Edinburgh these advantages of the sleeper are not as great.

 

[Carbean]

Indeed. And they used to try and turf you off early too (can certainly remember being "hurried along" back in 2001), probably because it was a Scottish crew and they wanted to get off to their digs for some zzzzz.

I have always been curious how/where the various sleeper crews spend their time after their journey from their home base. In Scotland (and London) they must have up to 14 hours to wait before their return working and there are only so many things things you can do during this time. For the passengers you can visit a bar to kill time but this is obviously not on for the sleeper crews.

 

[godfreycomplex]

I have always been curious how/where the various sleeper crews spend their time after their journey from their home base. In Scotland (and London) they must have up to 14 hours to wait before their return working and there are only so many things things you can do during this time.

Sleep being the main one (hotel rooms are provided for day rest)

Other than that the time is their own, so providing they stay fit for work whatever they wish

 

[Steve Harris]

I have always been curious how/where the various sleeper crews spend their time after their journey from their home base. In Scotland (and London) they must have up to 14 hours to wait before their return working and there are only so many things things you can do during this time. For the passengers you can visit a bar to kill time but this is obviously not on for the sleeper crews.

As godfreycomplex rightly says they sleep. Back in the MkIII days the stewards used to have to wash up the cutlery after breakfast (china cups and teaspoons mainly) and you would see them walking up the platform with a big wicker basket (like Christmas hampers of old), I believe these were stowed at Euston somewhere, and then they would book off and go to there hotel room or go home (if they were London crew).

My opinion is that their booking off time was the same time as the 'vacate cabin by' time and I don't think they got paid overtime, hence why you would be 'hurried up' to get off the sleeper not long after arrival so they could wash up and book off on time. Which is OK when your on the highlander, not so good on the lowlander when your body likes 8 hours sleep*

And going by this thread they still 'hurry up' CS customers to this day (to leave way before the vacate by time), a practice which has been going on for well over 2 decades ! Something which should of been well and truly sorted out by now IMHO.


*And before any wise crack says you can go to bed before the train leaves Glasgow/Edinburgh, all I would say is have you tried going to sleep with the station P.A. going off constantly advertising the last trains to Gourock, Ayr, Neilston, Newton etc. and the woman near platform 7 shouting "daily record" ! Not easy i can tell you, I used to drop off pretty much as soon as we got out of the station were it was more peaceful.

 

[jagardner1984]

Whilst much of the last couple of pages do feel like history repeating, I’m sure precisely this discussion and precisely these viewpoints were articulated only months ago, I must say on my last few journeys I haven’t felt rushed in either direction.

On the topic of showers, it seems worth noting that it is always spoken of about Euston. But CS does go in the opposite direction too ! To a number of places with station showers which, if present at all, are certainly more … variable. Clearly neither Euston nor those places have capacity for a full train to have a shower at even a roughly similar time, let alone the same time, so the onboard showers serve some function, even if nobody would imagine showering in a moving cubicle will be as ideal as being on terra firma !

On a final point. It’s a service. Some people like it. Some people don’t. It’s undeniably expensive. Some people pay it. Some people can’t. Statistics prove on the most complicated extensive routes on the network, with Rolling stock and Traction which is far from ideal, many many users regular and occasional get to the place they want at roughly the time they want. Approximately 94% according to the ORR stats here.

Passenger rail performance | ORR Data Portal

That figure hasn’t gone much up or down since at least 2016. Within that of course, some passengers have had terrible experiences. But they are not in the majority by any stretch. I am not sure therefore dissecting every post with a positive experience and running a line by line take down of every aspect, from the length of time someone might want to sleep, where someone might want to have a shower, whether a 60 year old locomotive is struggling a bit up a hill, whether a 600 mile 13 hour journey has lost a few minutes doing a very complex coupling at Edinburgh, the interminable discussion of whether or not marketing people were overhyping the service (see every marketing campaign ever) … is particularly illuminating.

This thread makes total sense as an umbrella for a lot of linked issues and challenges related to the service. There are a lot of genuine issues which are of interest to users and enthusiasts alike, and issues of governance and management over the last few years, particularly around Mk5 procurement. But it is becoming bogged down by the incessant bashing of the service.

Perhaps it can best be summarised, with some degree of balance, for people who may be visiting our country and interested in using it, as such.

It isn’t going to be as cinematically dreamy as the advertising might suggest. It also isn’t going to be as dreadful as some regular posters on this thread might suggest.

In fact, most people get there on time.

In fact, more than 80% people say it met or exceeded their expectations, and 2/3rd say they would “very likely” or “definitely” use it again.

https://d3cez36w5wymxj.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/10161458/Caledonian-Sleeper-guest-satisfaction-survey-quarterly-report-%E2%80%93-quarter-3.pdf

 

[JamieL]

Whilst much of the last couple of pages do feel like history repeating, I’m sure precisely this discussion and precisely these viewpoints were articulated only months ago, I must say on my last few journeys I haven’t felt rushed in either direction.

On the topic of showers, it seems worth noting that it is always spoken of about Euston. But CS does go in the opposite direction too ! To a number of places with station showers which, if present at all, are certainly more … variable. Clearly neither Euston nor those places have capacity for a full train to have a shower at even a roughly similar time, let alone the same time, so the onboard showers serve some function, even if nobody would imagine showering in a moving cubicle will be as ideal as being on terra firma !

On a final point. It’s a service. Some people like it. Some people don’t. It’s undeniably expensive. Some people pay it. Some people can’t. Statistics prove on the most complicated extensive routes on the network, with Rolling stock and Traction which is far from ideal, many many users regular and occasional get to the place they want at roughly the time they want. Approximately 94% according to the ORR stats here.

Passenger rail performance | ORR Data Portal

That figure hasn’t gone much up or down since at least 2016. Within that of course, some passengers have had terrible experiences. But they are not in the majority by any stretch. I am not sure therefore dissecting every post with a positive experience and running a line by line take down of every aspect, from the length of time someone might want to sleep, where someone might want to have a shower, whether a 60 year old locomotive is struggling a bit up a hill, whether a 600 mile 13 hour journey has lost a few minutes doing a very complex coupling at Edinburgh, the interminable discussion of whether or not marketing people were overhyping the service (see every marketing campaign ever) … is particularly illuminating.

This thread makes total sense as an umbrella for a lot of linked issues and challenges related to the service. There are a lot of genuine issues which are of interest to users and enthusiasts alike, and issues of governance and management over the last few years, particularly around Mk5 procurement. But it is becoming bogged down by the incessant bashing of the service.

Perhaps it can best be summarised, with some degree of balance, for people who may be visiting our country and interested in using it, as such.

It isn’t going to be as cinematically dreamy as the advertising might suggest. It also isn’t going to be as dreadful as some regular posters on this thread might suggest.

In fact, most people get there on time.

In fact, more than 80% people say it met or exceeded their expectations, and 2/3rd say they would “very likely” or “definitely” use it again.

https://d3cez36w5wymxj.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/10161458/Caledonian-Sleeper-guest-satisfaction-survey-quarterly-report-%E2%80%93-quarter-3.pdf

A very fair and balanced post. I have to admit I struggle to reconcile the incessant bashing of the Service with the lived experience of being a semi-regular user. The service has its flaws, any means of transport does, and it is very expensive. But on the whole I find it a very reliable, time efficient and pleasant way of travelling.

 

[Christmas]

I think 'bashing' of the service is quite justified when the train
arrives into Euston up to a whole hour before its advertised arrival time. To have your door knocked a good while prior to this is also really annoying.

The train should be signalled appropriately en route to avoid such an early arrival. What benefit is it to the driver to arrive so early? Are they then finished their shift or do they have to wait and take the train to Wembley?

My lived experience of the lowland Sleeper is that I get such a short sleep that I'm tired all of the day and subsequently cannot wait to get into my hotel room that evening. The Fort William Sleeper seems to be a different beast, offering a decent arrival time at a more civilised hour.

 

[Falcon1200]

The train should be signalled appropriately en route to avoid such an early arrival.

Not really practical; If there is a path for the train to run early, without affecting other services, it will! There is no point deliberately stopping a train by signal when there is no need to.

What needs to be sorted is adhering to the latest alighting times advertised, and staff rosters should accommodate these.

 

[Scotrail84]

I think 'bashing' of the service is quite justified when the train
arrives into Euston up to a whole hour before its advertised arrival time. To have your door knocked a good while prior to this is also really annoying.

The train should be signalled appropriately en route to avoid such an early arrival. What benefit is it to the driver to arrive so early? Are they then finished their shift or do they have to wait and take the train to Wembley?

My lived experience of the lowland Sleeper is that I get such a short sleep that I'm tired all of the day and subsequently cannot wait to get into my hotel room that evening. The Fort William Sleeper seems to be a different beast, offering a decent arrival time at a more civilised hour.

I don't know if this is still the case but the driver of 1M11 used to be finished on arrival at Euston, the driver of 1M16 used to have to take the 5M16 empties up to Wembley after retrieving the drag back loco from the blocks after 5M11 departed.

 

[signed]

The train should be signalled appropriately en route to avoid such an early arrival

The way such is done in continental europe is by staying in intermediary stations/sidings en route for hours (The Paris-Toulouse sleepers stays roughly 2-3h in Toulouse station sidings before dropping off and the onward carriages depart)

I would say it's better to arrive at your destination earlier and allowing people to sleep as calmly as possible while stationnary.