Caledonian Sleeper

[MoominAndChips]

I see the Fort William portion arrived 59 minutes late. That's strange, same as ours did a couple of years back. So we only got 50% delay repay.

Maybe off-topic here, but VR in Finland have done this to me so many times I've lost count. Drive it like you stole it till you get down to 58 or 59 late and then stay that way for the remainder of the journey. Compensation starts at 60 minutes, of course...

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Maybe off-topic here, but VR in Finland have done this to me so many times I've lost count. Drive it like you stole it till you get down to 58 or 59 late and then stay that way for the remainder of the journey. Compensation starts at 60 minutes, of course...

I can’t explain why but that sounds a little naughty to me.

 

[paninaro]

Maybe off-topic here, but VR in Finland have done this to me so many times I've lost count. Drive it like you stole it till you get down to 58 or 59 late and then stay that way for the remainder of the journey. Compensation starts at 60 minutes, of course...

I know nothing about train driving and whatever the line restrictions that make the Sleeper slow in the Highlands lz but is the above even possible? Why not just carry on driving at that speed if it means you get to Fort William quicker?

 

[800002]

I know nothing about train driving and whatever the line restrictions that make the Sleeper slow in the Highlands lz but is the above even possible? Why not just carry on driving at that speed if it means you get to Fort William quicker?

Sectional Running Times are such that if the time allowed to traverse between consecutive points is calculated using line speed then the only way to make up time is to:
Skip station calls or do them quicker (shorter dwell time)
Brake harsher into a station call
Accelerate harder out of a station call.

None of which are conducive to passenger comfort (unless no one is scheduled to get off the train and it is 'set down' only.

The bits that can allow you to make up time, for example any engineering, performance, or other allowance doesn't really equate to that much of a saving. Maybe a half-dozen minutes if your lucky.

There is also the train path to consider. As happens with many XC trains, when delayed. They'll happily fall into the path of the following XC an hour later (if the service is hourly) as this is there path each bour.
If you fall behind other services, it may be that you're following that service (and others) because they're on time and you're not. There isnt really a way round it, without affecting other services and causing more delay.


There could be any number of reasons why the delay hovers around 59 minutes, without any malice involved.

The hourly service pattern has had me a few times where trains can usually arrive a minute or so early each hour at certain stations (for various reasons) reducing a 60+ minute delay down to 58 / 59.

 

[Tetragon213]

I can’t explain why but that sounds a little naughty to me.

Certainly better than XC, which has outright lied about a train being 29L, despite photographic proof to the contrary by a colleague showing the train didn't come to a stand at the platform until 31L.

In fairness, CS is relatively quick to cough up in my experience; they also outright told me via text to claim delay repay through their website as we were about 48L into Birmingham Intl.

 

[jagardner1984]

Personally, and perhaps more controversially, given the state of the public finances, I am not sure I agree the same delay measures that are applied to a ScotRail Service from Edinburgh to Glasgow or a Reading to Birmingham Cross Country shuttle should be applied to a service scheduled 13 hours overnight with so many additional risks / diversion and service issues.

Lovely as it is for everyone to have a free trip (at our expense), I would have thought doubling those end to end delay repay trigger times for services scheduled end to end longer than 6 or 8 hours, which I would think is mostly limited to some XC services, a handful of LNER services, and the sleeper services, would be entirely pragmatic and reasonable. Given the inevitable complexities longer routes have covering greater mileage and therefore issues along the way.

It still would give some or full compensation for people who really have “one of those nights” on the sleeper and provide more of an incentive to get back on track, where currently a bit of a coupling issue at Carstairs or Edinburgh generally can put the full train into full refund territory.

Similarly I have never fully understood why genuine “force majeure” for example a winter speed restriction or indeed the tragedy of a person being hit by a train, results in me getting hundreds of pounds of refund from the taxpayer. If the issue is GBRF having insufficient serviceable CL.92, absolutely, fine them to the hilt, let it be a contractual stick by which they are forced to sort themselves out. But a bit of snow in January in Fort William ? To me that is a foreseeable risk I take when booking. I also don’t want every train to be permanently timed unnecessarily longer in order for the “just in case” of extreme weather.

To be clear, not obviously in favour of weakening the customer service offer, just given the resources available to actually fix these issues, would question whether the £150 million paid to passengers in 2024/2025 (and climbing rapidly (source below) it is actually the best use of what are increasingly public resources. Certainly compared to domestic air travel, it is an incredibly generous scheme.

Rail passenger compensation paid by train operating companies

www.gov.uk

And again, given the tone of the last few messages, most travellers on CS get where they want to be on time, and in instances of disruption, CS do in my personal experience support travellers considerably better than most of the other long distance operators in this country.

 

[Isle of Mull]

Personally, and perhaps more controversially, given the state of the public finances, I am not sure I agree the same delay measures that are applied to a ScotRail Service from Edinburgh to Glasgow or a Reading to Birmingham Cross Country shuttle should be applied to a service scheduled 13 hours overnight with so many additional risks / diversion and service issues.

Lovely as it is for everyone to have a free trip (at our expense), I would have thought doubling those end to end delay repay trigger times for services scheduled end to end longer than 6 or 8 hours, which I would think is mostly limited to some XC services, a handful of LNER services, and the sleeper services, would be entirely pragmatic and reasonable. Given the inevitable complexities longer routes have covering greater mileage and therefore issues along the way.

It still would give some or full compensation for people who really have “one of those nights” on the sleeper and provide more of an incentive to get back on track, where currently a bit of a coupling issue at Carstairs or Edinburgh generally can put the full train into full refund territory.

Similarly I have never fully understood why genuine “force majeure” for example a winter speed restriction or indeed the tragedy of a person being hit by a train, results in me getting hundreds of pounds of refund from the taxpayer. If the issue is GBRF having insufficient serviceable CL.92, absolutely, fine them to the hilt, let it be a contractual stick by which they are forced to sort themselves out. But a bit of snow in January in Fort William ? To me that is a foreseeable risk I take when booking. I also don’t want every train to be permanently timed unnecessarily longer in order for the “just in case” of extreme weather.

To be clear, not obviously in favour of weakening the customer service offer, just given the resources available to actually fix these issues, would question whether the £150 million paid to passengers in 2024/2025 (and climbing rapidly (source below) it is actually the best use of what are increasingly public resources. Certainly compared to domestic air travel, it is an incredibly generous scheme.

Rail passenger compensation paid by train operating companies

www.gov.uk

And again, given the tone of the last few messages, most travellers on CS get where they want to be on time, and in instances of disruption, CS do in my personal experience support travellers considerably better than most of the other long distance operators in this country.

It does surprise me with those stats that LNER and GWR have almost triple the delay repay than cross-country.

 

[cats_five]

Certainly better than XC, which has outright lied about a train being 29L, despite photographic proof to the contrary by a colleague showing the train didn't come to a stand at the platform until 31L.

In fairness, CS is relatively quick to cough up in my experience; they also outright told me via text to claim delay repay through their website as we were about 48L into Birmingham Intl.

My first thought would be how was the time proved? Is there a known-to-be-accurate clock in the background? I wouldn't accept the camera/phone's time stamp as proof